about us

A social group of dedicated fly fishers who are passionate about fly fishing in the tropical north of Australia and equally as passionate about the close camaraderie this sport brings. This passion and dedication led to the creation of the NT Flyfishers Social Mob blog site; an interactive and creative outlet where everyone can share our wonderful fly fishing adventures and link into the “after fishing” social events we enjoy in this incredible part of the world.

Monday 29 February 2016

A test run at Corroboree

A Test Run at Corroboree

Last week I found a boat to replace our little tinnie. We’ve added two little girls to the family since we last lived here. Croc safety is something I have to take far more seriously now that we have snacked sized people gift wrapped in life jackets on the boat.  So it was with child containment as a priority that I bought a used 4.8m side console from ‘Old Mate’. Saturday I went for a quick run in the harbour with the family, where it was proven that a one year old at full noise is far louder than a 60HP four-stroke with a wide open throttle. 

Millie likes the upgrade to Wind Knot 1
With the family ‘sea trial’ out of the way, Sunday was time for a serious fishing trial. After much consideration of Darwin Harbour vs. Bynoe vs. Corroboree vs. Spot X, Tony and I opted for Corroboree, knowing that in the very least we could have some fun with tarpon on trout rods. Of course in the back of our minds was the fact that there were still some red tagged barra out there somewhere. 
Tony into a tarpon on his 5 wt.

put a big bend in the little fibreglass rod!

The day didn't start well when, with the boat in the water, we discovered the starter battery lacked the required volts to do its job (‘Old Mate’ hadn't mentioned the stuffed battery. Thanks ‘Old Mate’). Much stuffing about without the appropriate tools and skin off Tony’s knuckles had the auxiliary battery out of the Land Rover and into the boat. With the engine now making the appropriate ‘bromming’ noises we were on our way. 

 It looked like there was more water in the billabong than three weeks ago and at first we headed up the little arm near the boat ramp. Tarpon rising everywhere, but no barra to be found.

We gave the boat a good run and ending up past Catfish Island before turning around and fishing our way back toward the ramp. Along the way we had a great session on bigger than average tarpon. Tony on his graphite 5wt and me with casting the Epic 8ft #4wt fibreglass rod I built in March last year. Thirty centimetre tarpon put a healthy bend in a glass trout rod. After boating over a dozen tarpon between us, and Tony landing a hefty catfish, we put the noodily trout sticks down and went hunting for barra again.
The second fish ever landed on the Epic 4wt I built last March. The first was a rainbow trout.
The electronics performed as advertised but the little arches appearing on the sounder were all tarpon as best we could tell from the bumps to the flies and occasional observation boat side. As the sun began to get low on the horizon we focused our efforts on casting around the base of clumps of pandanus. Pulling up short of a likely spot that had been good to me previously (5 years ago) I noticed what was unmistakably a crocodile on the sidescan. The beast was three to four metres given my interpretation of the display. I mentioned this to Tony and we moved fifty metres further up and into casting range of the pandanus. Perhaps we’d made six or so casts each, when I timed a good haul and got my fly into a gap behind the lilies. The fly was smashed the moment it touched the water and I was up tight on the first big fish - other than Tony’s catfish and in my humble opinion nothing with cat in its name can be counted as a fish - of the day! 

The flie is a barra rattle rouses, in gold, black and yellow.
I gained a metre of line on it before it buried itself in amongst the lilies. I gave a bit of line - nothing.  I retrieved a bit of line – nothing. I tugged – nothing. I lifted as much as I dared – a thump. The fish was still on, but there was no retrieving it. Cue the Benny Hill music as we used the electric to circle around the lilies in an attempt to get the fish unstuck. Eventually, and being very mindful of the croc I’d seen on the sounder, Tony set to work gardening in the aquatic environment. The landing net proved wholly inadequate for the task, but to his credit Tony persisted in uprooting lilies and eventually the fish was free. A lovely saratoga was netted and is very likely the biggest gulf saratoga (Scleropages jardinii)I’ve ever caught and a good match for my biggest Dawson River saratoga (Scleropages leichardti). Tony thoroughly deserves a special mention for the capture of this fish, without his determined effort the fish very likely would have ended up stuck around the lilies and become croc food.

This toga buried me deep in some lilies, it took about fifteen minutes and lots of stuffing around to extract it. We both thought it was big barra at first.
After having spun the boat back, forwards, left, right and all over that fishing spot we moved on again. At the next clump of pandanus I was lucky enough to hook another, smaller, toga. This one fought cleanly and was ably netted boat side by Tony. With the sun now low on the horizon and a lone mozzie buzzing around my ear it was time to head for the ramp and dinner at Corroboree Park Tavern.
The second toga was a cleaner fight and lovely fish to close out the day.

My verdict on the boat following a full days fishing:

-          Starter battery needs replacing.

-          More wet stuff came out of the bungs at the end of the day than I’m happy with. This didn’t happen after an hours test run with ‘Old Mate’ last week. Water probably came from the inlet or outlet of one of the three live wells. I’m considering removing 66% of the live wells and plumbing.

-          A large esky makes a perfectly adequate rear casting deck. Carpeting the lid of the esky will make it even better.

-          Electronics are great, but aren’t necessary for ‘blind’ casting to fishy looking snags hard up against the bank.

-          Front casting deck would be better raised.

-          Anchor well needs a cover.

-          20 litres of fuel for covering Corroboree from the ramp to past catfish island beats the fuel economy of my tinne and 40HP 2 stroke.

-          A side console is infinitely more comfortable for a full day on the water than a 2 stroke tiller steer.

-          Rod storage needs improving if I’m going to carry three or more fully rigged outfits.

-          Overall it’s a great improvement over the tinnie and a very fishable boat. I’m looking forward to getting out chasing pelagics and learning all about fishing Bynoe.

Chris 

Bynoe Harbour Outer Reachers - Video Report

From the Stig and Canadian Pete

So had far too much video now that Peter has a head cam too

So took out a heap and divided what was left into three parts

Part 1 - early part of first day
Part 2 - later part of first day
Part 3 - a few bits from second day

Hope it inspires you

Part 1


Part 2

Part 3



Wednesday 24 February 2016

Bynoe out front report

Courtesy of The Stig and Canadian Pete
Saturday started quite early.
Here I am coming back to ramp to pick up Peter after he parked the 4x4 and trailer. 

We wanted to head down Friday afternoon and stay in a cheap donga at Sand Palms for a couple of nights, but there was a wake going on and all were booked for those attending the wake. Added to this was the tight budget the wife has me on lately to afford to build the house she wants on our rural block, which meant if we booked a motel room instead of a donga it could only be one night!

Working backwards from when we wanted to launch just before dawn to when we had to leave Darwin, meant that the alarm goes off just after 4am. I put the last few things in my ute and head to Pete’s place. Get there and no Peter anywhere (slept through his alarm). So after I carry all my gear to his underground carpark where his boat is kept and pack it into where it needs to go, then I call him and wake him up.

We get boat hooked up to Pete’s 4x4 fairly quickly, top up the fuel, get some ice for the two days and an hour later we are at the ramp at Milne Inlet, just up the road from Sand Palm Pub.
The morning is fairly calm, forecast was for a stronger wind at the middle of the day. It was already 30 degrees, tide already low so instead of down the back we head out to the very front of Bynoe Harbour even though a little more breeze to cool things off but might make the ride a little rougher.

A few early morning storms off in the distance, but blue skies above us.

As soon as we get to “spot Y”, we see a few birds on one side of an exposed sand bar and head in for a better look. But a problem – electric messing about. We use the main motor to maneuver and eventual head around the other side of the sand bar. We have been here a few times previous trips on the way to other places, zero scales visits - hopefully today we find something. Beautiful place, should be more fish here more often then it does have them. Bright orange sand, blue emeralds water, usually clean water except in the harshest wind/tide conditions, good flats that hold enough water, right next to deep water. heaps of other animal life too - heaps of turtles 
this trip, on other trips dugongs, dolphins, and false killer whales 

Here we find a few birds working, a few splashes from mackerel and down the beach behind them the typical slashes of some small queenfish tight against the beach. We start to head over with tide current and wind assisting out shift rather than the main motor.

Tide is about halfway down, we are protected from the steadily increasing wind by height of the sandbar. Only just past the tip of the sand bar we see 40-50cm mackerel corralling baitfish into tight dark patches. The bait are trying so hard to evade the predators they beach themselves up on the sand – only to be picked off by the birds standing just above the water line. A few casts find the mackerel uninterested in our offerings. As you know at times it can be hard to entice a take on the fly with so much bait around. (See the main video for vision of the tight bait balls being hammered by small macks and queenies)

To start with we were focused on the visible feeding fish close to the beach, but occasionally we had heard and see the after effects of larger slashing behind us. The water was the most clearest we have seen in a long while with all the windy weather we have had recently. I thought the water was only a couple of feet deep but the sounder said 12.5feet. Yet you could see clearly the sand ripples on the bottom interspersed with rock/coral patches.
What we could also significantly see were fish stacked up like piles of wood for a fire - 20-30 plus large black backed deep silver sided slabs of large queenfish. The instant we put a fly anywhere near them it was attacked vigorously. with several companions of similar size accompanying each one hooked.

Peter was casting a large mackerel/billfish fly I tied a long time ago (20+ years ago in SE QLD). Basically an over-sized deceiver with heaps of bucktail in body tied ona 6/0 34007 and a synthetic fibre back of purple, blue and black. the key to this fly Peter thought was the red bucktail throat. This flies was tied on his 12w and he hooks up first. 

Totally the other side of the equation in setups - I am using my 7w with a size 1 hook anorexic clouser – torn to pieces by many fish on a previous trip that didn’t get retired and was still tied to the leader of my fast sink fly line. Several fish rose up and accompanied Peter’s hooked fish, I cast to these with trepidation as the leader was worn, had a couple of wind knots, the fly was small, the rod weight would mean a longish fight if I hooked up and stayed connected – but my most probable outcome was an instant bustoff. I cast anyway – its only a fly and a bit of mono leader I might lose. A large fish zips towards the fly from out of nowhere, its takes the small fly and zips off to the horizon - no need to set the hook such was its aggression. The flyline and half the backing is gone in a very fast timeframe.

While mine takes off and leaping in the distance, Peter loses his first fish after a few minutes, ties on another fly and hooks up almost instantly. The main video in this report shows the fish repeatedly attacking his large fly. I watch his half hookups more than watching my own fishing still stripping off line.

Peter muscles his fish towards the boat and I with flyrod in my right hand with a fish attached 150 meters to the south of us – try to net his fish for him. I miss twice with the big fish flipping out with each netting attempt with my left hand. So I get Peter to swim it past the boat and I grab it tail wrist and swing it into the boat to then focus on mine still a log way away from boat and with me worrying if I have enough backing. I ask Peter to chase it with the main motor but as he starts the boat the fish finally stops in headlong rush away from us and I start to gain some backing back on to the reel..

As my fish is still a long way from boat I tell peter to cast again at the plentiful other large queenfish under the boat and around it despite the motor running at idle. You will see in the video the fish attracted to his fly repeatedly.


Both of us were thoroughly enjoying ourselves with such visual fly fishing. The clear water amplified the visual effect. The countless baitfish shoals going past the boat kept the predators working the water and the underwater drop-offs.

This continues for an hour or so before the tide dropped too far off the flat beside the sand bar for the big fish to attack the bait balls. Smaller mackerel and queenfish though ready invaded the shallow flats and gorged themselves on the 2-3 inch baitfish. We chased them, caught a few, release them all as quite small when compared to the 80+cm version we had been catching.

I caught a small queenfish that really ran us in knots around the boat. During a double hook up and swapping rods over rods my queenie must have been bleeding into the water and several small black tipped reef sharks started arriving looking for an easy meal.

I cast to one small shark cruising around the boat 8 times and got ignored 8 times. I lead the cast to the shark giving time for fly to sink but it seemed uninterested in the small clouser I was using to target the queenies and mackerel. I caught and released another queenie and the small shark was still hanging around the boat.

The next cast was just right in distance from the shark to allow the fly to sink to just the right depth. In the crystal clear water I saw the shark zip forward and chew in the fly. This will be a short fight I said to myself as I wasn't using any sort of wire trace..

I strip strike a couple of times to set the hook deeply and the fight is on. Water roostertails from the flyline as it cuts through the water. Awesome! The shark circles the boat and tangles me up with Peter who is fighting another queenie. we swap rods over each other to avoid tangles. Crazy, hectic stuff!
After a couple of netting attempts by Peter while fight his own fish, he hands me the netted shark. I grab the shark behind its gills and remove the hook and Peter takes a few pictures of the unique fly catch. Then flip it back into the water, where it speeds away wiser for the experience.

The day started red hot in fishing and by midday it was stifling hot. Both of us were not drinking enough rather focusing on another cast to catch another big queenfish. Peter over heated a bit and I wasn't far behind. So we drove around at speed to get cooled off - investigating other parts of this reef. 

We drift and cast towards the reef edge as it drops off into deeper water. I hook another queenfish. This one jumped at least eight times and still fought hard despite its extra aerial efforts to de-hook itself..

Peter tails this fish for me and it is a triplet in length and size to the first two we boated. All 83cm exactly, and all with the same thickness through the shoulder area of their bodies. We catch a few more reef species – mostly small stripies, but the mackerel remain elusive even though constantly present throughout the day and feeding aggressively.

Totally exhausted by the heat and the swoffing action – we head to the ramp. Pull the boat out and book into the motel room. That pool was just the right temperature to soak away the heat of the day.
Dinner at the pub was excellent as always. 

Though one pub regular was a little pushy when Peter was at the bar at ‘’his’ spot when paying for his meal, but you get that occasionally at country pubs. Maybe they should shift the register or not allow patrons to sit right in front of it or take ‘ownership’ a section of the bar. But it might of been just how tired we were and a little touchy at small things?

Sleep came easy, and we were up and going at 6am, soon the room was emptied, 4x4 packed and boat on the water by 6:15. It is so nice being so close to the ramp rather than driving all the way from Darwin before launching boat. Sunrise was awesome!

We went straight out to the same sand bar as yesterday hoping for more of the same. Mostly mackerel. Today we managed a few of those mackerel – maybe due to a lot less bait around.
I lose a big strong fish (queenie??) after the hook pulls shortly after I strip strike. Peter loses two large queenfish one to a knot break, while the other snaps him off cleanly at it responds to the hook point driving home, but eventual stays connected to another. He is using a small clouser with a 4cm single strand of wire tied with a few knots he hadn’t used before and was quite nervous about his knots unraveling or breaking, so didn’t muscle the fish to the boat on the 10w he was using. He was quite relieved when I finally grabbed its thick tail wrist.

This day was a lot longer between fish and much more casting but still intriguing and visually exciting watching fish respond to flies and conditions.

Would we do it again – you bet! Next weekend maybe not. But we will definitely be back.

Where to next? we shall see.
Video report - up soon!
Have a new video editor I am trying to understand how to use, which may take a bit of time to figure out - but not too long! promise!

Monday 22 February 2016

Bynoe weekend - report

Courtesy of the Stig and Canadian Pete

Well with Canadian Pete in his 4.8 Formosa - we just had two long and stinking hot days at Bynoe harbour


Heat, wind and tide conditions saw us out the front of Bynoe harbour at one of the outer sand bars of the harbour. Given how soft and old I am these days - would not survive way up in the back waters in such humidity, heat and still conditions. So we went out the front where a bit of breeze could extend the energy for a long SWOFFING day!

In summary......
One day - mind blowing
The second - much harder of a day
Both were soooo sooooo hot weather wise
One day fish going nuts for the fly
The second with not much change weather wise except wind direction - not so enthusiastic to take the fly - so a lot of casts between fish that day

Best part of the trip undoubtedly was sight casting to big queenfish stacked up in large numbers in 12 feet of the most crystal clear water, watching the big fish instantly react to our stripped flies.

Below is a post trip photograph of my daughter admiring one of the queenfish I kept for an old Filipino lady up the road. This one was one of the small ones at 80cm.


Have heaps of video from the trip that I am currently editing in a video clip, as too a fishing report to write yet - so hope you don't mind waiting a bit for it
Hopefully I will have it ready to post later in the week). heaps of work to catch up on over the next couple of days. Then I can write the report.

until then - tight lines.
LIPS


Sunday 21 February 2016

Northern Territory powers to a 87 point win over Queensland and Tasmania combined team!

February means it is time for the annual migration from Darwin to chase Trout on fly in the Tasmanian Highlands.

Home sweet home!

14 hours of travel from Darwin sees me catching up with fellow fishers at Hobart airport ready for the 2 1/2 hour drive to our home for the next week at Bronte Lagoon. Our base for fishing the Highlands.

No chance of loosing weight this week!



The Tasmanian Highland weather is well renowned for being without mercy. The coming week showed us its full force, icy rain, driving winds, snow, low cloud with a sprinkle of sun just to keep the spirits up.


View from the shack!

Our local contacts gave us a run down on how tough the fishing had been over the last season. Many reasons were given, lack of rain, record high temperatures, hydro storage waters drawn down to lowest ever levels in the chase for power export dollars plus many other reasons. No reason given was strong enough to make us get back on the planes!

Arriving at the shack it was cold beer first up, then gear preparation for an early morning fish the next day.

A 6am, 20 metre walk to the water’s edge found me sight casting to a Brown Trout that was feeding on small fish in the reeds in water no more than 100mm deep. A couple of casts with a wet fly to the edge of the reeds enticed him out and soon after a 48cm Brown was ready to be hung in the fish box ready to be prepared for Gravlax. Not a bad start to the week after 10 minutes of fishing and more importantly putting the Northern Territory 48 points ahead of the combined forces of Queensland and Tasmania.

After 10 minutes and a 20 metre walk!

After a great start we were to find out just how tough the fishing is and has been of late in the Highlands. Normal insect hatches did not produce the mass movement of feeding fish of years past, low water levels have made some lakes a sorry sight, The Great Lake will take years to refill as it seems that all useable water has been converted to power.

Another small Brown.

Despite the negatives the fishing was tough but this just added to the challenge and fish could be found with effort. The most important thing is that, thanks to my partner in crime, Daryl, the Northern Territory came home 87 points in front, at the end of the week, of the combined efforts of Queensland and Tasmania. This would be the same score line if the NT had a team in the NRL!


Hard to find but were there!

To anyone that enjoys Flyfishing do yourself a favour and put Tasmania on your bucket list. It was tough this year but still a fantastic experience. Bring on February 2017 it’s already booked in.

Should we have to have one of these with NT on it to fish here?????

Remember; “You’ll never never know, if you never never go. Get out there and fish!”

Tight lines
Jim Churchley
  

  

TOGA FIX - SPOT ??

For the past week I've been batching with 'She who must be obeyed' away in Ballina, so the empty beer cans, one or two empty red wine bottles and a few pizza boxes scattered around the house bear witness to the good time I've been having.  I've had no visitors because Lord Jim, who normally drops around for a cuppa and chat,  has been away in Tassie teaching the boys from Queensland, Victoria and Tassie how to catch fish.

So you can imagine my mood, when, part way through a good bottle of rum late Saturday evening or maybe it was early Sunday (today)  morning, Lord Jim rang.  After I managed to find the phone amongst the cans and bottles etc.  James informed me he had got back around 2am Saturday morning and would be banging on my door 5.30am Sunday morning to take me fishing to get me out of the house and my lonely bliss. He said it had been so cold in tassie he needed a Toga fix and to get out in the heat to thaw out. Bugger.

Sure enough sometime after 5am I managed to stagger out to Jims ute and he drove at that break neck speed that he drives at down to Spot Y, which is really only half an hour away, but it took us a bit over an hour with Jim's sporty diving.

Rising sun was just hitting the trees.
Launching was easy in the freshwater at first light and we were the only people there. It was nice and cool.  There were some threatening clouds off to the east, but they were the dry type that have been around all of 2016.  Water was crystal clear and there were heaps of dragon flies dipping down onto it to lay eggs I think.   I thought the dragon flies only do that in the dry? 

 It wasn't long and James had his first fish,

First toga as the sun rises
James was using an old fly that I think I tied for that bloke Noah who had the big boat and all the animals.  It was in Roger Sinclair's 'Wild Thing' colours which had faded to almost white.  The fly was all bird fur with the long tail from the original large bird fur which is harder to get right now, and it had that wonderful silver thread in it from that fabric you by from spotlight which I can''t remember the name of. Oregano or something like that.   But the fly had a life of its own, while it looked thin and anaemic when it was wet and out of the water, even with no flow, it seemed to fluff up, pulse and move on its own in the still water.  Great fly, because even with no weed guard, it got James seven toga in around three hours on the water.

James stuck with that fly while I tried several made in similar colours but with synthetic materials.  I got one to James seven.  Well I'll call it one, I did release it shortly after it jumped some distance from the boat, but still it was hooked for a short time.

.....and another

A great fish and real fun to catch.
 We really wanted to get onto some of the barra that had been around a few weeks ago, but other than a beauty we saw along the edge making a huge bow wave.  I looked golden in colour and had to be 90cm to a metre which would have been almost impossible to get out of the weeds.

......another!

Bugger him....another one...

The water was shallow and crystal clear.
 Around 10am it got very hot, the weather apps had it at 34C but noted it felt like 42C.  It was hot, and I was starting to melt, I think the rum oozing from my pores kept me from catching as many fish as Jim? (My excuse anyway).

James its bloody hot.....I've got to go home and clean up before Cathie comes back in a few days... I need a beer and I think that bad smell is me?.

We got off the water just after 10am and home with a beer just after 11am.   Its marvellous that we can travel around an hour to a heap of places up here, Bynoe, Corroboree, Hardies and the harbour, catch a heap of fish (well some of us), then get home for lunch.   We live in a paradise. 

Don't know what is happening with this bloody 'wet' but the fish are still around, reports from some of the boys who fished Bynoe are that there are heaps of salmon around chasing the jelly prawns, both the harbours are fishing, Corroboree may be a bit harder, but with luck a bit later wet will have it firing again.

Roggie






 

Wednesday 10 February 2016

"Spot Y"

The word got out that I fished “Spot Y” for a couple of trips. 
"Spot Y"


While we had that rain for a day this got one of the feeder creeks moving and as a result some of the Barra moved as well resulting in 3 hook ups and 3 losses. Almost impossible to hold them when they can dive straight into weed beds beneath or into flooded reed beds. Good fun though!

24 hours before this was pumping with the rain

Toga plentiful and very entertaining.

Magic species for the fly rod!


Small but fun!

If anyone out there knows of a good rain dance start doing it now, the freshwater scene needs it bad.

"Fun"

Chasing Trout for the next 10 days, not Coral but Rainbow and Brown and by all accounts Tasmania has the same problem as the NT “more rain required”. Will let all know on return how things go. Spent 10 minutes last night trying to tie on a #16 Red Tag to a 4lb tippet before I realised I had dropped the tippet and was trying to thread fresh air through the eye of the hook for 10 minutes!!!!  Stronger glasses required for this task!!!

Remember: “You’ll never never know, if you never never go. Get out there and fish!”

Tight lines

Jim Churchley