So the Groote Eylandt adventure has been and gone and it was definitely a game of two halves.
Things didn’t start so well with Airnorth’s flight out of Darwin delayed by nearly 2 hours. This meant that by the time we got there and drove to Alyangula and purchased all of our supplies it was established that it was probably best if we stayed and loaded the boat properly and camp in town for the night. We got our first look at the rig that the skipper had provided for us and what a site it was, this thing looked like a tank! It was an 8.2m tri-hull with 7m of shade canopy on it! Whilst it can be said that aesthetically it may not have been to everyone’s tastes there was no denying that the new twin Yammy 200’s on the back were a thing of infinite beauty. Given our delayed departure it also made sense to get all of the lines out and rigged up and then walk down the road for a round of golf in the Gulf. Turns out they had the Billy comp kicking off this weekend as well so we took that as a sign that someone reckons the fish must be hanging out around this time of year (turns out the comp runs for 9-days!)
The following day we set off at 5:30am and fuelled the boat up and loaded up with more ice. For those not familiar with Groote’s boat ramp facilities they are second to none, with free ice, a fuel station and washdown bay all within a stones throw of each other! We hit the briny with enthusiasm at an alltime high. The conditions were mint with the wind not getting over about 8 knots. We headed North and East and moved in and around some of the islands which were just pristine.
Now the truck didn’t have a functioning anchor winch to accompany the 20kg anchor, which meant that the Strongarm winch was our only option so there were predominately two types of fishing on offer, drift fishing or trawling! After about 2-hours of steaming it was time to get lines in on the trawl and it wasn’t too long before BANG…. in comes a good looking 1.1m Spanish Mackerel. This scenario played out numerous times whilst approaching our reef fishing destination and no matter how many of these things you catch they’re always good fun with a good run.
We arrived to our first reef destination and the water was a bit cloudy. After multiple drifts for a return of a single cod the size of a stubby we decided to push out about 10nm to deeper water. The water was a clean, dark blue and it just looked the part. Skipper lined us on the spot and first drift we were on! There were plenty of Saddletail Snapper and Crimson Snapper feasting down there with double hook-ups common. We struggled to pull any monsters out but nothing lacked for consistency, every drift and every drop we were on again. Skipper just kept us moving around these great bits of reef, at one of them I managed to jag an absolute monster of a cod, pulling it up felt like a tractor with an anchor tied to it, easily 1m+. Once it was at the surface the skipper decided to retrieve with the lip-grippers that never fail, which you guessed it, failed!! I managed to recover and pull in one that went to 70cm. All up we had a ripper days fishing, with all of the fish illustrated in the pictures caught on Day 1 with the exception of the Queenfish. The highlight of the day was when the Whale Shark moved in around the boat to check us out, simply awesome! We got some underwater GoPro footage but I’m not familiar with the process of posting, I hope you can still interpret it with the still shot provided. We slept that night on the boat in amongst the islands and it was as good as it gets looking up at the stars with not another soul around.
Woke up the next day and decided to go crack into a few pelagics whilst we cooked breakfast up, again got a mixed bag of Spanish Macks and dragged a few Queenies in as well which weren’t around the day before. It was somewhere at this point we confirmed that the current beer supply was not going to last until lunch so best we get back to restock. This decision proved fortuitous because about ½ way back to base the rain came which significantly reduced the comfort levels. Once on land we restocked and since it was still raining we decided to stay in for the night.
The following day we got up and about and were on the water about 8am, however the skies were looking ominous and there were definitely a few whitecaps kicking about. The plan was to move up around the Northwest side of Bickerton Island chasing goldies, though the wind was not going to be kind to us for the early part of the day so we moved in a bit closer and drifted along the edges of some sensational looking reef. Unfortunately between the 3 of us fishing we got a nil return for hundreds of casts. We tried poppers, hardbodies, soft plastics, all to no avail, we could even see the fish following our lures at time but they were just not on. Finally the wind dropped a bit and we pushed out to have a crack, however again there was no success soaking baits, and in the process of trying to stick on the spot we managed to snap the anchor off which meant that there would be no overnighter on the boat for us.
We continued to move around on the drift at proven grounds though it was just one of those afternoons where it didn’t happen, and the loss of the anchor probably turned out to be a blessing because the wind and the rain moved in over us and we got smashed for the better part of 2 hours, but we rode it out and kept at it. It was probably around 9pm when we were finally able to get a good run home.
We had intended to fish for most of the next day but we woke up to black skies and torrential rainfall so that put an end to that.
I feel privileged to have been out to this wonderful part of our country and share it with some great mates. Massive kudos goes to the skipper and his missus for looking after us and I’m already looking forward to getting back there.
Ciao for now.
We are GROOTE.
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- Gold Member
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- theodosius
- Jedi Seadog
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Re: We are GROOTE.
Awesome trip brad. Comfy looking boat too
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- Jedi Seadog
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Re: We are GROOTE.
Cool trip and post . Beast of a boat , twin 200's would get you there pretty fast,, perfect rig .
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Re: We are GROOTE.
Nice work cobba!
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- Jedi Seadog
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Re: We are GROOTE.
Nice work lads! Beauty fish there!
- Finatic2
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Re: We are GROOTE.
Awesome report
Fish stories told here....some true !!!
When in doubt...exaggerate !!
When in doubt...exaggerate !!
- Matt Flynn
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Re: We are GROOTE.
Great trip in a legendary place
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- Jedi Seadog
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Re: We are GROOTE.
Great report , thanks for that , looks bl..dy awesome
cheers Craig
cheers Craig
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Re: We are GROOTE.
Thanks to all for your comments, I am still suffering serious fishing withdrawals!
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