Some don't seem to learn....barotrauma

I see a video with Rex Hunt regarding barotrauma....great initiative...however......some don't seem to want to listen, or just don't care.  While we were away at Bynoe, heard different reports on the stupidity of the greedy fishermen who seem to want to keep EVERY fish they catch.

One story about barra was a group of  young blokes from down south going around campers handing out barra becasue they had too many.  The fish weren't legal but they still kept them all!

Another, a group of about 16 boats got onto a reef full of golden snapper and took 70-100 fish per boat, absolute madness !!

 HOW THE HELL DO WE GET THE MESSAGE THROUGH TO THEM ?????

Bynoe 22nd to 26th March

The Family? (Roger, Cathie and Sonny Jim)  had a four day fish at Bynoe over the good tides, great wind (barely any), but probably the wrong moon for some.

                                                                Family Photo?

The water on the flats was milky but right on the edges it was a bit clearer.  Saw heaps of barra but only a few landed.   Most were released a fair distance from the boat!  Water was like glass most of the days with a bit of wind in the storms on Sunday.

Did not see a lot of threadies, but if you got into the holes, like the one in the creek near Turtle Island, there were heaps of blue salmon on the low tide.  High tide in these holes had waves of tarpon, all rolling in different groups.  It was a fish a cast into the rolling group at times.  They were suicidal.  What was interesting was there were tarpon nearly everywhere we went, both up the top and down the bottom.

On the shallow rocks around little Turtle, Hutt Point and and shallow rocky outcrops that we went to there were schools of small (30cm to 40cm) queenies going crazy.  If you sunk a line under these schools there were some big fish running under them.  Hooked a tarpon that had to be 80cm near Turtle under one of these groups.  Lost it but over the four days the biggest Tarpon we landed was 75cm and the smallest 42cm with heaps around 50cm.

As well as tarpon under these schools, we pulled out trevally to 53cm (a goldie) plus a heap of reasonable GT's.

This was basically the same for each day, we started on the flats chasing the barra and then on the low and the rising tides fished around the rock bars.  Knife Island had some of the best just as the tide got over the rocks as it was coming in.

Jim got some early starts and covered some of the areas that we missed but we did a lot of miles checking everything out.  Just watch launching in the dark though.   Jim launched at 5am one morning then lost his bearing and went the wrong way from the boat ramp.  It may have had something to do with the fact that he probably was suffering from the night before.

Rain stayed away most of the time but I did get some shots on the little cam corder...but I'm afraid I am having trouble putting them onto this site.  I will try something else with them and use a you tube connection.

See if this worked (Cathie hates the wide angle lens!!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIYMYAI6wrA 

Petey fished the Kakadu Klash -where were the fish??

Petey O'Sullivan just reported in that he fished the Kakadu Klash last weekend with Michael and Michael's son who managed to get the biggest fish for the competion and the only fish over a metre.  A beaut 110cm, which they got around 7.30am on the second day.

The first day they were equal third in the comp of forty boats,   but 14 boast never landed a fish.
The second day they got the big one, but the third day their score was a big ZERO.

If they had managed a 58cm on the last day they would have won the bloody comp !!

13 boats caught no fish during the comp.

Well done Petey and the boys from Team Fusion !!

Not fly fishing but..........

Hi to my fellow NTFFSM, that's a bloody mouthful guys but I'm sure we'll get used to it.

Now, although this is not fishing  it comes within the realms of the Social side of the "mob".  I have just returned from Brissy where I saw this (click on the link).

  http://www.cavalia.com.au/en

O......M......G.......I have come home and told Roger......" I want a horse".......only one of course.

I don't know the words that truly express this magnificent show !!  See it if you can !!!

Hello and touching base

Hi all,

Not sure about this technology, but will give it a go.  Any feedback would be cool.

Not much to report, Kakadu looks poor, there is no, yes I mean no water on the South floodplain.  Some of the creeks on the way out are actually dry. 
The 3 Noulangi creeks look pretty goo though, so the top of Nourlangi might be worth a crack.  We had rain every evening last week, but it was patchy. 
Coming back on Saturday I noticed that Scotts creek near Corobborree was flowing well and was high, so that might be another option.  I have done well at the mouth of Scotts when it is the only creek flowing into the Adelaide.

The Magela is passable by 2 wheel drive (as of Friday last week), so I doubt there is too much water up on the East.  A mate has been fishing high up on the East (approx 60km from the ramp) and doing well with fish up to a metre.  He has been getting 50 fish a day and lots of good toga as well.

Thanks Rog and Cath for setting this up, it is a great idea and has a great deal of potential.

Cheers for now,

Dion

Next weekend looks good for Bynoe

Below is the forecast wind and the tides for next Sunday, looks reel good for Bynoe if the predictions of little or no wind is correct.  Tides look great and there is apparently little chance of storms (that could change) and at this stage the flats around Bynoe should be great.

If the wind holds, the reefs on Indian should have some good fish around them as well and it is coming off neaps so the water clarity should be good.

New email and access for blog

I have updated the blog with an new email address ie flyfishersmobnt@gmail.com also have tried to put a few of you in as authors but dont know how that is going.  still working on it.

Blog also has a new address, it is http://flyfishersmobnt.blogspot.com.au/  or you can just put flyfishersmobnt.blogspot.com in your search engine and it will go to the same address.

Let me know if you would like to be put in as an author, thus allowing you to put your information straight onto the blog as I understand it, (don't take my word for it though, I'm new at this)

There is a way to email straight to the bLog to but I haven't worked that out yet?

UPDATE: WE ALSO HAVE ntflyfisherssocialmob@gmail.com

The Fosters are off to chase 'Tigers'

Phil and Dimity are off to Africa any information on tiger fish would be greatly appreciated by them....

Hi, we have just booked a trip to South Africa and intend to throw in a line for Tiger Fish - with some guidance. Kruger national Park is the area - not until September but should be great. Any info is always good.

Love the idea of the blog - great news about Shoal Bay

Thanks for all the info. Looking forward to seeing you and fishing with you in the future.

Cheers,

Phillip & Dimity.

phildimi@bigpond.com

Big ones around Shoal Bay

Roger – a few words for you.

Should anyone want to attempt the metrey on fly the opportunity is now in Shoal Bay. Just got back and the big girls are there in numbers but don’t do as I did and take a pocket knife to a gun fight. A 7 weight is not the answer to putting scales in the boat when you have to pull them up in 3 - 5 metre wide drains lined with scrub and mid water snags. It does not happen, Barra 3 – Jim 0! Busted off big time, good fun though and not a bad way to spend 4 hours!

Mobs of LARGE Barra moving up and down with the tide on the Howard Springs flood plain. Barra boofing foot long mullet three foot into the air or coming out of the water rolling onto mobs of large mullet. Spot #6 in the fish finder. All the bait, and lots of it, was on the large size, indicative of the lack of flood plain water I think.

Fly of choice a “Roggie Dodgie Mullet Fly”, obviously these Barra have class about them (Roger I’m running out of flies!). There was not too much stealth about it as you could see and hear the lines of Barra as they moved up and down, pick your spot and the would eventually come to you.

Good luck to anyone who gives it a go but be careful of the run back to Buff Creek if trying to beat the tide of sand banks and the short sharp chop as the swell meets the shallows.

The fish are there, it’s up to you.

Jim

**alright Jim doing up some more mullet flies 

What moon phase spring tides were they active on, I was there on a full moon spring up the top and you could hear a pin drop, there was no feeding.Andy Congram <andyfish@ozemail.com.au> 

Jim says that he hasn’t got a clue, he was out there yesterday, the 15^th whatever faze that is.

New moon now, I was out there on a full – bloody Shoal Bay, I always preferred the new out there… back in the days when I used to fish it reg, haven’t been there more than twice in the last 5 yrs.  

This blogging could be fun

just received this joke......interesting???

The Annual Tassie Trip

Each year a few of us have ventured into the cold depths of the Tasmanian Highlands looking for the feral trout.

 I reneged this year but a Lord Jim teamed up with the boys from the south.  Mark has put together a U tube presentation for the trip on the link below.

 http://youtu.be/etG0IhEJyFY

http://youtu.be/CH1JvQ5FnQs

It appears there may be some two rodder contenders in Tassie??

Glenn on fishing status

I have a couple of points to add.

I fished c'rob a couple of weeks ago and I can tell you that one of the main smells is rotting cat fish. I have photos of dead catties floating everywhere from the boat ramp right up to the junction at palm lagoon, if only you could get that far. the lillys have grown over so much of the billabong that they have totally covered both cut throughs to the rock hole, and from catfish towards palm lagoon. i was surprised to not see any barra amongst the dead, perhaps they die first and were eaten already or perhaps they got the hell out of dodge as things went foul.

My prediction for c'rob this year is going to be the year of the weedless, be it fly or lure. trollers will have lots of trouble if something doesnt wipe out all the big lillys. there where however huge schools of tarpon everywhere and I mean big tarpon, 50cm jobs, on the chew too. we had a great little comp.

The following weekend I fished the south. i caught up with a few blokes the night before in the resort including Darren nichols who spends more time on the south than anyone and at that stage the only place fish were being caught was right up the top of Nourlangie and the main arm to the rope at yellow waters. we ended up with 7 fish to 73cm that day and only fished about 4 hours.

It will get flogged to foam this weekend but there is still good potential there. just watch out at the mouth of nourlangie creek as all the rock bars were still silted up and it was very shallow on low tide.

Last weekend I took a few mates to probably my fav spot in the NT at this time of year, finnis flood plain. 

we just grubbed the boat in the mouth of the finnis on a 2.2m low and headed straight up the top.

three hours later 17 barra to 75cm and as many big tarpon as you could poke a 5 weight at. the tarpon ball up bait and behave just like tuna up there, birds and all. its awesome. the barra are solid gold with bright red eyes. JoStarling used to recon they were devil barra! and they fight like it too.

 If I was swathing this weekend ( and Ivery well might be) thats where I would be as early asIcould!

Slowly getting my big 6.7m southwind fitted out for guiding this year which is exciting so I'll hopefully catch a few of you on the water soon.

let me know if you are heading finnis way and we can buddy up for a bbq lunch!

Glenn Watt
darwin camping hire

barefoot fishing safaris
Darwin
0417272871

Shady needs rain

Informatiom from Jim on Shady

Big tides mean Big Barra at Shady Camp, so thought I would give it a go.

Got there around 9.00pm after stopping at Point Stuart Lodge for a couple of coldies ($5.80 a can these days) set up my swag in the information shelter then bedded down for the night.

First three guide boats arrived at 5.00am and launched, I got to the ramp at 5.45am to find the first three guide boats within 50 metres unable to progress downstream through lack of water! They managed to get underway just after I got there!

Yep lack of water. Although there is some coming over the barrage it is not even touching the cleaning table on the barrage so unless we get rain soon all launch and retrieve are tide dependent. Had to take the trailer all the way out to the flat rocks to launch, although there is about 4 inches of thick black mud it is firm underneath so no problems there. Parked the car and counted 7 boats before me.

Water coming over the barrage is black and stinks like rotting cow crap (I know that may be subjective and some may consider it to be freshly mown grass!). Not enough water to hang around at the barrage to have a flick so progressed to the second barrages. All changed. Have been rebuilt during the dry and could find only one new barrage with water coming over. The big gap seems to have been repaired and has a big grass island in front of it. Found a small channel with a flow and followed it and found myself on the fresh side going through a new gap a boat width wide blown out further along the barrage from the old breakout. Did not hang around as definitely get stuck territory.

Progressed to the third set of barrages and could only make it about 50 metres up the channel where it was totally overgrown across preventing access. Depth of channel still 4 metres but needs a good clean up with a chain saw or dynamite.

Took a trip to the mouth but did not hang around too long as there was a good swell straight on making it too hard for an oldie like me. Came back around the corner and found Barra boofing deep in the undergrowth but could not entice any so worked my way back upstream with the tide.

Back at the top (now high tide) the water looked much more inviting, one other boat fishing and two people flicking off the barrage. Water still black and still smelt like rotting cow crap. Gave it an hour then pulled the boat out with no problems. No fish of any sort, did not even see a Tarpon, not even on the fresh side of the barrage. Spoke to a local who was just launching and he said that things have been dismal. A large fish kill 7-10 days ago and hardly any fish being caught at the barrage. The only luck he had had was to troll straight down the guts to the first bend on high tide.

Today is not the Shady that I know but feel sure that with water it will return. If anyone has plans to go there, unless you are going to fish Chambers Bay creek mouths, think about it before you go. But there again “if you never never go, you’ll never never know”.

One thing that never changes at Shady is the Mossies are still at their blood sucking best.

Jim