The Stig's report on Bynoe 7th Sept 2014

See The Stig's blog at Swoffing NT waters

Fog bound mornings are not my usually experience since moving to Darwin, but Sunday morning was just that on to way from a mate;s place at Dundee beach to one of the two boat ramps onto Six Pack arm of Bynoe Harbour. We used the one off Barramundi Drive, Don't like it (too steep) at bottom of tide but top of tide it's great. When it's steep the boat at front of trailer could be tied on and the back keeps moving around  especially if tide is racing by, quite difficult. You need to get the front on, move trailer forward a bit and the check all is in place before getting all the way out as the back of the boat tends to be at a different floating angle to the trailer.High tide was just an a hour earlier than our launch time of 6:30am. The water was smooth as, and the pink sun just poking its head through the mangroves at the water edge towards the east
We headed at WOT to Simms Reef out front of the harbour hoping for some mackerel to be lurking near it
On the reef already, there was an a mate's boat from Darwin Fly Rodder club (who had their fishing competition on the weekend). We had a quick chat and moved away about 100 metres to do our thing.

They had hooked up to a few queenies as we arrived but there was zero visible signs of fish activity. There were some birds working a couple of hundred metres north of Simms but once we got there it was easily seen as just small 15cm Fringefinned trevally bursting at the water surface.

We preserved blind casting for a while but given the tide was half out we headed in fishless (so far) for the back of Turtle Island. The flat there was almost too shallow for us to fish so we had to travel too fast to get off it before it dried off and left us high and dry for four hours before the water came back.
Worse still it was covered in fish, big slashing queenies, heaps of small groups (5-25) of blue salmon, heaps of rays - we still caught nothing but it was awesome seeing so many fish on the flat - MUST BE THERE WITH 50cm more water next time!

Right up in the really shallow water - 20cm or less of water about three casting distances - there were occasional huge rushes of baitfish out of the water to escape predators (that we could see!)

We proceeded off flat towards the bays on the western side of Turtle island, we saw a few fish but again either we spooked them or they showed no interest in us or our flies.

Having had such an awesome day, water temp good, breeze gentle - we (I mean me!) were getting a bit frustrated. We thought we would give the flats opposite Six Pack Arm a few hours of cruising and search for species given the 2+m low neap tide meaning no chance of getting stuck on the mud, however, half way there from Turtle island we come upon some large slashes at the merest of sand points on an otherwise bare shoreline. We had found (stumbled on!) an area with some grey mackerel with varying in size queenfish amongst them.

But again while they attacked the schools of baitfish with abandon, regardless of colour, size and fly changes they showed rare interest in our flies. The deckie got one grey mack that cheered us slightly (I.e. Not me!)

I had a couple of quite large queenfish follow my Fleye Foil fly (I had made the week before) to the boat , shouldering each other to follow but even though they had some half hearted swipes at it didn't hook up. I had had so many 'almost' hook ups so far that day it was getting quite frustrating. I had made the 2/0 Fleye Foils quite long as in previous outings the macks had a preference for longer flies. Even trimming them on the boat - didn't help hookup the fish that were repeatedly swiping and slashing at the back of the fly.
We did have a mini worm hatch - well one at least -
This one worm was swimming along (quite fast too) just under the surface, in the middle of all the baitfish getting hammered by the grey mackerel - maybe I should have used a worm fly!

After that excitement.....
We chase the macks and queenies for a few hours as they disappeared and appeared, herding and attacking the baitfish - and we missed the bottom of the tide time we wanted to fish the flats. So headed round bottom of Indian Island and went over to Knife Island - a 'sure thing' location in the past. But here too we found nothing, yes a few occasional slashes but nothing consistent or interested in our flies. We did manage a few small queenies and one or two baby trevs but nothing  too exciting.

Until......
After being glass off with no wind for a few hours, the wind finally arrived whichever caused us to move round to the leeward side of Knife Island. Given water had risen to bottom of the mangrove lower limbs I switched to a prawn pattern (the BFCW) hoping for a barramundi hanging there in ambush. After 60 or so metres of casting to shadows under the trees for naught - not a scale or sparkle or flash. We were almost to the corner and back in the wind.
I should have been more attentive because a 70-80cm barramundi had followed the fly 5-6m from its ambush possie. Its head was just millimetres from the fly. I did a fast strip, it moved just as fast and again positioned itself just behind and close enough to be tickled by the rubber legs of fly. Pause, small strip, pause, and again the barra would copy the fly's movements - BUT NOT TAKE THE FLY!!!!!  Aaaarrrrgggghh!!!!

So all day I had follows, half takes and no hook ups! Maybe Graeme William's 'low tide at midday is no good' theory has merit - ??? (see Everyone love the Moon )

We then worked the mangrove edges at the bottom of Indian Island while hoping for a barra. The deckie got a small Estuary Cod on a BFCW fly which changed things up a bit and gave him a new species for his 'all time capture list'.

To top of this type of day, we fished a mangrove flat right at the back of Six Pack and found nothing, but on last tree the deckie had a follow from a huge metre plus barracuda, thicker than my lower leg. Again, it mimicked the movement of the fly - fast or slow stripped, it stayed just behind and under the fly, Nothing we tried could induce it to take the fly. It travelled 20m from its snag as we drifted along with the current before finally fading away into the depths.

Seems all the fish for the trip had the same attitude, a bit like a hot chick at a nightclub- all follow and no take (i would have taken an ugly fish today given my poor form!).

I heard today only a few barramundi were captured by the guys at the DFR competition so maybe it wasn't just me who was frustrated by the fishing on the weekend and its uncommitted fish!
Hope the fishing is different in two weeks when we are SWOFFING at a tournament with the NT Fly Fishers Social Mob in the same area.