THIS WEEKEND LOOKS GOOD.

Just talking to Lord Jim who is heading back out to Bynoe this weekend.  (So are a few more of us)  Jim is happy if any want to tag along.

Tides are neaps without much movement on Saturday, but great for exploring and Sunday is starting to move to the better tides for the drain off the flats.

Wind looks like it will be almost negligible if you go by the forecasts.   We have attached the tide charts and wind forecast for you, if you are interested.   Look out for the birds working, and hopefully those bait balls will still be around.  We would suggest you have a few flies with a short wire trace if you come across the big macs that seem to be building up in the area.  Good luck.

THE BEST TIDES TO FISH??

At the www. casting gathering yesterday, while sitting around the table with a cold beer, the conversation got to, "what are the best tides to fish?", and I said that I would try and put together some weekend dates for tides that we like.

Remember the old adage's that "no flow, no go" or "no run, no fun" and for our fishing those sayings are proved correct each time we go out. Have a look at Graeme's blog on the 1st of June "The game plan".....this will give you what you need.

http://flyfishersmobnt.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/the-game-plan-your-going-fishingthis.html

 But sometimes, for those who have only certain days to fish, and the tides are like this one below...no movement..

Not a lot of movement in the tides !!

We still find a lot of fish on these tides, but they are up in the trees and a bit harder to catch.  If the water is clear and there is little wind these are great tides to explore the edges, but be aware, some really big fish sit up on the edges, basking in the sun I think.

Yesterday the www. connection tried to teach me how to cast in under the trees.  I've seen it done by the experts and always thought that you needed to haul the line at the end to tighten the loop and then point it under the structure, but Graeme showed me how to stop the forward cast allowing the loop to tighten up and then point it in under the structure.   Been practicing it ever since, and I think that I have just got it, nearly right.  But that type of casting is great on these tides when the fish are in the mangroves.

But as Graeme said in his blog,

"the drop determines activity, a 3.0m lows means they can have a dozen naps on the way out often treating anything with disdain, a 1.0 m low will leave a mud trail as they realise, "WTF! get out of my way". "

So we look for the tides a bit more like this, and between the graph at the top and this one below. It certainly seems to work for us, both on the flats and the rockbars.

With all that in mind, and back to what we were talking about yesterday (when to go fishing), have a look at the following dates for those who only get the weekends off.....

1. The weekend of the 31st August - lst September.  (Sunday looks the best but both could be fun)
2. The weekend of the 14th and 15th September look interesting but not a lot of movement but if there is not wind, you can have a good look around and try along the eastern side of Indian Island.
3. After that, all the tides that we prefer seem to be mid week (Yahoo!!! for those who don't work)
4. Main thing is, if you can get out, fish and have fun, you can adapt to nearly any tide.
5. If the www. connection is available, get their advice, that's what I do.

These tidal graphs that are used above come from a free download called J Tides  ( http://www.arachnoid.com/JTides/ )and they give you a good idea of what is happening during the tide.

Tales from the Tinny tomorrow morning.

On tomorrow's show there'll be talk of Permit within the Darwin area. For those who don't know, they're one of the most prized species to catch, particularly for fly fisherman.
Anyone seen or caught these fish in the Northern Territory?
UPDATE: from facebook..

Hamish Simpson This one was caught in Gove harbour. Pertty impressive!

about an hour ago · Like

AUGUST FLATS FISHING MAGIC

It's getting a bit like we are always saying that we live in paradise, but it has to be said again.  For those who managed to get out this last weekend, we had probably the best and the worse of it.  Beautiful flat, gin clear water and no wind, or muddy dirty spots with the wind blowing a gale. But if you got into the right spots, the fish were there.   Saturday was blowy which had not been forecast but Sunday was outstanding.

Clear water and no wind!!!

A good turn out from 'The Mob' and I see that Jim has already put out a report. ( He had an awesome time on the barra ). We are a bit late with ours, because we stayed out there, in Bynoe,  for fours days as we both needed a fishing fix and wanted to explore some areas on the lower high tides on Friday.  In all we did 375kms on the outboard, and by the third day I had flattened the electric motors battery by running on top speed to see everywhere we could.   Luckily the running back and forward charged it back up enough to allow us to use it on Monday.

We saw some awesome fish on the flats, in one spot four huge barracuda that looked like two metre logs laying up on the sand near the trees.   Cast at a queenie about 70cm in the trees only to have a metre plus one hit the fly and take the line out to the back before the unimaginable happened.  The bloody knot slipped and gave way.  I'll cop some sledging over that, but at this stage I'm blaming my little fingers for not pulling down the knot tight enough!   To top it of in the same trees up on one of the flats on the Darwin side of Indian Island, we came across two golden trevally.  I believe that they only grow to around 30kg and these looked to be a foot wide and a metre long so must have been close to that weight.

I hooked one of these, and off it went, straight out away from the trees and onto the backing, I pressed the button on the remote for the electric to stop it, but I must have missed and hit the rabbit (full speed) and went straight into the trees, but no worries, still had the fish running out into the bay, but then it turned, came back in as fast as it had gone out and ran around every bloody tree in the bay while the boat was turning in circle.  Lost that one too.  Went home on Friday without a fish in the  boat.

Saturday it all changed, thank goodness!!!!  We caught a couple of barra, one salmon landed and a lot lost.  The mackerel were hunting in schools around Knife Island and off the rocks bars of Indian, but we couldn't manage one bigger that 75cm.  Heaps of other fish on the flats just off those bars, there were school of javelin fish, bream and snapper.  In one spot it was a fish a cast, just crazy!!

A 44cm snapper

 In one small creek there was so many threadies, you could nearly walk across the water on them.  Cliff and Les (and old workmate of ours) also managed a metre plus barra.  Between a 110 and 120cm they estimate.   The got it to the boat twice, but on the third occasion, just as Cliff was bringing it to the boat, the beast shook its head and broke the gold bomber lure in half, then swam off with the back half still hooked up.  Now its just another fishing story.

Not sure what this is, but a good fish. (From Dion, it is a sombre sweetlip or brown bastard)

Great goldie.

Hags and Di got fish down in the Annie.  Pete O and his family had a day like our first day. Dave and Jeff took advantage of having no easterly winds and fished the flats down the front of Indian.  Jeff was apparently trying to hypnotize one barra by zig zagging it back and forward, even hitting it with the tip of his rod, but it would not take the fly.  The WWW team, Dorothee, Graeme and Wayne Williams landed some good fish too.  Photos to come!.

We also got onto bait balls at the top of Indian.  We've been trying out some crab flies on the sandy flats near the trees at Hutt Point just as the tide started to rise, when we saw the birds start to gather then they were in a feeding frenzy over three big bait balls just off Hutt.

What made this more special, is that the water was Gin clear and you could see down below the balls, where there were schools of huge trevally rounding the balls up, while tuna and mackerel with the odd big queenie cut through them on the top.   Sharks and dolphins were having a go too.

Underneath these birds are fish that were about to unleash hell.

Cathie's first cast into one of the balls ended after a mackerel about 2 mtres long cut the fly off.   Tied on a similar fly with a short trace and that fixed the problem, and for the next three hours we had a ball.  I think we must have lost about ten kilos in sweat fighting fish.

One of the tuna

After pulling these in you're too tired to hold them up.

The last one of these I ever want to hook.

As soon as you put a fly out it was hit, and we had a double hook up at one stage on tuna.  Not easy fishing, but managed to get them both in.  Five in all from 82cm to 97cm.  Then the bloody trevally hit us. Cathie got an 85cm in and I had to have a go then.  No more double hook ups on these!!  I thought the tuna were hard to get in, well I hope this is the last of these big trevally I hook, didn't even measure the bloody thing because I was too tired, and broke the rod which had landed four tuna and two of these big trevally.   Its only an 8 foot 8wt 300 -400 gn.  TFO Mini Magnum, and we had put so much pressure on it, to the extent we were shaking with the effort as these fish ran.  I made the mistake of trying to left this last one into the net and high sticked the rod.  Broke the butt.   Stupid fisherman, absolutely great rod.

The fly- what's left of it.

After all that we were all fished out.  Would not cast another fly just in case a bigger trevally took the fly.  So we went in early and were nearly too tired to get to dinner later that evening.  Luckily we were able to put back on the weight we lost thanks to the great hospitality at Sand Palms!

The Bassetts

Another fishing weekend @ Bynoe.

Another weekend draws to a close and the fishing is now just memories and history. I took a trip out to Bynoe with a few others to give the neaps a go. Many a skeptics quote the adage “no run, no fun” so don’t venture out, their loss.

Saturday started at 5.30am with the sea breeze well and truly showing its presence with a short and sharp chop on the water at that hour. Ventured up to Turtle Island area only to find the water made dirty by the persistent wave motion, so I made my way around the corner towards Hardies Inlet. All the rocky outcrops held schools of decent size GT’s and Queenfish which decorated the boat floor with scales and blood splatters. With the wind not letting up it was a trip across the open water to Dum In Mirrie Island to find some protection. This was new water for me so had no idea what it could offer.

With the tide on the way in the water here was also similar to Pauls Iced Coffee but once I ventured into one of the small island creeks the clear water was found. Drifting in with the tide casting into the mangrove roots produced, GT’s, Queenies, Bream, Archer Fish, Catfish and Barra with the fly being attacked every third or fourth cast by some species or other. As the creek became narrower the Barra became greater in numbers, I suspect it may have had something to do with the amount of mullet schooling up. Could have got out of the boat and walked across their backs they were that thick. Saw some large Barra in places that were impossible to get a fly into but found that if I made my usual bad cast with a slap on the water at the edge of the snags eventually one would be tempted out to investigate. Once hooked hanging on with the lack of open water was a different thing. Managed to put 4 Barra on the floor of the boat.

As many of these as you wish to catch

The trip back to Milne Inlet compressed my spine that much I’m now only 5 feet 6 inches tall!

What a difference a day makes. Sunday saw another launch before 6.00am with glass conditions that lasted through till 1.00pm when I got back to the ramp. With these conditions I made an easy run up to Turnbull Bay. With a low of just over 3 metres this provided the ability to stay on the flats within the bay for the duration of the turn. A couple of weeks ago the water was crystal clear here, this week it was almost as good and to round things off there were fish everywhere along the edge of the tree line. In short, boated almost 20 Barra, lost about the same number to cut offs or not being able to stop them getting into the timber. Had a huge Queenie appear from nowhere in less than a metre of water take the fly at the boat, proceeded at great speed under the boat, me lunging the rod straight into the water burying the tip into the mud with aerial somersaults being undertaken behind me. If anyone catches that fish can I have the “Roggie Dodgie Fly” back!  

Typical fish for the weekend

One of my best days fishing because it was “on” all the time not just at intervals. At one stage had 4 consecutive casts and hooked (not all landed) 4 sight cast fish. Whilst the fish were not large, smallest 53cms, largest 61cms it was fun.

To top things off saw two Dugong cruising around the bay, then on the way out met up with Graeme, Dorothy and Wayne and while we were having a chat another Dugong showed itself within metres of us. What a great place we have available to us!

Deluxe accommodation Jim's style

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

Tight lines

Jim Churchley

Hi everyone. I'm thinking of heading to bynoe on Tuesday for the day and following morning.
Keen to catch up with anyone in the area
Watty

Casting The next step

Dealing with such a diverse range of people as a Flyfishing guide there are some basic rules in casting.All of us with the basic interest in being a Flyfisher will have that knowledge.

Where do you go from here,do you experiece this ?

See a cruising Barra,at 25ft and by the time you get it together its 45 ft away and leaving.
It takes more then two casts to put a fly in the right strike zone.
Wind has more control of the line then I do.
No way I will be getting the fly under there.
land a fly on a mudcrab at 70ft in two casts

Speed casting,Double haul, Reverse and Forward Drift, The controlled stop, Tight and open loops,Utilising a trailing loop,Roll casting, Accuracy, reverse casts,water hauls and allowing for the wind.

Thats a fair mouthfull but believe me its not rocket science,you can learn all the above which to me seperates reasonable casters from the great casters.

You can achieve very long casts with one false cast,but only when you need it,you can cast in the park with fluent sweeps back and forth (I call this video casting) looks great but this is not for fishing situations.

With this in mind Wayne Williams, Dorothee and I and are extending an Invitation to all the NT Flyfishers Social Mob  (NTFSM)  that we want to have a  morning clinic at the Ski Club (which might be the first,and needing a second) and then later afternoon a  BBQ at our place,there is no charge but depending on numbers everyone might bring something.

Date is either Saturday 24th or Sunday the 25th August (depending on everyones availability) Its a lousy tide anyhow,if you are interested email
insightflyfishing@bigpond.com.au or ring 0412481592.

Cheers Graeme

FINALLY - THE WIND HAS DROPPED AND THE HUMIDITY IS BACK!

It seems ages since we have had a fish, but it was early July in the BSSS.  The last month the wind has kept a lot of us indoors instead of fishing.  However, as usually happens, as September approaches, the wind is dropping and there are some great tides.   Take this weekend for instance, wind during the day is forecast from 2 to 6 kph for the day, the water is clear and the tides look like this....

......great for fly fishing.

The next good tides appear to be at the end of August and the end of September.  Neaps, hopefully with clear water and little wind. So its time to put away the winter woollies and get out in the warm again.

You may have noticed that there has been some mist about in the early morning as the humidity returns, and from past experience, its from around now up until the wet proper that we seem to have the best fishing in the salt flats.  ( I hope I don't have to eat my words) but here are some photo's from mid August in the past....

August Barra 2012

Mid August Tuna

A mid August Trevor 

NOTE: Little wind and clear water similar to the forecasts for the weekend.   Hope there are similar fish around too.

We have been getting consistent reports that both harbours have more barra showing than fishers have seen in the past.  Though it appears they have been a bit reluctant at times to take a fly or lure, then when the water warms a bit more, they go off.  Catches of twenty each for some out in Bynoe, with a variety of other species too.  

Reports say there are some really big barra being seen and the same can be said about the threadies.  

Another Mid August beauty

We are going to venture out this weekend because of the good conditions and hopefully will have some more information (all true!) for you.

The Bassetts

From Turnbull Bay to the East (Part 1)

The tides from the 19th of July looked great and a cold front was moving through the Bight. The weather was looking good for a session at Bynoe. I picked Craig Magill up from the airport and we prepared everything for an early start on Saturday and off we went. For those that don't know, you can drive right into Turnbull bay. The track is off the old Bynoe access road off Cox Peninsula Rd and it's pretty rough. At roughly 20km, towing a tinny takes about an hour and a half.
Twenty minutes in and the Cruiser felt like it was struggling a bit, and a quick glimpse in the wing mirror revealled that disaster had struck and so early in the adventure too. Was this to be an omen for the next couple of days.  According to my stars in Saturday's NT News it was! The trailer axle had broken away from the spring and had swung back destroying the mudguard, essentially stopping the wheel from spinning, so the vehicle was dragging the trailer. A close inspection suggested that we'd better make a hasty repair and head home to make the necessary repairs, or.....make a hasty repair and keep going. The later decision won out and we soldiered on. It's funny how the old Darwin comeraderie seems to be lacking these days. During the half an hour or so that it took to tie up the axle, 3 vehicles pushed past and not one wound down the window and asked if we were ok! I thought that was a shame, years ago that jsut wouldnt have happened.



The anchor rope comes in handy again.

We managed the next 10km over the dirt without incident and arrived at the camping spot, on a Saturday morning and thankfully we had the place to ourselves. Sunday began nice and clear and calm so we wandered down to the sandbars below camp for a wade. There were schools of small queenfish patrolling the shallows and they were pretty easy to pick off with a small clouser.

Small but fun

Kate managed a 40cm giant herring that nailed the fly so close to the beach, that when it felt the hook and jumped, it landed on dry sand and was duly claimed, unhooked and released without a photo or realisation about how bloody special it is to catch one, oh well the next 2 mornings were spent trying to repeat the process without success. Anyhow Kate, Craig and I jumped in the tinny for a morning adventure over to the top of Indian Is. As you can imagine 3 in the tinny is a little tight, so we took turns at fishing. We found the usual schools of trevally, queenies and Russels snapper but mostly small.

We continued up the eastern side of Indian while it was still calm and were prospecting for golden snapper over a reef ledge when I hooked a jawfish. As I was bringing it up, a huge queenfish appeared out of nowhere and inspected the poor little bugger very closely before tearing off back over the reef edge. About 10 minutes later he reappeared behind Kate's clouser and ate it, much to the stunned amazement of everyone on board. Well this was the first fish Kate has hooked that was actually removing line, really quickly. She responded well to directions shouted to her from Craig and yours truely and a queeny of about 1.1-1.3 lept clear of the water about 50m out. It then decided to swim back toward the boat-smart queenfish! Poor kate was simply unable to keep a tight line on this fish and as the line pulled up tight again, the fly dropped out! Yep you can imagine the language! We spent another 20 minutes here for a couple of small snapper and stripies, yep real ones, before heading up to the top of the island. The wind was just starting to pick up and it was about 11am. Small schools of queenies were busting up on the patchy reef so a few casts were had, but the wind was starting to be a pain. Kate sat down and I grabbed her little 8 wt for a couple of casts. Well you can imagine what happened. On the first cast, the little green clouser was nailed..........by a GT that after 35 minutes was measured at just over 80cms. Kate's poor little Vision fly reel was a wobbly mess, the drag pretty well stuffed. She fished the rest of the weekend with a Lamson borrowed from Craig.

Kate's little Vision wasn't the only one feeling a little wobbly, the wind had really started to pick up and at around 20 knots we decided to head into the sheltered beach on Indian and have a break and some lunch. A decision was made that it was far too rough to head back to Turnbull the way we came and that it would be far more sheltered on the western side of Indian Is so off we charged. We travelled for about 45 minutes hugging the left hand shoreline thinking we'd come out through the narrow channel that seperates Indian from the mainland. We passed by a couple of boats fishing or anchored out of the wind and continued on our merry way. We poked our bow around a small rocky outcrop and spotted a huge croc basking in the afternoon sun.


That's a real croc, no photo-shopping here!




Some would say 25 foot, others would say 21, some would even suggest that it was a cardboard cut out! But no, it is real and he lives somewhere on Indian Island. We took some shots in absolute amazement and continued on, thinking we really must be nearing the bottom of the island soon. The channel started to narrow as expected and we had finally made it, gee Indian is a long island, the channel just kept going and was getting narrower and narrower, until it wasn't much wider than the boat. Bugger!! We didnt have a GPS, or the usual fish finder magazine so we did all we could, assumed we'd taken a left up a creek. So under Kate's instruction we headed back out of the creek and assuming we'd turned left into the creek and knowing there are no really big creeks on Indian assumed again we were on the mainland side, we turned right out of it and believed we were on the right track again as we passed boats fishing or anchored out of the wind and continued on our merry way. Hang on, didn't we pass them on the way in.... 45 minutes later we were back at the top of Indian Island wondering where the hell we went wrong. We were low on fuel by this stage so had no choice but to smash it into the wind and head the hard way back to camp. I hope someone can tell me where we went wrong because I still can't work it out even after looking at Google Earth.

That evening was spent chucking flies at the little queenies on the sandbar below camp.  Just before dark I was just enjoying casting off the beach instead of in a crowded tinny and was concentrating more of enjoying the act of fly casting rather than fishing, but my little pink clouser was in the water and something ate it, much to my amazement.  After a fiesty tussle I beached a nice little golden trevally of around 45cm.

The next day dawned full of promise, but that rapidly dimished with the arrival of a cold south easter picking up from about 15 knots. Kate opted to stay at camp so Craig and I headed off to the creeks in Turnbull bay looking for a barra or threadie. We hooked 4 and landed 1 plus a head of bream, queenies and trevally. The barra was a great size for a feed at 68cm and scoffed a WWSTS fly. 
We found a great snag on one little creek inlet that was crawling with bream and snapper, then jacks moved in and finally barra, but of all these fish we only boated a couple of small bream. That's when problem number 3 arose.  The gear shift on the outboard no longer served any useful function.  The motor (luckily) was stuck in forward.  No nuetral or reverse.  Time to go I think!

We threw the  crab pots in that afternoon and got ridiculously drunk that night, to the point of walking out at low tide to check the crab pots in the mangroves.  Don't ask me why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. 
The following morning dawned even windier than the day before, so we decided to call it quits and head home.  We still had the trailer to repair, so we packed up our extensive belongings and retied the makeshift spring arrangement on the trailer and limped home, happy to report that anchor rope makes a good axle support.  All in all though it was a fun trip with some nice fish caught.
But..... stay tuned for the next exciting installment of Craig and Dion's East Alligator adventure, but first we have some welding to do, and some outboard motor repairs, not to mention some navigation training.
See ya soon.

She’s quite a catch!

From Dave Krantz

Something a bit different 

Couple who love fishing marry in a river filled with salmon, flanked by groomsmen carrying rods and wearing waders

• Couple exchange vows knee-deep in the Buskin River, in Kodiak, Alaska
• Wedding rings presented in the mouths of two king salmon
• Pair then caught a couple of pink salmon to celebrate their union

Most brides have a dream wedding that they try to create for their special day.

For this bride, it's perhaps questionable whether this was what she envisioned for her wedding day for all those years.

Regardless, it's clear from the beaming smiles on the faces of both the bride and groom, as they stand knee deep in freezing, flowing waters of a salmon river in Alaska, that this is the perfect wedding for them.

Groomsmen holding fly fishing rods watch as Kadie and Dake Schmidt exchanged their vows, knee deep in a salmon river in Alaska

Bridesmaids look on as Kadie and Dake Schmidt, right, exchange a kiss at the end of their wedding ceremony

Flanked by supportive bridesmaids and groomsmen, wearing protective long waders, the happy couple exchanged their vows to the sound of the running river in the remote but beautiful setting.

 

Kadie Walsh and Dake Schmidt, both local fishing guides, opted for a rather nontraditional salmon fishing theme for their entire wedding.

The couple's rings were presented each in the mouths of two king salmon and both the bridesmaids and groomsmen were carrying fishing rods complete with flower posies throughout the ceremony.

Stunning setting: It was arguably a beautiful setting for the ceremony, with Pillar Mountain in the background. The majority of the wedding party kept their feet dry, watching from the shoreline

Unafraid of getting their hands messy, the couple then caught their own pair of pink salmon to commemorate their special union

Shortly after the newlyweds were married, they were each handed a rod and both caught their own pair of handsome pink salmon on the Buskin River, on Alaska's southern Kodiak island.

While marrying in the freezing fishy waters of a fast-flowing river in Alaska might not be everyone's cup of tea for their special ceremony, Mr and Mrs Schmidt, it appears, couldn't have been happier with the arrangement. 

The setting might be unusual but some elements of the special day followed the traditional course, including Kadie's minor make-up touch-ups from the bridesmaids

Impressed: Clearly enjoying the salmon-themed wedding, one groomsman stopped to watch with awe as two large king salmon are removed from the ceremony

“Honey I’ve lost the car!”

“Honey I’ve lost the car!” Those are the words spoken by the Sydney tourist when he had to report to the wife that he had reversed the car and trailer into the creek off the Milne boat ramp last Friday. It is still there, in about 5 metres of water to the right of the ramp. With the tides starting to build it could be at Knife Island very soon.  

Strong forecast winds could not deter a good number of the “Mob” off Bynoe this weekend. Those launching at first light were rewarded with glass conditions and water clarity never seen before in certain areas. Saturday produced sightings of huge numbers of Barra and Threadies on the sheltered flats at the back of Indian Island. Although the fish were there, getting them to attack the fly was a challenge but those that persevered were rewarded with scales on the boat floor. One lucky angler sight casted and landed a 70cm Golden Trevally, great catch!

 Although the wind was never far away strategic positioning on flats out of the wind produced a bag limit of Barra in the Esky with some Threadies to round things off. Not sure if it was because of the water clarity but all fish, not matter what size, punched well above their weight with Barra, Tarpon and Threadies giving great aerial displays. I must get that “GoPro”.

Turnbull Bay was gin clear with an easy 4 metre visibility which made things very visual when a Barra would appear from nowhere off the bottom or out of the mangroves to attack the fly. Had a good yarn to one of the crabbers who was complaining about the clarity but he was saying that there are huge mobs of Barra schooling up the small creeks off Turnbull Bay for those of you strong enough to brave the sandflies, very friendly this weekend!!

                    

Another great weekend on Bynoe, fish in the freezer, we are in God’s country.

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

Tight Lines

Jim Churchley