North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Hello all

Chris from AFANT was kind enough to send us 750 tags for the Billy Taylor Tagging program ( Roper and victoria Rivers) during our annual trip there.

ANZAC Day dawn service great to attend.

Was good to meet up with Brent Matthews and his mates.

794 barra caught since last Monday with 576 tagged. Tags started to be used from Thursday. Some interesting results already just from the ones we tagged. Better insight into the dynamics of the river.

5 days to go.

Notable captures to date include 2 x 123; 105; 2 x 103; 6 > 90.

Mixture of bait and soft plastics with smaller plastics the go to match the size of the baitfish being herded up into drains and gullies. Metre fish on 65mm plastics a bit of a challenge.

lots of local talk including businesses about the effect of the Limmen Bight National Park and Marine Park declaration process.

regards

Ronj

Two by 123! Sounds like a great trip ... Roper really is the place for big fish

great stuff ronje...looks like yr getting some great fishing

Have to fish that river one day, all you ever here from there is BIG barra.Good stuff Ronge,

how was the Doc faring, had he caught a decent fish by the time you saw him??

Heck Ronje

You'd have to be jumping & twitching in your sleep all night with all that action (that is, if you have slept)

pics Ronje.....great fishing by the sounds!!

Back home.

19 drums of fuel. Lots of km. All up $29,500 (mostly in NT). Darwin and Daly River based participants bringing in all sorts of supplies.

Over 1300 barra with 745 tagged (5 busted/lost tags. Not bad attrition rate). Couple more metries since the update but not over 123.5.

Have giga-bytes of photos/videos from different cameras to collate. Need to talk to Matt before doing anything.

Have a comprehensive report for Chris M at AFANT about the tagging. Will put it up if he's agreeable. Some very interesting results already.

Damned hard 11pm after a day on the water, big feed and a few beers to enter the data into the spreadsheets.

Tagged about 20 barra in Hodgson River as well. With little run-off on the Roper this year, Rocky Bar Crossing was not flowing as strongly as usual and recent rain made access a bit slippery but worth the trip (if only for the TO etchings on the rocks at the crossing).

The rocks are hard so don't know how the etchings were done! Will put a couple of them up if it doesn't upset anyone (may need some advice on that).

Putting together a submission for the NT Govt's proposed Limmen Bight Nat Park and Marine Park for comment closing date in mid-May.

Drove down to Port Roper (90km from TI) and met up with Paul Reid the barra pro. Interesting/nice bloke. Did some bartering for crabs vs fillets with Port Roper crabbers.

Some alternative camping spots outside the park sussed out if the NT Govts proposed commerial camp at TI and 2 (only 2 ?) bush
camps goes all pear-shaped.

Noticed a couple of things which we've seen before on the Roper.

Don't just rock up with your favourite lure and expect good results. This year was one of small lures so make sure the hardware is storng. Downstream barra feeding on small prawns.

Upstream on small sooty grunter about 50mm long. U could throw 100mm (4 inch) lures all day and catch some but go to 80mm or better still 65mm and it was game on.

Noticed the same thing 4 years ago.

Secondly, yhjere seems to be a year of spawning missing. Didn't get very many in the 80cm range. A couple of years ago there were few 90cm fish around. Something may be happening in the spawning process now and again. Probably a bit early t be drawing conclusions yet.

regards
Ronj

Hi Ronge,
great report,sounds like a fantastic trip and I,m sure the pics will make us all
wish we were there

cheers
Jeff

Nice report Ronje. Sounds like you had a good trip. Did better than we did on our short trip. Probably should have given the smaller lures more time. We camped about 50km downstream in the end.

Just an interesting point, you said two years ago there were not many fish in the 90cm range. Two years ago we encountered big numbers of fish in the 90's and high 80's but they were a long way upstream than the usual haunts. I wonder if the 80cm range fish were just schooling in a different area this year? I did hear of a lot caught around 80-90cm this year but they were right down around the mouth.

Cheers

Great report ronje, we getting ready to head down this Saturday and stay at tomato island for the week, fingers crossed we can get on to a few, I just looking forward to getting back there, any others pointers worth noting, I gotta go stock up with more gear in next couple days

@rosco94

Followed a bloke cruising up past Tomato Island rock last weekend. Said to the kids, he is a bit too close to the middle of the river and BANG up went the rear of his boat 8 inches in the air. Went over and offered my spare prop but could smell the gear oil.$$$ Offered a tow (to Shop ramp) but he had mates coming.... so take note of this rocks extent & go around.

& Ronje, great reporting. Looking forward to pics

Good effort had a couple of mates catch up with you down there said. Good bunch of blokes And they were thankfull of your help an showing them a few spots

Hi Maxpower

Don't hold me to 2 years on the lack of 90cm fish. Could have been 3 or 4. Certainly wasn't last year!

Saw 2 boats camped at the bottom end of Kangaroo I. Campsite behind/under shade near bank. Was an old blue chair from a previous camp there too. If that's where u were, I'd be interested in the track in there as its outside the new Nat Park boundaries.

Now that I've had a good look at the fish sizes we encountered, there's no hole in the 80cm size. Imagination at work.

Kept pretty good record of fish this time and also fishing effort on the water. Actually lines in not including travel or breaks etc

Nearly 700 hours effort.

Rough break-up of sizes encountered:

100cm or greater - 6

90 - 99cm------------ 11

80 - 89cm------------ 23

70 - 79cm----------- 166

60 - 69cm----------- 234

50 - 59cm----------- 296

40 - 49cm----------- 426

30 - 39cm----------- 70

20 - 29cm ---------- 5

0 - 19cm------------ 1 (don't ask).

The fella that hit the rocks was going full noise. Woke up all the TI grey nomads with the bang!

Another boat from Ngukurr (contractors) went past us at Kangaroo one morning heading for Phelp River. Few hours later he came back trolling in reverse heading for Ngukurr with blown (reconditioned) gearbox. One of our boats towed him home. Come to think of it we did a bit of towing including one of our own from St Vidgeon's.

Couple of photos on the lighter side.

Anybody recognise the stars in image 233?

Ajso got some recaptures.

regards
Ronj

Nice report Ronje, pity we missed you. Maxpower was dying to catch up with you and chat barra tagging over a glass of red. Next year. DR