North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Hi, thought it was about time I put some pics up.
I moved to Darwin at the start of the year and, being a keen fisho, have tried to figure out as much as I can along the way.
Have found a wealth of info here, as well as keeping track of things like Hiro's blog.
Have slowly had increasing success.

Started off ok with a 68cm barra from Buff creek on my first weekend. Then didn't do so while for a while apart from finding a semi regular pattern to catching some of these:

Did manage a couple of these off Stokes Hill of late doing the live herring thing and also on little soft plastics:

Finally started to see some patterns and have started to catch these pretty regularly land based on lure. I have found it quite specific with location, tides, and phases of the moon (although I'm sure they're plenty of other times you can have success). A lot more fun on light spin gear (basically what I use for bream down south). Certainly gets the pulse racing when they're tail walking near some oyster encrusted rocks and you're using 2-4kg gear!

Catching a milky has been on the bucket list also and I found it more difficult that expected (after seeing people do it on fishing programs and reading about it). I don't know whether they're more scarce of late, or whether it was the time of year, but I didn't see a milky for the first half dozen trips despite being at the right locations at the right time and bring heaps of bread (plenty of by catch tho - diamond scale mullet, golden trevalley and black bream). When I did finally see a couple, they were very flighty and never hung around long enough to even get a cast near them.

Finally cracked one a few weeks back, and at 8-10kg it was a beautiful fish and a cracker fight (admittedly tho, it was on 30lb braid and a 5000 size spin reel). It had taken about a dozen trips but was great to finally see one up close and then to see it swim away. Was lucky to land it looking at the hook afterwards!

Well done mate, great effort. Brother and I used to chase them milky's off Cullen bay, for fun. Loved it when your slack line, suddenly starts cutting the water.

They are.awesome fun

Good report and some nice fish mixed in

great effort mate, looks like you might have land based fishing nearly Sussed out.

Great effort mate, it's always great to hear about land based success

That milky is a horse and you'll still find plenty more of them around at this time of year.

dannett wrote:That milky is a horse and you'll still find plenty more of them around at this time of year.

Cheers, do you reacon there are actually more of them around this time of year?
From what I've heard it can be easier to target them at the usual land based spots due to the winds being more favourable in being able to set up a bread trail. But I haven't heard anythign about the numbers actually picking up.

khai wrote:

dannett wrote:That milky is a horse and you'll still find plenty more of them around at this time of year.

Cheers, do you reacon there are actually more of them around this time of year?
From what I've heard it can be easier to target them at the usual land based spots due to the winds being more favourable in being able to set up a bread trail. But I haven't heard anythign about the numbers actually picking up.

I've never really targeted them so I m no expert but there are plenty of times I have come across big schools over shallow rocky grounds like Larrakeyah, East Point, Talc Head, Channel Island, Mandorah and the coral spit at the northern end of North West Vernon in the months between September to May. There is a thread here somewhere that I think recommends targeting them during the build up months. With the exception of the coral spit all of these locations have those talc stones scattered on the bottom. The other locations you are likely to find them is along coral spawn slicks where you sometimes find them in deeper water.

I know you're land based but a most of these locations are definitely doable land based.

Dan

Well done!!

Crackers mate. Land based near Darwin is hard fishing but you seem to be putting in the extra effort. Cullen bay rock groins early morning are best for milkys I have found. Load up on bread initially and then keep a constant trail. That one is a horse to start with though.

cuddlescooper wrote:Crackers mate. Land based near Darwin is hard fishing but you seem to be putting in the extra effort. Cullen bay rock groins early morning are best for milkys I have found. Load up on bread initially and then keep a constant trail. That one is a horse to start with though.

Cheers, yea it has definitely been tougher than I anticipated, has been a low process working it our with quite a few fishless trips but slowly getting there!

Yea have heard of the cullen bay rock wall being a good spot for milkys (as well as queenies and GT). In terms of hitting it early morning, does it matter what tide? the advice I've generally gotten is to hit it at the top of a big spring tide on sunrise, but the other day I saw a bloke fly fishing down there who mentioned that he had most success at the bottom of the tide (at the time it was the bottom of a neap tide at about 2-2.5m).

bl..dy ripper milky mate. That sure is one big propeller on it