Shady Camp Update

Following Graeme’s update of the water levels along the Arnhem Hwy I decided that a trip to Shady was a good excuse to not mow the lawn.

Went out late Thursday afternoon and can confirm Graeme’s observations, Scotts Creek still just under the road with a couple of people flicking lures off the roadway. No Barra caught but good numbers of Tarpon giving them a work over. Mary River about a metre under the bridge and well and truly in the car park with just the lids of the garbage bins showing, river colour that of double shot Pauls Iced Coffee!

Made my way to Point Stuart Lodge for a cold one and a natter to see what had been going on. A lot of fishing groups staying there all with a similar story of a lot of time between fish and that the only place that seemed to be producing was the mouth of Sampan, all the other creeks (Tommycut, Marsh, Love etc) have no water flow. Talked with a ringer from Melaleuca Station that told be the water was rising fast on the plains below the station as the fence posts were disappearing from sight quickly.

The road down to Shady was dry but had obviously been subjected to a lot of water and was cutup and rough in places. Arrived at the car park in the dark to find at least a dozen or so boats still out on the water for the night. Bedded down for the night at the campsite and can confirm that the dry season is not too far away, sky full of stars and cool, good sleeping weather.

Launched the boat at 5.00am. No problems being high tide with the water level with the rock and water pipe, for those that know the launch area. Launch approaches starting to get a bit cut up with a couple of soft spots to be careful off. Another boat launched at the same time as me and was equipped with spot lights capable of giving third degree burns from 50 metres, being the gentleman that I am let them go first and I would follow in their wake.

Made my way to the mouth after negotiating about a kilometre of rafting weed being flushed downstream from the floodplain with the extra water. At the “S bends” the river was blocked from bank to bank with the weeds but was easy to push through the gaps. Arrived at the mouth just on daylight, 4 boats were already trolling about a kilometre out from the mouth.

Being the last hour of the run out drifted the drop off from the flats on the right looking out to sea. Sea was flat as glass, water was a good colour, no wind, all the right ingredients. For the next hour there was a constant stream of boats arriving to join the trolling throng, ended up being 30 – 40 boats there. Even with this amount of boats around all seemed ordered with the exception of one guide boat that seemed intent on trying to capsize all with his wash and trying to cut in on people. If anyone has a need to drill holes in the hull of a big blue guide boat, he has three of them, drill a couple for me.

Fished the change of the tide and first couple of hours of the incoming and ended up with, 1 Barra a touch over 70, 1 Threadfin just under 70, 1 catfish which was huge but was not invited into the boat and was busted/bitted off my two other Threadies. It was fun.

Made my way back to the ramp, via the barrages, with no further additions to the fish scores. Water level at the main barrage was just at the top of the table on the barrage and had probably risen about 300mm since launching in the morning.

The road out of Shady had two graders working on it to smooth things out and was like a highway. At the Mary River the water had dropped overnight and was half way down the garbage bins.

With some water still to arrive at Shady there is an opportunity for it to go off soon. Speaking to one of the guides as he was coming off the fresh after going for a look the flush to come may bring some of the bait downstream. At the moment there is no visible bait (tarpon) around the barrages but according to the guide, up the lagoon it is awash with them. Let’s hope this is the case.

If anyone hears of any reports from Shady over the next week please let us know.

Jim

A couple of shots of the barrage