North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Decided to head out on Saturday and test my Solo Gamefishing skills by trying to get a billie or two. Got out to North gutter at about 8.30am and put out a spread of skirts to get a good view of the area and rig some skipping Gar. After a while I switched to the Gar and settled back and listened to some tunes and cruised around. A heap of small scattered bait schools sitting between 10 and 30m but none really balled up. Sighted a few god arches under the scattered bait which looked promising. Once I located a nice current / upwelling line on the gutter I switched to a couple of big mullet bridle rigged as skip baits and trolled them up and down the current line. Saw a few tuna busting the surface but no birds and not too much action...very skittish.

Continued to work the current line and a familiar black shadow came up on right hand rigger. It struck and set the line free so I ran back and freespooled the bait for a good 10 - 15 secs. Unfortunately the fish didn;t get the bait down so I wound it back to the boat. The fish continued to come and struck another 3 - 4 times without swallowing the bait and allowing the 14/0 circle to lodge in his jaw. From looking at the fish it was pretty small and probably could not get the bait down its hatch...you get that. Problem with Solo fishing is that is hard to get a smaller pitch bait back when a small fish comes up!!! Thats life I guess...

He finally had enough and took off not to be seen again. The Judge came over for a look but neither of us raised another. The fish was raised right on the southern edge of the deepest part of the gutter. Will post GPS when I get them off.

At first I thought it may have been a sail but looking back I am leaning more towards small black as he came up along side of the bait and struck from the side as opposed to from the rear like a classic sail attack.

All in all a great day and really interesting to test out solo gamefishing techniques.

Oh yeh ... for all those guys who said on the radio that they saw no bait at all...you might need to look at your sounder and adjust your settings a bit ... there were heaps of small bait schools scattered around the place...this was confirmed with sightings of small baitfish and really small flying fish on the surface...up your gain I say!!! Really felt like it is picking up...I reckon we will see some pretty big action over the next few sets of tides.

Good report lobster.

What tides do you find work the best, neaps or do they prefer a bit of current?

Adam,

Have been looking into this pretty heavily and thereare more answers than there are fish on the ocean I swear The most common responce when it comes to Billfish, in the north, is the period 3 - 5 days following the dead neap. During this period the water is at its clearest and the tidal currents bring the fish on. During the bigger tides the water clarity can be a bit poor. I guess the thought is that the clear water gives a the fish a better chance to see the lures, teasers etc.

I was reading some points from renown gamesfishing expert Peter Pakula who, after looking at numerous years of capture data saw no correlation between tidal limits and billfish captures. Given that these figures are from the east coast where tidal influences take a poor second place to offshore currents that can run extremely clear I tend to see this data as not too significant to the Top End fishery.

So where does this leave us

The problem we have up here is the lack of capture data to build an accurate picture of our system. This is why posts like Gold Can's, Harmseys etc are important tools to allow all of us to conduct some sort of analysis to help us get the most out of the fishing. For me I prefer the clear water conditions the best and will continue to fish to building tides after the dead neap.

Hope my ramble helps. Any other thoughts would be great.

Lobster wrote: The problem we have up here is the lack of capture data to build an accurate picture of our system. This is why posts like Gold Can's, Harmseys etc are important tools to allow all of us to conduct some sort of analysis to help us get the most out of the fishing. For me I prefer the clear water conditions the best and will continue to fish to building tides after the dead neap.

Hope my ramble helps. Any other thoughts would be great.

I actually filled out the survey but there is nothing for billfish.

Matt,
Just maybe something to think about adding.

now dont get me wrong i dont know jack shyt about catching billfish but finally for once in my life i was in the right place at the right time and not in the wrong place at the wrong time

but after our lucky hook up i have done alot of research and spoken to alot of local blokes who go out chasing these beauties and from what i can gather there seems to be alot of billfish hooked up here by peolple like me, who not even in their wildest dreams ever thinking of targeting such a fish. what i am getting at is that like lobster says there is just not a whole lot of NT billfish info around and it seems that the methods used in other billfish hotspots might not be the best for here ??:

one thing i think must be spot on, is the water clarity. there is no way the marlin we got would of seen our little rmg scorpion in dirty water

would love to catch another billfish but i am pretty sure our capture was 90% luck and 10% arse. with that said i have just gone out and got myself a few skirts, a down rigger and im knocking up a teaser, needless to say i HAVE BILLFISH FEVER

anytime you need a deckie/spotter lobster i would be more then keen to come out chase them buggers all day long


Harmsey

I just sent lobster a PM offering the same

I have no idea on how to catch them but I know a few people who do know how to so I am trying to gleen as much info from them as I can

I need to get a few more lures to chase some sails...I have the rods, reels,teaser and boat to do it... now I just need to actually get out there and chase them

All the gear and no Idea just like me

Thanks for the info Lobster.