Anyone who knows me also knows I'm a big believer in this age proven method of having a good time on the water.
Those people also know I promote fishing as the act as a whole and am not wrapped up in photos of meter plus barra. I'd rather catch toga than barra at Corroboree Billabong and I enjoy trying to trick a bream in darwin harbour.
Fish like sooty grunter, saratoga, queenfish, golden trevally, giant herring and milk fish are species that would hardly rate a mention in fishing media a few years ago and certainly not in any advertising campaign by the NT government or fishing tour operators.
This has no doubt led to the conditioning of a traveling angler to believe that barra is the only fish worth targeting in our tropical paradise, and the flow on effect of this is that when the wet season is a no show and barra recruitment is poor the fishing tourist plans his/her trip for the year to another destination, taking their dollars away from the NT and spending them elsewhere.
Its a big problem!
Saying that, the wheels are turning. Even in my short time in the NT I have seen the "barra blinkers" come off a bit and people who wouldn't target anything else are now opening their horizons to the plethora of wonderful fishing targets we have at our doorstep.
Fly fishers are one of the main groups of fishos who openly target an armada of species, not because of media hype and publicity but because of the individual challenge each species presents us with as we wipe the sweat out of our eyes on an oppressive build up day on a glassed out harbour arm and ask our mate, "how the hell do we catch these bloody things" pointing at the schooling bream on an oyster rock.
Through my association with the IGFA I have been researching world records which we as territorians can target.
To my surprise I have highlighted over 80 world records for our local species, from junior all tackle right through to fly class.
There are over 50 world records which I have penned in as either beatable or currently vacant for women, many of these are fly class records!
The picture attached is a tarpon of good size, not massive and i know there are plenty bigger out there but the difference is this fish has recently been recognised as a world record for the 4kg mens fly tippet.
The difference in this situation is that we put down the beers and bbq shapes and took the time to document the catch correctly and submitted the required info.
My brother (who is also a guide) used to jokingly say to me, "whats the hardest thing about fly fishing... telling your mates you are gay."
Bad taste I know but now that I have a world record certificate on the wall young Deano is swathing around all over the place!
Id love to have more territorians holding world records and in particular more of our long wand wavers.
If anyone is interested in pursuing a record, let me know and we can get it happening!
Fantastic words Glenn. Get behind him you "Mob" especially the ladies. No better way to promote fly fishing in the NT than to put it in the record books.
ReplyDeleteJim