Darwin Harbour fishing 20131227

Find hereabouts an image of one of the 23 fish caught for an early morning session on Friday (27 Dec) at Weed Reef, Darwin Harbour. All fish were about the same size 50-55cm.

They were taking sparse 2/0 white clousers 5-6cm long with a little gold tinsel on a full sinking line today.

Tried a few casts with a gurgler for no follows or slashes. The small packs of queenfish and trevally were working the edges of flats and along the gravel bars. The sprays of fleeing baitfish and jelly prawns were the main indication of where to cast. A few bigger ones were mixed in but unfortunately no hook ups on the big ones today. Most packs showed not much consistency in the way they appeared.

I was fishing a rising tide with a peak at 10:30am of a little over 5m high - the conditions were very overcast skies and sticky hot when no wind

The water was rough with wind from north so moved to leeward side of the reef so less rocking about. Though wind still shifted boat about a lot.

Gradually moved up onto weed reef as the tide rose by grounding boat and moving as boat lifted off reef.

A tougher day than previous trips as i had to move around a lot to get within casting distance of actively feeding fish.

Still lots of fun but I do have to start fishing middle and west arm creeks for other species now my confidence is up (at least on queenies and trevally!).

On way back to ramp I did some casting in under the cliffs of the esplanade between aquascene fishing feeding and stokes wharf – here I managed a few more queenies but very spread out and a lot of boring blind casting in very still conditions - at least the rain held off while I was on the water.

The Stig