Cup weekend on Bynoe

Neapish tides, dropping winds and no fishing for a week time to give Bynoe a go.

My planned early morning launch was put on the back burner by a catch up drink with “I love Arnhem Land” Lenny (2 am finish, barmaids told me the next day, “fine form Jim!!!!!!!!!!”). A civilised launch at 7am saw me heading past Turtle Island to fish the protected bays/flats of that part of Bynoe. Barra everywhere in crystal clear water but very flighty with any false cast sending them to the gutters in a flash. Tally 4 in the boat, 3 in the 60’s one undersize. No photos, camera back at the camp, blame Lenny!!!

After a feed of curried sausages and in the swag before the sun went down it was back to normal for a 5.15am launch. Beware of the 2m croc that has been at the ramp for the last month, not afraid at all, did not want to give up his boat ramp! 4.5m boat v 2m croc, no contest!

Great to be alive

Smooth seas saw me heading to Turnbull Bay, ideal conditions but could not find any Barra on the flats but had fun with sight casting cruising Queenfish on the flats.

Great fun in shallow water!

With no Barra for the Esky it was to the drain that I know for a feed of Snapper to take home.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Whilst I’ve had better fishing it is just great to be out there on Bynoe, how lucky are we???

Remember; “You’ll never never know, if you never never go. Get out there and fish!”

Tight lines

Jim Churchley 

Billabong Fun Instead of Show Day

Friday saw Dad and I congregrating to a secret billabong where we had plans to meet Lord Jim and Hags. To our surprise every man and his dog was already there with them! I think we counted a dozen boats or so which lead me to believe that this spot wasn't so secret after all... With our intentions not to let this spoil a trip with good mates in a beautiful place we squeezed our camp between Jim and Hags, (which wasn't the best idea as they both have a strong reputation for snoring) then went for a fish.

We soon come across the snoring duo who had caught this nice saratoga and tiddler barra.

Surface fly across the lilies did the trick

4 points according to Jim! Apparently two of these trump Hags' toga??

Sleepy cod was caught on the surface also

With a feed of soup and garlic bread for entree provided by Jim as well as Di's mexican meatball's for main we were all off to bed with full belly's. The night was peaceful and calm besides the odd disturbance due to a release of flatulence on Jim's behalf, no snoring though!

The next morning was fresh and cold...

Whilst I had trouble hooking a toga, the old boy was giving me a run for my money.

Toga always seem to resist their photo

Only saw a couple of decent sized barra caught. Perhaps they were pushed deeper by all the boat activity?

That's the way back to camp, isn't??

Can't go camping without making a mixed fruit damper

Lord Jim was even generous enough to lend a beer (for cooking purposes). Hags must've bought the carton of beer...

Whilst the fishing wasn't the best, we always had fun.

Jack

WHERE CAN WE FISH IN BYNOE???

A concern has been expressed that areas of Bynoe that we have fished for years is now closed off to us because of the Kenbi Land Claim,  in particular around Knife and Crocodile Islands....I think everyone has known that both of those Islands were off limits and to my knowledge that has always been respected by the recreational anglers.  However the map released recently has what appears to be a more restrictive limit on the fishing around those Islands....declaring that the intertidal zone around those Islands is also out of bounds as can be seen below....

All the definitions of  'Íntertidal Zone' are similar and say, ........."Of or being the region between the high tide mark and the low tide mark." 

Now according to all the charts that we can find, the area marked in green on the map below is the intertidal zone for Knife Island, it is much larger for Crocodile Island...

The green area is where the land can dry during tides ie the area between high and low tide.

A comment from the local fishing authority was " if you fish below the mean low tide mark you will be fine " ...I cannot find out what the mean low tide is, but there is no mention of 'mean' low tide in the act that I can find, so I will stick to the definition above.

So where can we fish if we are not aboriginal or have a permit which are the only two exceptions in the act.  Who knows????  We have emailed both the Minister and the Northern Lands Council in relation to this, also to see how we can get a permit if it is necessary but at this stage we have had no replies.

It is worrying because none of us wish to do the wrong thing by anybody, but the whole issue is quiet confusing to people like me.  

When we get something concrete we will put it out to you.

FROM THE BILLABONG TO THE SEA AND BEYOND...GOTTA LOVE THE NT.

Little or no wind, warm sun and cool evenings, you can't get it much better for a long weekend up here in the NT while our southern cousins are fighting the cold....

Well...maybe not this bad down south...but its sends the message.

...and out in Darwin Harbour....

Sam took out this team of fellow Geologists from Canada and WA to try the fishing.

FIRST THE BILLABONGS.

A couple of crews went to Alligator Billabong for the weekend, there were two other groups out there and it was apparently a ball.  It is coming off the full moon and to some that often means the fishing may not be as good as coming off the new moon, but its still fishing, and there is the added bonus of camping out in great weather.

Young Jack is going to do up a full report on the fishing so I'll just put a bit out to whet your appetites.

Dawn...Alligator Billabong.

..with the usual suspects....

Small...and heaps of them

Toga

Cod

Hard Life for some....

Especially when they have Jack to do the cooking..

That's South....down to the cold.

..will be more to come for this trip from Jack.

SECOND THE SEA

There has already been posts out on the great fishing on the Harbours....but here is a little more from Sam and his crew mixed in with some from Canadian Pete.

The Tarpon were still out there..

Sam ...extreme fishing with a 4wt.

Canadian Pete in action

Queenies

Same with his mate Canadian Ben's fish....the 4wt would have had a work out on this one....

Daniel with another goldie...

Should have another report from Bynoe soon because just got this message from Sam

No matter where you go up here, its great fishing....GOTTA LOVE THE NT

NOW THE BEYOND

Andy is on a trip to the US before returning to Darwin, and as usual has done us all proud...

We have more photos, but I'm told he will do a write up when he gets back here so you will have to wait for the rest of this trip until then....should see some of the fish!!!!!!

Another trip report from Royal Darwin Show Day

I wasn't interested in the battling the crowds at the show for overpriced junk and deep fried frankfurts. It had a been over a month since I'd been out for a serious fish and Tony had just returned from FNQ. So we headed out around sunrise in the hope of finding some tuna and mackerel.

Last time I went to Lee Pt chasing mackerel I was bit off within rod length of the boat by the biggest mack I'd seen that day. This time I was prepared with a handful of flies with a few inches of wire trace attached.

Uncertain of the best way to attach wire trace to leader I'd put a loop in the end using a haywire twist and attached that to the leader with an allbright. It seemed to work alright.

I pretty much stuck to the harbour prospecting method that Swoffer had shown me. Starting at Weed Reef before heading towards Lee Point. There were a few larger predators about at Weed Reef, including a large cobia that followed Tony's fly but wouldn't commit, alas all we managed to catch were small queenies.

Sunrise from Weed Reef.

Around East Point we came across a number of boats on a big school of queenfish. The fish were staying up for a a fair while and heading in a consistent direction despite all of the boats around them. At first we only managed a few small fish from the school, but as the bite progressed and the numbers of fish seemed to decline the bigger queenies seemed a little more abundant. Allowing the fly to sink for a while before retrieving increased our success too.

Great fun and good practice for casting at tuna.

We barley paused to get photos.

The longer we persisted the bigger they got.

After we'd had our fun with the queenies we headed for Lee Point and joined the flotilla of boats anchored up around the reef on the dropping tide. There were plenty of mackerel about but at first they simply refused to eat a fly. They would follow them all the way back to the boat. Then it was on. I'm not sure what changed but for about 20 minutes we had a frenetic time landing and very quickly met our spanish mackerel quota (I thought I had some photos, I hope Tony does).

Most skippers were being very courteous and staying out of each others way. But there's always one who has no clue. Two young fellas drifted well within our casting range, plopped their anchor (twice) and then had the temerity to cast over the top of me while I was fighting a fish.

That fish turned out to be this goldie, which wasn't put off by the wire trace. I swear the fish felt much bigger than this photograph illustrates.

Last night my family enjoyed a fine dinner of beer battered queenfish and grilled mackerel fillets.

Chris

TODAYS MURDER SCENE..BROUGHT TO YOU BY MACKEREL

Bit of an ominous title from Eugene, but as he said, "..the mackerel murdered the flies.." and anything else in the water.... and here is some of the remains of Michaels (Vinnies) flies on which he  "..missed many and lost a good one.  Got a tally of mackerel, trevally, barracuda and parrot fish..conditions coud not have been nicer"

Vinnie with one of the murderous macs

 ....there were heaps of other fish out there too...

A 50cm tarpon on the 7wt 

plenty of these..all great on the 7wt 

Even a goldie took a double handed stripped fly...

...and you can see how rough it was

Sam was not content with having exploded his Tenkara, he got out the 4wt and had a ball on the smaller fish...

I suspect there will be a lot more on the fishing when the other boats come in....and Tomorrow looks like being better 

'NO SEE UM' 007 FLY - FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

After recently putting up some photos of Sams' flies (see below) we had a lot of requests about the pattern etc.  so Sam has made up instructions for tying....hope they assist.   

First a bit of background on this fly....a few of us have been experimenting with what we originally call 'See through' flies because of the fact that often when your fly has been chopped up a heap by fish, those fish seem to hit it more.   EP fibre worked well then we got onto a stiff curly fibre from a mob called At the River Bend (click for link). I know there will be a heap of similar fibres on the market but this stuff really seems to work better.

We compared flies, fishing from both the beach and boat, even swapping rods to ensure it was not the fly fisher who was the main attraction.  The results were that the 'See through' flies got more hook ups than the denser type of flies.  Might have been the right time of the day, but who knows.   

The Stig and Canadian Pete were out and Pete killed a pig on the 'See through' fly he was using.   The Stig renamed them the 'No See um' fly because they are very opaque in the water.  We have tied them with different glues, and even have silicone head ones but they all seem to work when others wont.  

Sam has made some beauties up and they really performed, some all white wings or a light grey wing on top.  Sam's are tied with a UV glue that we got on line.  Its industrial I think and is hard as diamond when it goes off.  So hard in fact only the eyes remained after some of the fishing and as Sam said, the fish seemed to be going for the 'Eyes only' so Cathie named them the 007 flies ie For your eyes only....corny but catchy too.

Sam McCowan


Cut a sparse amount off hank. Double over cut and combine. (Tease both ends so they're tapered. Cut in middle (this will make two flies with the two colour pattern)

Tie in the underwing as per normal. With a decent amount before the hook shank (need top and bottom to be even) and top is forward tied. Cut underwing.

Then forward tie top colour. (Ideally so you have nothing to cut off)


sparse DNA strand cut in half (I tie these in pairs so the other half goes in next fly)

Tie down. Migrate thread in front of material at hook eye (give it a bit of a push back if you can. Wrap hook shank (DO NOT TIE ON MATERIAL. OR IT WON'T STAND AS PROUD.)

Finish with whip or dodgy loop. (I don't know how to whip finish) lol


 
 Slap the eyes on (I use toothpick so I don't stick my fingers together. Also apply superglue to a little bit of hook shank) (this photo will give you an idea of how see through or 'no see um' the fly is)

Fill gap between eyes (top and bottom.) Hit with uv lamp.
 
Coat entire head to behind eyes with uv. Rotate to make it not slump. Then hit with uv light.

Note: Sally Hansons to finish if UV glue is tacky


DONE.
Forgot weedguard. Will do on next one.

Tied in just before eyes.