Its been so cold and windy lately, but the fish are still biting. As you've probably read, the billabongs, are still fishing well, but have got a little bit quieter with this cold weather. There are some good reports from the
saltwater too, Lyle and Marisa were out on Saturday at Bynoe and got thirty odd fish, with Marisa loosing a good barra, here's what Lyle reported, with a photo heading out....
"Roggie, about 30 odd fish. It was a great day out and the fish were a bonus. Caught a mixture of Pikey Bream (plague proportions), Queenies, GT's, Snapper, Macks and Marisa dropped a nice Barra that would have gone about 80cm. Yellow over white clousers were the go. The weather was great and you know very well how the front of Turtle can be on the right tide."
Roxley was out there too .....he stayed overnight, on board, with his custom made boat bed..
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| Note the beer fridge underneath....bliss!!! |
"The
fishing was a bit ordinary but did have some excitement yesterday morning on
Vigilant flats with some big Trevors working the bait in about 3 metres of
water.
I
tried to get close to them but they were very spooky, did not get them to take
anything. See attachments with my attempts to get them on film. I
then went along the mangroves but it was the second run down the mangroves when
the water had dropped a bit that I did OK.
Dropped
a good Salmon that was skirting a big ray, saw plenty of other fish like
Tarpon, Pikey Bream but only a few Barra. Did
not hook a Barra on the flats but had a couple of follows.
Went
around to the next big creek towards Milne and hooked a little Barra in one of
the gutters there.
Headed
home mid afternoon fishing the rockbars on the incoming tide, quite happy with
the trip with one exception. That
is, the Pricks who stole two crabs out of my pots at the bottom of Indian Island."
The wind is going to hang around, but this time of the year the pelagics should be starting to fire in and around the harbours. Here are Saturdays wind and tide predictions, Sunday is similar...
In past years, on the dropping neaps just before the new moon at the end of July, the mackerel are often found in huge numbers, possibly
spawning, between Lee Point and Talc Head in Darwin and between Bare Sand Island and Loee Patches or the Pinnicles around Bynoe. Dave, Scotty and I were out at the latter a couple of years ago on these tides and you could have walked across the water on huge Spaniards. Sharks loved it too. Roxley and Dave had come across it the year before as well.
A quote from Fishnote on Spanish Mackerel...
"A significant proportion of the female fish caught in NT waters between July and December have either recently spawned or are close to spawning".
NB. you will need a wire trace for the big macs, but if it is too big and bulky it seems to turn them off, so many of us use a haywire twist on 30lb to 40lb, single strand wire about 3 or 4 inches long. Remember the tuna and trevally will be around too.
Here is a fly with the trace, that landed half a dozen tuna from 82cm to 97cm as well as a couple of GT's to 105cm.
Just on the fly that we generally use, it is simply a bucktail clouser, on a 1/0 SL12 or Mustad C70SD hook. The recipe is simple;
1. Tie on the eyes first, back enough to allow the top wing of bucktail to flair up over the hook point.
2. Tie over the eyes a length of sea foam or light blue DNA or similar material, because this will remain after most of the bucktail has been chewed off;
3. We then add aluminium thread that you pull out of a metal type material that Cathie buys from Spotlight. Don't ask me the name of it, but to me it is essential on all the saltwater flies, and the reason for that is, that in my fading memories, I remember the science classes at Monaro High when we used aluminium in saltwater to create electricity. Now I probably have that mixed up a bit, and you may laugh but I stick with it anyway, crazy or not. Speaking to Graham White about how he created the pink think, he also told me that the flash he use, if I remember correctly was what he cut from the aluminium wrap of a violet crumble bar or similar. So maybe it does a special job?????and shoots out sparks that attract the fish. It's got me anyway.
4. After that put on white bucktail over that DNA and flash, then turn the hook over and;
5. Tie on the top white bucktail wing.
6. Then put on your trace or try the loop to loop ones that Mustad make.
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| One of the results |
