"Watch out for Buffalo"

The weekend comes around and Saturday morning I’m faced with the daunting prospects of mowing the lawn, doing the washing and cleaning the house. Rather be at work, and that is saying something coming from me. Scanned the internet to find that 4 Mile Hole opened Friday – long grass is environmentally good, dirty clothes saves the environment from harsh detergents and spiders webs in the lounge room adds character! Convinced myself it’s the right thing to do – go fishing.

One cooked chook and salad from Woolies, Mid Strength Beers and ice, swag, mossie dome and the boat hooked up and away I went.

I arrived at 4 Mile at 4.00pm after travelling for 30 kms in almost one and half hours over bad corrugation. Having fished 4 Mile for more than 10 years the road is in the worst condition I have seen it, maybe it’s the “Kakadon’t” management system coming to the fore again! Only one of the creek crossings has any water of note in it but is lower than last year. Beware there is a deep hole just before the exit ramp  inbound which can make the heart miss a beat for the unprepared. Had a chat to someone coming out who told me that it was “dead as a Dodo, no-one getting anything and the road is s… house all the way, don’t bother”, great!

I launched the boat as soon as I got there off the bank with no problems and went fishing. Fished until dark within 100 metres of my launch place and picked up catfish, tarpon, barra (small) and toga by throwing a Roggie Dodgie flies into the edges and snags, enjoyable couple of hours. As soon as the sun met the horizon you could hear them arriving, MOZZIES. We’ve all heard the stories as to how bad they can be, double it and it will be somewhere near actual.

Set camp, built a fire and put as much wet grass on it as I could for the smoke, after half an hour things weren’t too bad. Couple of beers, chook and salad it was time for the swag under a sky full of stars with just a hint of coolness making for great sleeping weather.

Home

Woke at 6.15am expecting the sun to be just showing itself over the horizon, still dark!! It was then that I realised that the light was being blocked by all the mozzies parked on the outside of my dome – millions of them. I covered myself with as much clothing as I could put on and went fishing.

At that time of the morning with no other boats yet on the water, sun just showing itself, reflections of flying birds to be clearly seen on the water surface it is truly worth the little bit of effort to get there. Fished the upstream section of the waterhole just around the bend at the end of the main body of water and caught a number of barra in the 40 – 50 range and toga the largest going 65 cms.

Another one

 

"Magic"

Whilst the fishing was not as good as I have experienced there it was still a great session and no-one should be discouraged about going there. There is still a large amount of water on the flood plain to yet come back into the billabong along with a lot of fish. Because the water is still so high only saw 2 crocs while I was there, this is always an indication that water is on the flood plain, also it’s too wet for the donkeys to get to the area which may be one of the reasons I slept well without them making a racket all night.

 

Still plenty of water to come back

Whilst fish size and numbers did not set any records, and despite the hard going getting there I’ll be back there in the not too distant future. Hopefully Alligator from the Arnhem Hwy will be open for the upcoming long weekend if anyone wants to tag along.

Oh yes, almost forgot, “Watch out for Buffalo” they are hiding in the valleys of the corrugations – beware!