NT Fly Fishers : Another long weekend.

Another long weekend means another weekend of fishing. Visited Corroboree Billabong Saturday morning for a quick hit and run session before the storms rolled in. What a picture the place is at the moment. Plenty of water, if not too much, the flood plains are full of colour, the water is clean tannin coloured with heaps of bait and fish. Got on the water before sun up, first in the car park again, and the Barra were going crazy all along the edges boofing to their hearts content. In the first half hour as the sun came up got 2 Barra and 2 Saratoga to the boat.

Ended up for a 5 hour session 4 Barra and 5 Saratoga plus too many Tarpon to count. All the Barra were small but there seems to be lots of them with many following the fly to the boat without taking the fly in. Even the small Barra gave good accounts for themselves and seemed to punch above their length, don’t think there are too many skinny fish out there this year!

Second of the day.

From the Lillies.

Plenty more where this came from.

All the pointers are for great for the “Cup” just make sure your weed guards are up to the task because guess where the fish are, hint hint!

Weed Guard Challenge. Are you up to it??

With the fresh water out of the way it was off to Bynoe. Not the tides that I would normally fish with the low not til mid afternoon but it is a long weekend and a bad tide beats the lawn mower every time.

Did not see a drop of the predicted rain but the Charlotte was flowing 500mm and more than 20 cars banked up, someone had to be first and crossed without a problem and so did the queue up my exhaust pipe. Set my tent up at Sandpalms and spoke to those that had fished that day and was advised that after the big storm that went though the inlets turned to iced coffee with the Barra going crazy on prawns that had been flushed but no one had managed to catch one!!

Game plan for Sunday was to find some clear water on the upper stages of the tide then progress up the creeks for the low/change of the tide. In the clear water along the mangroves found heaps of good size Queenies to 80cms and had a lot of fun trying to keep them out of the scrub, not always a winner in this battle.

Pure fun.

More of the same.

As the tide dropped tried some of the flats but found them too dirty to interest me but did find schools of large Tarpon that seemed to have something else on their mind to feeding, had no interest in the boat or fly at all. Dion, is this their breeding season???

Up the creeks fished the drains for the usual's but could not find a Barra or Salmon but as soon as the incoming push started it was a fish a cast. Bet you never heard that before!! The photo shows some that were taken off the hook straight into the ice the other 2 Golden Snapper, 1 GT and a Tarpon (distance released at the boat) are not in the photo. All consecutive casts!

No steak for me this week!

Monday saw me give Finnis Fresh a try. For those that have not tried this river give it a go it has picture postcard looks. Managed only Tarpon, Archer and Catfish but had a blast.

Where else can you fish on a long week end and not see another boat?