On the water by 6am
Hot and humid already
A very high cloud mass of a storm is easily seen in the predawn light to the north of the city of Darwin, it has heaps of lightning and rolling thunder. Shouldn’t impact us and our endeavours for a morning’s SWOFFING.
Based on my outing two days ago we are heading straight to Lee Point to fishing the dropping tide.
Hopefully the baitfish will be present and being corralled against the lines of reef, one to three hundred metres offshore of Lee Point by queenfish, trevally, tarpon and macks. We didn't find any tarpon but we are not complaining! (keep reading to see why!)
The water is a little rough - most likely after effects from the series of the nightly coastal storms common this time of year, this morning’s was currently moving offshore to the west.
We get side tracked a few times by working birds on the way to Lee Point- mostly small grey mackerel schools that are very flighty and inconsistent in their movements, and getting anywhere close to the feeding macks, and the birds above them, sees them dispersing faster than we can get there - quite frustrating. Regular deckie, Peter and I call them one of the ‘MMMM’ fish (Maddening Mullet Mackerel and Milkfish) in other words fish that frustrate us when targeting them (usually for no result!).
We catch a virtual aquarium full of species at the various rock bars along the way to Lee Point - but no size - all tiddlers if quite colourful and various. Stripies, baby blue bones, mouth almightys, baby coral trout, and 10 other species I have no idea what they are named.
On our eventual arrival at Lee Point the wind is dissipating, the water was also calming by the minute, and the birds are working in large flocks in several locations nearby. The unique type of sporadic slashes and splashes on the water’s surface clearly indicate mackerel again. But they are all over the place. Up and down before we can even move to chase at times. Even though and despite being an MMMM fish, we give chase, and we chase, and we get the occasional cast in when they are too busy to notice our approach, and we even get a few macks to hand.
We manage (that is fluke) a few other fish or two. A good queenie, a small giant trevally. I get one good queenie that goes nuts zipping all over the place, then we see the brown smudge of a shark chasing it explaining why it was acting such. I let the drag way off and the queenie alludes the shark but once back into the fight and tight lines again - the shark and this time a mate return. The first shark takes the back half of the 60cm queenie in a cloud of bursting redness. The second shark takes the rest and my fly, my backing streams off rapidly and we are about to give chase when the 20lb leader parts as would be expected with a 3m plus sharp toothed reef shark is connected to you on a mono leader.
It is now I realize I left my cap that has the head mount for my action cam on the kitchen bench at home – it would have been great to get that action on video! Lucky I brought the railing mounting clip for the cam.
Once a vast pack of 60 -70cm plus queenies hangs under the boat for a while - following flies but not eating them. BUGGER! an awesome sight seeing so many queenies is such crystal clear water.
Questions arise as to fly choice - size colour action, materials - anything to improve the hook up results. We hedge our bets and fish a few different flies. I settle on the 'no see um' mini calf tail clouser baitfish imitation in size #1 and get good hook up rate. But I also used 50mm long surf candies in blue/white, and also in chartreuse/white, for good results too. The queenies seemed very keen on the chartreuse/white surf candy while the trevs liked the tiny white clouser. The macks didn't seemed to care and frustrated our fly experiments by ignoring whatever we cast to them, then a minute later took the same fly with carefree abandon.
We come across a bit of a pressure wave readily seen in the almost calm conditions – most likely caused by the outgoing tide pressing around and over a submerged rocky reef - on the bottom corner of the reef as the tide flows, fish are constantly busting up the surface attacking the baitfish, along the back and front of the reef more fish are devouring baitfish with abandon. The mackerel are working back and forth and we catch a few, some quite large, as they come within casting range of our anchored boat. Due to lack of wind we can cast in any direction as the fish break the water surface to indicate where to cast to. We catch good queenies to 60cm, trevs to 45cm, and macks to 60-70cm. After a while neither of us have time to count fish caught – it is just cast, strip, “I’m on!", wind in line, net fish, de-hook, toss fish back, cast again – repeat! Over and over. Simply one of the best times we have had on the water up here in Darwin. We would have preferred some larger ones but hey, it was still awesome SWOFFING!
The action for the next 2-3 hours was epic to say the least. Constant double hook ups, rarely was a cast then retrieve done without a follow, several hits or a hook up. We actually were exhausted catching fish and sat down to drink and eat while the fish continued to bust up baitfish schools in every direction from our boat and we were too tired and sore to even put in a cast to the nearest water surface bust up.
Awesome SWOFFING to say the very least. The action was so great we switched over to surface flies for a more visual experience. To have ten to fifteen fish slam your fly in a 30m retrieve was soooo much fun, it should be illegal. Hook ups didn’t even matter. But you never went too many casts using the floating lines and crease flies without a rod getting bent to the handle!
And do you know that we never saw another boat actually fishing and all this only 30mins boat ride from the centre of Darwin city.
Yes it was hot, sweaty and humid but with iced drinks, a few nibbles of food, full and proper sun protection, and resting every now and then to sustain you in such weather conditions - the SWOFFING was out of this world.
On a side note I manage a new PB for a species – this a 68cm Long Tom, schools of them were also into the small baitfish carried along by the fast tidal flow.
The fishing finally slowed to only a few bust ups every few minutes and we thought we would try for a difference experience but with the tide very, very low we had few choices. We visited Weed Reef but I have never ever seen it that exposed and so far from the water. Wickham point too.
For the last hour or so of this outing we hang off the inside gravel bar off Shelly Island waiting for the tide to start to flow in and create a pressure wave. Just like two days ago – like then it again had small trevs (but this time no queenies - ????) hanging off it readily taking any fly swung across and through the pressure wave.
Peter was had it physically from heat ( and I wasn't far behind) and all the fish we had caught. I had a muscle issue in my casting hand from two days of fighting heaps of fish (so sad isn’t it!).
So, we called it a day and dragged the boat out of the water and headed home – very pleased with ourselves.
I also had permission from the wife to fish the next day (24th Dec) but I was so fulfilled with my SWOFFING (and physically sore), I stayed home and tied 60 or so more surf candies and 30 tiny white calf tail based clousers.
One bit of bad news, on removing bungs from boat back at home after this outing, almost 60-100 litres of water streams out almost what seemed endlessly from inside the boat. Crap and bugger me!
Seems I have another crack in my hull to be re-welded. That means no boat based SWOFFING for a while.
So the next few blogs will be focusing on boat repair updates and fly tying – might finally do the tying sequences for that Gold Bomber Fly I have promised too many times!
Finally, based on this outing, I suggest despite the hot and humid weather conditions – cover up for the sun, have plenty of fluids (water not beer!) and go catch some fish - preferably with flies you have made yourself!
see more at - Saltwater Fly Fishing (SWOFFING) Darwin, NT
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