North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Went for a bit of a fish today with big tides to a culvert on the Bajool to Port Alma Rd.
The culvert gets fed from 2 directions on a big i'coming tide.

Creek A I/c tide(red) arrives at culvert after a 27km leisurely flow from Port Alma.

Creek B i/c tide (yellow) arrives at culvert after a bit of a winding journey (38k) from Port Alma 1 hour after the tide from creek A.

As A tide is rising and B is an hour later, flow under culvert goes from A to B.

When A reaches high tide, the flow from B is an hour behind so as A tide drops the flow remains A to B even though the tide from A is dropping and that from B is still rising.

About half an hour after A has been dropping and B has been rising, the flow stops (for about 10 minutes) as the water levels at ends of culvert are equal.

Then flow under culvert reverses and flow from B to A.


That's when it gets interesting and after about 1.5 hours we have this.
Flow is from B to A (right to left on image) and as it comes out of the culvert pipes (3 of 'em at about 600mm diameter) it flows over the rock base of the culvert.

Plonked myself on the rocks and fished into this with a gold bomber which I'd painted the top half fluro red longitudely.

Good old shallow gold and fluro red bomber for that sort of water.
First barra 57cm on 3rd cast.

Second barra 63cm on cast 10.

Third barra I couldn't stop for love or money on cast 14. Using a old Loomis CB 756 with locked up baitcasting reel on max drag and thumbing.

Fish went down from culvert towards creek A, around the bend and mangroves. Down the channel shown on the top RHS of the image. Tiger country down that way.
Kept going taking my repainted gold bomber with it.


Only had that hardbody so tried some soft plastics for a while for no hits so drove home.

Sure is good looking country for a fisho. It’s definitely on my bucket list.

Cracking report - would be interesting to hook a big one there.

excellent!

Yep

Rookie. That's me.

In run like that any reasonable fish is hard to stop in its initial run. It went downstream with the run so simply had to be stopped before it went 8 metres. Wasn't a monster. Reckon it was a 80-90 cm fish as they are the hardest to fight in tight conditions as they still have speed of a smaller fish plus bulk of a bigger one.

Went back yesterday for 3 more up to 63cm. There'd be rain on the floodplain overnight there so creek B stayed high and water in creek A didn't drop to same low level as Wed (over the lip of the culvert rock base).

Strong run across width of the culvert so nowhere much for the barra to hold up in slower water. They like to conserve energy so usually don't hold in higher flow areas. Any that are in the faster water are travellers heading up.

Found a tiny little bit of slack where they were holding though and got 3 out of there.

Figured that most were holding further down creek where run was less (red circle area). Wider creek = less run.
Might have a look up 8 mile creek in boat on Saturday.

Hey Ronje. Your info was spot on mate. Fished this spot this morning for 3 up to 62cm with another couple missed. All in about a 30 minute window as the tide from A really started to slow up the flow from B.

Thanks for sharing mate

Good on ya, Johnno.

They generally hold in the slacker water just to the LHS of the run. If water too high, the rocks don't break up its velocity and slacker water is hard to find. THEN you have to rely on travellers.

Sounds like u found a little bit of slack holding ground.

Correct again Ron.
They majority came from the LHS except for a couple of short strikes retrieving the lure across the face of the rock shelf in front of the pipes once the current slowed enough to keep the lure in that area.