FOLLOW POSTS via EMAIL?

Just saw on the STIG'S site the link to allow people to put in their email to get posts when they are published, great idea so I have also added it to our blog site...will also put in a search box because its hard finding some things....will see how they work????

THE STIG AT LEE POINT.....

Courtesy of the Stig and Canadian Pete

Lee Point Trip report - Goldens, Macks and queenies

Spent late Saturday afternoon helping Canadian Pete, putting in a 24 volt battery system and his new toy - an 80lb motorguide GPS guided trolling motor.

What a huge electric thruster. You can even get 36volt version now. I remember buying one of the first models available in Australia - a hand tiller one I had on a canoe to fish Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast – it was a no combustion engine dam. Would have been late 80’s early 90’s

How things have changes. Track memory, anchor points, home points all at the touch of a button

The scary thing was drilling those holes to hold the plate down and getting it right!

 so absolute 

Once that was done – the rest was easy.

Still a few more things to do – wiring on trailer a bit iffy and get another 120amp battery (using one 

of mine at the moment)

So with that done a little sleep and up at 5;30am to get on water at Dinah Beach ramp before the sunrise.

Weather was going to be windy but manageable in Peter’s higher sided, thicker hulled boat when compared with mine.

We head out to Lee Point with a short stop in Caitlyn Bay – just in case some Golden trevally in that same corner on that same stage of the dropping tide – but not today.

Once out to Lee Point several other boats were there but none fly fishing

Around these boats, fish were readily seen busting up bait that was huddled for shelter over a reef that was being exposed by the dropping tide

The other boats were casting lures and baits for no effect except some small yellow tail pike

Second cast I was on to a mackerel, Peter not much later.

We had double hook ups and at least one of us hooked up most of the next two hours.

The other boats – almost nothing. You could hear them talking about how they wished they had taken up fly fishing.

we had a great time, watching the mackerel react to the flies in very clear water. they were just rolling around in amongst the bait. You could even pick the fish you wanted to cast to - awesome  fun!

It was almost embarrassing the fish numbers we were catching (when compared to the other boat working the same area – Golden trevally when you let the fly sink right down to edge of reef, - yellow tail pike, queenies and mackerel depending on the stripping action you put on the fly and location of cast. used clousers in white,  blue over white, and surf candies  blue, charteuse, and all white. I don't think fly type mattered as much as size, stripping action and location cast to.

While Nothing big - heaps and heaps of fun - Queenies to 45cm, mackerel to 50 (but quite solid in the hand not skinny like previous outings), Goldens to 40cm (kept a few of these Goldens for dinner)

We ventured off to find bigger fish. Found some tuna but they were quite sporadic and only in ones and twos. Bust up here, bust up over there – chase them and they wold bust up  where you once were!

No luck with the tuna - quite frustrating to see them and not get them!*(^*^$*^%#^&%#

Spent rest of day visiting our favourite spots around the harbor for not much else – a queenie or two, a Mack. Once Peter got a small Strippie that got muscled by a huge dark shape that stayed connected for a while before breaking the leader and shredding part of the fly line.

So tough day but plenty of fish early on – best part no one but  fly fishers getting in to the fish at Lee Point – GO THE FLY!!!!

 When is the next trip???????????  

(four weeks of school holidays coming up  next week so should get more SWOFFING in
I hope - as usually something goes wrong with the my boat in the first trip of school holidays and I don't fish for the rest of the holiday break!

Here is a very bad bit of filming of a small golden under the water just before netting and release

Juvenile Goldens are so vibrant in their colours and in their never say die fighting style that makes them  feel far bigger then what eventually you get in the net!

SPOT X - KAKADU WITH THE BROKENFLAGONS

Marty & I left late on Friday - around 7pm. We had a good run through to the turn off and made it through to the creek crossing. We were a little surprised at how deep and sloppy the creek crossing was - definitely 4WD only! The going was very slow and rough after the creek - like a totally different track. It took about 25 minutes to go around 5 Kms! We used low range first gear and crawled along so slowly that the odometer read 0km all the way!

Oh bugger! (Toyota....oh what a feeling!)

We arrived at the boat ramp at about 11pm and to our absolute joy, we were the only people there........sometimes I do think there may be a god! By the time we had launched the boat and set up camp it was just after midnight. 

Sparrows!! Morning Glory

Up at sparrow's, we set off with coffees and high expectations into the predawn gloom and headed downstream. I have to say, the fish were slow coming on the bite and after a number of teasing bites Marty eventually (8.30am) landed the first fish. A beautiful Barra..........oh no.......someone forgot the brag mat........so no fish measurements this report!! Not a big fish......but a Barra (about 65cm). 

 First fish.... The champion for the weekend

We hung around for another hour or so and although we hooked up, we couldn't land anything. 

We headed back to get more coffee and then went upstream to the wonderful snaggy end of the billabong and......OMG! It was like a switch was flicked and the fish started jumping onto the lure......Marty's lure anyway!  I (Justine) couldn't do anything right and was ready to stick out her bottom lip and go home when after another hour Marty had landed 5 fish (Toga, Barra and large hungry archer fish) and I had barely had a nibble! 

Wasn't long though (just seemed like an eternity before my first fish) and both of us were hauling them in. The water flashed with fish around the snags and rock bar, often with several fish chasing the lures. As soon as an area went quiet, we moved on to the next snag and there were more fish.....everywhere. 

 Picked Jus's bottom lip up.....

...and even land based...darkside

We had a break late afternoon, tied the boat up and wandered up one of the little feeder creeks. Yes....within 5 minutes we had both landed Barras. Over Saturday and Sunday morning, we reckon we landed around 50 fish in the boat which included Barra, Togas, Sooty Grunter, Tarpon and Archer fish. (No catfish).

 We probably lost or failed to hook up on just as many as we caught. 

Smallest Sooty of the weekend

All in all, this was a great weekend of fishing at a beautiful spot. We came home with aching arms and totally knackered! 

Weekends champion angler - Marty

Most noteworthy fish - toga about 70cm to Jus

     The Brokenflagons

GREAT FLY - Fly Tying: Andreas Andersson's Aino

There are a lot of parts in this fly, but I think it would be a humdinger for the barra, yellow and red especially....

BONEFISH SCHOOLING

"Rare" Australian bonefish filmed schooling in deep water at Heron Island!During a recent deep water study, a team of AIMS’ researchers, led by Drs Michelle Heupel and Mike Cappo, captured surprise footage of a significantly large school of bonefish in 18m of water.Bonefish (Albula forsteri) are known as the "grey ghost of the flats" in the Americas where they form the basis of an avid and lucrative sport fishery. Whole economies are built around catch-and-release sight-fishing on very shallow tidal flats. Only a handful of bonefish have ever been caught in Australia, where they are supposedly very rare.The school was filmed as the team conducted an underwater experiment to refine the capacity of the BRUV (baited remote underwater video stations) survey technique - a method used throughout the world to survey fish and sharks.To learn more about this exciting area of research, please see: http://www.aims.gov.au/docs/research/monitoring/seabed/video-monitoring.htmlVideo courtesy of Dr Mike Cappo, AIMS
Posted by Australian Institute of Marine Science on Sunday, February 15, 2015

"Rare" Australian bonefish filmed schooling in deep water at Heron Island!During a recent deep water study, a team of AIMS’ researchers, led by Drs Michelle Heupel and Mike Cappo, captured surprise footage of a significantly large school of bonefish in 18m of water.Bonefish (Albula forsteri) are known as the "grey ghost of the flats" in the Americas where they form the basis of an avid and lucrative sport fishery. Whole economies are built around catch-and-release sight-fishing on very shallow tidal flats. Only a handful of bonefish have ever been caught in Australia, where they are supposedly very rare.The school was filmed as the team conducted an underwater experiment to refine the capacity of the BRUV (baited remote underwater video stations) survey technique - a method used throughout the world to survey fish and sharks.To learn more about this exciting area of research, please see: http://www.aims.gov.au/docs/research/monitoring/seabed/video-monitoring.htmlVideo courtesy of Dr Mike Cappo, AIMS

EVERGLADES ...PART TWO....THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY....BUGGER!!....THEN PART THREE AND MORE

Note: for a clearer picture..click the play arrow and then click the settings then  in quality  and you can go up to 1080HD

This first part is a series of fish...that Dion 'releases' a good distance from the boat, or when they get stuck in snags.....

Now an  appetiser for  the next part ....take note of the requirements below and you will understand why Steve releases the fish at the boat without bringing it in....

• People will be allowed to temporarily possess a tarpon for photography, measurement of length and girth and scientific sampling, with the stipulation that tarpon more than 40 inches must remain in the water.

On the podium 

and a bonus of some of the wildlife

EVERGLADES WITH DION, KATE AND STEVE HUFF.....PART ONE.

*For more information click onto the highlighted links

For nearly six months we have been trying to download Dion and Kate's video of their trip with *Steve Huff  in the Florida Everglades.   The trip was apparently planned when Steve was down here fishing with *Dottie and Graeme during the *Bynoe Sheep Station Stakes.  Now the video that we have is rather large and you tube and vimeo would not accept it, so I have been trying to figure out how to put it on the blog....finally we have given up trying to put the whole video on and have broken it down into parts, apologise if we missed anything, but these computers don't seem to want to do what we want them to do.....

So here is Part One....(working on Part Two etc)

**for a clearer picture..click play and then click the settings then  in quality  and you can go up to 1080HD

Bigger Fish and a Choice of Style

I think every Fly fisher thinks or dreams about  bigger fish at times, with Barra location is a factor
mostly dictated by the environment they inhabit. Big females that congregate in the  rivers are the 1m up to 1.4m holy grail to a lot of people, the fly fisher if he wishes can tangle with these run off monsters but as good as it is its still predominantly speculative.

Watch and Barra will lift to look or scoot from one section to another

                   
Years ago and primarily because my trout background of find the fish then catch it mentality I chose the sight fishing option..  Visual contact over and above anything else is an adrenalin rush its down to you, regardless if you get it wrong its obvious, get it right and you get the strike.
Colour changes in shallows where a knowing flash is seen is exciting drains that Barra lift and look at you are great, sinking flies down snags and rock bars is not my thing. Frankly you don't normally see them in that situation, drifting flies deep in big rivers has personally never interested me.

Terry Garret and his first ever sighted Barramundi

                               
Going down methods got a lot more legs around 2005 when a prominent fishing identity gave a talk "Go Deeper" in the Salt water Challenge, that  killed the beauty of the visual hunt for me and the competition points went through the roof with cricket score Snapper recorded, mind you a lot of people caught stuff, that's always great but a personal choice stops my use of heavy weighted fly lines and techniques in there use.

Golden Trevally are a bonus in some clear shallows

Long time friend Craig Wilson was with me last week and over a discussion he asked how do I target the bigger fish in Bynoe harbour," bigger"here is 70 cm's up to mid 90 cm's,  metre Barra are a bit like political integrity, they exist but are rare.

Big Barra like vacating deep edges early

                                                 
There are flats in Bynoe that hold generally bigger fish thats a fact, you go there and you will see them ,they tend to leave earlier on the drop obviously more wary and can be very suspicious.

Hard to pass up a good free swimming Tarpon

                                      
I told Craig and his Fishing partner Terry Garret, that the best thing is stake it out and  ignore all else, if  you get the shot, it will be brief as the water on some of these flats is dropping fast maybe three shots in it before I have to vacate out, I have no desire to experience blank looks for hours on end and you already know all my jokes.

Came the 5th day in to the springs and we did that, first fish we got a shot too was spotted and a nice cast about 50ft, the Barra did a classic inhale shook its head and spat it out, I said, "Weren't you supposed to strike ?" and he said, "Would you believe it swum into the shimmer and I never saw the take!", admittedly that happens quite often especially early morning.

The results of a good stake out

                                                   
Next one up with me getting a real hollow feeling about having to leave allowed one shot which at 45ft was a good cast, a metre in front, but in line with it and promptly ignored, unfortunately what looks like 10 cms from the fish with refraction in 30 cm's of water is close to a metre away.next cast was spot on and hooked well. I drove the electric all the way out during the fight fish or no fish out was the only option.

The discipline in waiting is, no sounder, no moving, no casting and let them come to you.

Throw a hookless Popper and see what shows up

                                      
Last week the first 5 days were brilliant good fish in double numbers Golden Trevally,  big Queenfish heaps of small ones, One session late in the afternoon I threw a hookless popper around and on a mirror surface had a Queenfish create a 20 cm high bulge behind it for about 20 metres, had to be 15 kg at a minimum.

Fast, Spectacular the big Queenfish

                                                 

The rain and wind and cloud turned up for the last two days ,at least the water temp kept to 27,28'c and doing a lot of hiding we managed to produce a few good fish .

BYNOE SHEEP STATION STAKES...FOR OCT 2015

Looking at running the BSSS over the weekend of the 10th and 11th October 2015 ....will give updates as the time gets closer....

here are the tides for that weekend ....

the sheep have arrived...two packets...

really these.....

and an update for those who are new to the BSSS (Bynoe Sheep Station Stakes)...

Playing for sheep stations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The phrase is a traditional Australian English term to denote something large and/or important. A sheep station is a large sheep farm in Australia or New Zealand.

The phrase 'playing for sheep stations' has both a literal and ironic usage. Literally, it is used to encourage participants to play in a friendly and not too competitive manner. Playing sport or cards or a game of some sort, but not for prizes, one might say 'take it easy, we're not playing for sheep stations'. It could be used starting a game of cards or pool for example, to check whether the game would be played for money, beer, or just pride, asking 'so, are we playing for sheep stations or what?'

In typical Australian fashion, it can also be used to mean the exact opposite, because a sheep station is such a ridiculously expensive item that nobody would bet it on a game, the phrase 'we're playing for sheep stations' can also be used to mean that the game is purely for sport, and there is no bet or prize involved.

First off.  The Bynoe Sheep Station Stakes is a great name thanks to Dion, and Andy has added another gem in calling it, the'non-comp comp' and with that in mind, the new definition of a non comp comp is  "Fishing Trip". So on that basis here are some of the important rules for the BSSS Fishing Trip, and all trippers....whoops, that might not be a politically correct word, so I'll use fishers, are welcome to put in any ideas of modifications or new rules.  There is, however, one stipulation from Cathie, the rules must all be 'nice'.

Rule One:                       Go fishing and have fun

Rule Two:                       If you're not having fun, revert to rule one.

Rule Three:                                                    AND!!!!!

ENTRY IS FREE

The whole idea is to allow everyone a reasonable level playing field by having five (5) species drawn out of a group of around twenty(at this stage) that is made up as much as possible of five of the most usual fish from the three different areas, that is, flats, rock bars and blue water.

The five species drawn out would be the main target species for that particular day. Another five would be drawn that evening for the next day.  Species to be chosen from are, at this stage, golden trevally, all other trevally, queenfish, golden snapper (fingermark), mangrove jack, black bream, catfish, cod, mackerel (all), blue salmon, tarpon, threadfin salmon, ock ock or javelin fish, spanish flag, barramundi and tuna (and more). 

NOTE;  Any number of fishers may be on your boat, providing it is within the legal requirements of the boating regulations.  I know that some will fish the 'Dark Side'  but they may miss out on the glory, and it is really just for fun remember.

Here are the reports from previous years....just click onto them to go to the links

2013    2014