NT Fly Fishers Club Meeting Wrap Up

Last Wednesday’s meeting was pretty good with 18 members in attendance, and a lot of apologise.   Running through the new NT Fly Fishers Constitution ran pretty smoothly.  A big thank you to Dion who has done a lot of work on this.

Professor David Cook’s presentation on Barramundi breeders and how they move around the rivers and estuaries was really informative.  Even people not associated to the club listened in and had quite a bit to add to the presentation.  Quite funny.  Thank you so much David.

Completion of the Constitution what does this mean moving forwards?

Dion will add the final touches to the NT Fly Fishers Constitution and submit it to the Department of Business.  Once approved the Steering Committee legally have to provide 30 days’ notice to club members calling for nominations for new Committee members and the date for the first AGM.  Taking this into consideration and if all goes well we will be looking at June to form the new Club.  In readiness please start emailing through your nominations now for the following NT Fly Fishers Committee positions…. How exciting!!

• President
• Vice President
• Secretary
• Treasurer
• Weigh Master
• 2 x General Committee

Other Topics

New Club Membership fees to incorporate Palmerston Golf Club Membership.

Fresh and Salt Water Competitions to include IGFA rules and regulations.

Please start emailing new Logo’s ideas for the new club ntflyfishers@gmail.com.  All ideas are most welcome.  Not sure how this will work yet.  But 1 idea was for members to vote for the favourite and send it off to a graphic artist (or whoever).

The winner of the Roggie Dodgie flies is – Canadian Pete

Dion made it known on the Fly Life Blog we are looking at establishing a new Fly Fishing Club in the NT and the feedback and interest from other clubs nationally has been amazing.

 Click FlyLife to read the comments

Kate has sourced a new projector and screen.  Therefore please start emailing in you brag shots, videos etc to display throughout the meetings.  If you want to organise a guest speaker, chat about a fishing experience please start sending them in to ntflyfishers@gmail.com.  One idea of Kates which is a ripper, use a GoPro to stream a presentation on how to tie flies to display on the projector screen for all members to see.  Bloopers, YouTube clips….

As mentioned near the end of the meeting the Steering Committee has received many requests from Club members to arrange for club outing.  Richard kindly offered to arrange this – I hope I am not dobbed you in here Richard.   If so, please let me know so I can send out an email for someone else to organise a fly fishing gathering.

Next meeting 11^th May – mark it in your calendars now – note meetings start times have changed. 

• 6-7pm Steering Committee
• 7pm Club Members arrive and the meeting will kick off at 7:30pm  (allowing time to order dinner, get a drink and have a general chit chat)

 Kind Regards,

Janet Watson

Steering Committee

GREAT FISHING ON THE FRESH WATER FINNIS

We decided to go to the fresh water Finnis (after finding the boat ramp car park 2 foot under water at Dawn).

It was our first time there and we love it!!! Bumped into Lord Jim there too.

The fishing was on again off again but we both landed at least 10 Sooty Grunters each.

Justine was the only one to land a barra - They were pretty few and far between- I think we only hooked up on 3 all day.

Other fish caught include a couple of tarpon and some Long Tom. There were also loads of tiny archer fish (about 1 to 2 inches long) swimming everywhere and spitting at insects. They were quite brazen, swimming right up to the boat and all over the middle of the river without a care or any cover.

We had the most wonderful relaxing day.

        The Brokenflagons

   

Fun on the Finniss Fresh

After our success on the harbour we headed to the Finniss the next day for some Sooty Grunter action.
We headed to our usual spot & started prospecting with lures (small poppers).  The 5wt trout fly rod also came along (ear plug popper).  Whilst it was quiet we persisted & started to find fish.

Sooty on a home made wooden popper

I have coated the ear plug poppers with epoxy in an effort to make them waterproof.  Unfortunately they hurt a lot more when your son hits you in the back of the head!  I was amused when Jack managed to get himself later in the day!
We started to pick up fish on the 5wt.

Sooty caught on the 5wt Hardy

We also got some interest from a new species.  He appeared from cover chasing the ear plug fly.  He was very keen and kept following us downstream as we fished.

Finniss Freshie

The fishing was sporadic, quiet periods followed by short bursts of action.

Another one on the fly

The Sooty's fight well on light gear

This is a very pretty river & a great spot to head to for some fun on light gear.  You don't have to get up early as the fishing seems to peak in the middle of the day (don't have to race Jim!).  Cast into the shadows around the snags & work the area well.  Sooty's tend to hide in the hardest places to reach,  resulting in pauses to recover lures / flys.  Eventually your efforts are well rewarded with very audible & visual takes.

Jon & Jack

 

Bynoe Heaven

It was school holidays with days off during the week.  Jack & I headed out early to Bynoe for a fish.  The usual haunt at Phoenix was quiet, a few Threadfin moving early but they stopped as the tide ran out.  Heading south Jack spotted some birds working the edge.  As we pulled up there were Threadfin  feeding eagerly.

Jack got the first fish

Jack was onto his first fish almost instantly (good guiding??).  I followed with 2 catfish (apparently I was now -2 points).  Determined we persisted & a second Thready was added to the esky.

The second fish inhaled Roggie's fly

It was before 9 am & we had a Thready each.  Considering we have spent many frustrating hours with these BB's it was a great start.  The action dropped off so we headed for another spot.

One of Jim's / Pete's spots was also quiet so we moved on.

We cruised past Knife Island with no visible activity, the water being the flattest I have seen for many trips.

Arriving at Kiara Rock we started prospecting around the reef behind the rock.  The tide was coming in pretty hard & I realised that although the water was murky we should be able to see fish. Heading north we cruised the edges & started to find Barra, nose down & bum up so to speak.  They weren't feeding at all, despite there being lots of bait around (perhaps related to the water temperature?).  It wasn't long before Jack had his first Barra which was sight cast to.

Jacks first Barra (released)

We continued to find fish, at one stage we had a double hook up!  Unfortunately the fish dropped the fly (this was the second time this fish was hooked). 

Jacks second Barra (also released)

The Barra proved to be lazy, only showing interest in the fly when it went past their nose.  They were not easily spooked, only by my poor casting!!  I would suggest the water clarity may have been beneficial.............

We ended the day fishing the rocks catching Bream & small Queenies.  

Whilst we didn't catch a lot of fish, it was quality fishing.  This will be a day neither of us will ever forget.

Jon & Jack

Tasmania in February March

 I managed to join Dorothee in Tasmania in mid March where we were offered a "shack" at one of my clients getaways on Highland waters near Bronte lagoon.

Highland waters is a created lake and part of the famous London Lakes area in fact its creator Jason Garret came and spent a few days with Dotty and I and helped by offering lots of good advice (mainly to Dotty) and Fly's (mainly to Dotty).

We had the opportunity to fish Lake Big Jim with Guide and friend Greg Beecroft

                                    Samuels, Dee Lagoon, Brady s and a few small rivers .

The weather was generally shithouse like Tassie often is but our shack had a nice fireplace and Jason lent us his electric boat to cruise around on.

Fishing was good to bad for me, great to excellent for Dotty with her catching around 12 to 15  (who cares ) and me five. last day she caught 5 and I got one her last jumped out of the water and into my lap while i was searching for a fly as a total insult .

                                                         Dee Lagoon Run-out

                                                        Some days were really nice

                                                                I was there too

Left Dotty is Tassie and went to Auckland for a wedding and had two days with a friend on the Tongariro River, clear water and big fish everywhere and could not catch one of them.

Next Year will be my year with trout.

Graeme

THE 2016 SEASON

I started the season in mid March on the neap tide heading to the full moon,the weather was at best inclement with some huge storms turning up due in part to the relentless heat that is persisting right through to now.

The most obvious fact in my 18 yrs of guiding in Bynoe harbour is the high water temperatures,whilst this does not cause a major problem to the medium to small pelagic's there were hundreds literally and juvenile golden snapper it its reeking havoc with Barra and Thready's on the shallow water flats.

I discussed this with a number of people including my son Sam who worked at the Barra Farm for a while,he reiterates the fact Barra are not good feeders after water temps hit 32 deg from then on if they want them to survive the oxygen saturation levels must be artificially raised.

On shallow flats with the water temps constantly between 32 and 34 degrees the Oxygen levels cannot be maintained hence they wont be there,I as you would assume have searched flat after flat over the last month and they are not there, in holes somewhere who really knows all I want is a cool change to turn up.

The larger Queenfish have still not showed up in there usual(my) haunts, thats not unusual either as I have noticed over the years that Golden trevally and Big Queenys are a cooler water fish.

I got talked into doing a 2 day charter on the 8m tide last weekend and frankly it was a disaster the water was absolute mud from Crab Claw to Quail Island and beyond, the result was a few small Queenys with Sunday not one fish ,having such low tides and high water temps the Barra fishing was disgustingly bad this always reinforces my decision to only guide on  moon phases that utilise waxing tides to the new and full moons.

See a New Fly Club is born, The" NT FLY FISHERS " they have their meetings at the Palmerston Golf Club and the the next one is the 13th of April at 6.30 pm.
Dorothee and I wish them all the best and every encouragement and hopefully we will get along to a few meetings this year too.

Cheers Graeme

THE PERONS WITH DAVE AND DEAN

 Early this week Dean and I headed round to the Peron Islands. I don’t get to fish with Dean as much as I used to, kids became a priority (his, not mine), so when we do get the opportunity, we like to make the most of it. We had two nights aboard the Yellow Peril which gave us plenty of time for fishing and solving the world’s problems over a couple of cans. After an early departure from Darwin, we launched at Dundee at around 7am, good conditions had us chasing feeding schools of Mack Tuna off Pt. Jenni within the hour. 

A few tuna landed, then time to keep heading further onto some wide marks off the Peron’s. We were hopeful of finding some big Spaniards and possibly some Sails, however, the trophy fish weren't there. Numerous schools of trevally were feeding on the surface, a few tuna and small to mid Mack’s as well. This continued over the 3 days we were out. 

We poked around the Anson bay side of the Peron’s for some good queenies, Jacks and solid Snapper but spent most of our time wide, looking for a trophy. We were blessed with great weather, besides a few storms and big seas, it remained calm for us. No trophies to brag about, but a man can’t complain when he’s got consistent schools of Pelagics to cast too. 

The Trevally were around the 5kg mark, with a few larger 10kg models coming aboard. They certainly test the 8wgt. A lot of the schools looked to be Tea Leaf Trevally. The schools of GT’s were smaller in numbers but bigger in size. The biggest Mack went around 80cm fork length and Queenie mid 70’s.

 

The water out wide was a consistent 32.4 C, maybe a bit warm yet for the area to reach it’s pelagic potential, we only came across one school of Long Tail Tuna which surprised me. Another thing that stood out was that schools of fish we found on the sounder deep or mid water would not take flies sunk down to them, they would only eat when they came to the surface. We were lucky they were feeding on the surface often. I guess the trade-off for this time of the year is the fishing may not be at its peak, but you don’t get blown off the water, well, only if you get caught in those isolated storms (I forgot how steep the swell gets in Anson Bay during a blow). 

Overall, we ate well, drank well and caught bucket loads of solid fish. We are lucky to have such great fisheries on our doorstep. 

Can’t wait to get out there again.

Dave

CLUB MEETING APRIL

Hi All,

The next NT Fly Fishers Club meeting will be:-

· Palmerston Golf Club

· Wednesday 13th April

· 5:30 pm Steering Committee

· 6:30 pm Members

GUEST SPEAKER : we are lucky enough to be hosting researcher David Crook from Charles Darwin University at this meeting. David specialises in aquatic ecology and management, and will be presenting some very interesting results from his recent research on seasonal barramundi and fork tailed catfish movements in Kakadu and the Daly River. Please come along to welcome our inaugural NT Fly Fishers Club guest speaker!

Where do big fish go in the wet season?

Associate Professor David Crook

Charles Darwin University

http://riel.cdu.edu.au/people/profile/assoc-prof-david-crook

REMEMBER :  Don’t forget it’s schnitzel night too at the Golf Club. Schnitzel plus a beer or a glass of wine from memory is around $15. The schnitzels were a hit at the last meeting. If a schnitzel is not your thing you can order off the menu too.

Janet and Kate