SALT FIX

Just back from our first saltwater fix for the year, and it was great, but on the way out there last Thursday I did wonder if we would make it, the storm that hit looked like bringing up all the creeks, but it appears that only parts of Darwin copped the worst of it with cars being swamped in a tremendous downpour.

The water was like glass out there most of the fishing time, cloud cover kept it cooler but when the sun got through it was very bloody hot!

Water was glassy and the cloud kept it cooler.

The rain coloured up the water the next day, and it was difficult on the flats to find clear water, but we did get fish.  On one of the creeks at the back of Indian Island there were schools of blue salmon and whilst we managed a few, we dropped a couple that looked to be near 80cm, they were monsters.  The biggest that I've ever seen.

 We saw Graeme the Grey out there with some of the boys and he was going to have a go at them.  Not sure how they went.  Lenny and Vaughn were into the barra with a backwards motor.  Lenny had fixed his electric, but it would only run backwards.  He fixed it later by breaking the prop so we loaned him ours.

Wayne and Crusty got into the barra too and some great queenies. I see there is a new grey colour on the Hewes too!  Looks awesome!

On our boat the barra and salmon were interested in most of the flies, but the only one they wanted to eat was the 'wild thing'.  On Friday you had to put it on their nose, but Saturday they would turn and chase until they had it.

This was the black box going out....its empty now, the black dogs (top left) worked well on salmon, but the wild things (top right) were the favourite of the barra, followed by the mullet things (bottom right) that worked for Lord Jim.

A small barra on the 'Wild thing'.

Heaps of barra out there, schools of ten or more moving along the edges, but did not see any real big ones.  Mainly in the 50 to 60 range.   Some good size threadies continued to frustrate us,  just coming up to feel the flies then swimming off.....very very frustrating !

At one spot we anchored in low water, intending to stay for a short time, but even though the water was too dirty to see the fish, barra were hitting nearly every cast.  BUT we stayed too long, as all the barra had taken our attention away from the dropping tide,  we ended up with the boat sitting on a rock in very shallow water.  Luckily we managed to get off but the prop hit the rock on the way out and we had to pull over on the sand at Simms to change it because of the vibration.  That's fishing.

Petey and Lord Jim .. dropped some beauties (threadies) after they put up a great fight and Jim had already got four barra that were keepers. The white boat (Jon, Jack and Hayden) has already put in a report.

The 'White' boat, with Jon, Jack and Hayden.

 We came upon water that was boiling with bait around Simms Reef.  Literally hundreds of birds on them, but no fish seemed to be eating them.   Hope they hang around and bring the pelagics in, that is awesome fishing.  At one of the reefs on the eastern side of Indian the water too was boiling with fish, they were not that big, queenies to about 45cm, trevally to 35cm and the odd snapper or cod.  But if anyone is new to the art, you can have a ball on these fish with light gear (not too light) around those reefs, it was a fish a cast for over half an hour. A great way to get used to catching fish on the fly.  There we used 250grn and 300grn lines on the incoming tidal run, with small DNA clousers on 1/0 hooks.

Plenty of Fish

'Wild Thing????'

 

Tides on the ANZAC WEEKEND look great for fly fishing too....hope to see you out there.