today's flies - tied for next outing

I have used so many mini white clousers and surf candies on the last two outings
I tied a few more - rather than start work on next years lesson plans

will be filling my boat with water tomorrow trying to find the leak it has.
here's hoping in it easy access and small!!!!!!!

If you can take the heat - great fishing to be had

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 at 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 (24^th 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!

a boring video on the day's surface action

Darwin Harbour (20141221) with visiting son and his girlfriend

Quite an overcast morning with storm and lighting off to the north

Luckily this storm passed around us much to the relief of my son Bradley and his girlfriend (Casey) visiting from Sydney. Given it was Casey's first  time to Darwin, she was still pretty enough paranoid just about Crocs jumping into the low profile boat I have but I assured her I had not seen any in the harbour for quite a while (funnily I did see a 3.5m one off East Point two days later!).

After a quick ‘look see’ at Shelly Island and Wickham point for naught surface action wise, we popped over to Weed Reef

We got a few smallish giant trevally but nothing consistent. With the wind dying back to almost nothing, we then crossed back over harbour for Katlyn Bay.

                                                                                                             

I was hoping to maybe find the Golden Trevally I have found in the bay previous trips but alas no Goldens this day. When first there, there were  a few medium sized Milkies (70cm or so) hoovering down algae scum off surface in one corner of the bay. However, given my guests were not SWOFFING nuts like myself, I left the harder to catch Milkies alone and instead we chased the small queenies marauding some very small bait at the other end of the bay.

The baitfish being attacked were smaller than I have seen before, only about 3-4mm deep in the body and about 35 to 40mm long. My son was using a small as possible soft plastic but could not match the hatch size wise and still have something with enough weight to cast on the threadline outfit he was using (seems he has forgotten all the fly casting I taught him when I was married to his mum 15 years ago - but then again he was only five at the time!).
So I place a small ball sinker onto his 20lb leader that was tied to his main braid line and tied on a small calf tail based clouser onto his rig. Instant success to say the least. Even his girlfriend (not at all a fisher person on her own account) caught a couple of the small but plentiful skinnies continually bursting the surface with frenzied feeding activity.

Wanting something larger for them to tangle with, we headed towards East Point but nothing seen there so continued on to Lee Point.

As soon as we got to the reefs of Lee Point, a tight pack of about 20 sea birds could be seen working the pressure wave edge created by the dropping tide as it pushed up against the rocky outcrops that parallel the Lee Point headland. We caught some nice 30-40cm GTs and some 50cm queenies while casting to the water under the squawking hovering birds. However, the stiffling hot and humid conditions as well as the fight between wind and tide creating a rocky motion in the boat, got the best of Casey and so I headed back into the harbour dropping her off at Nightcliff Jetty where  my wife picked her up and took her home. The son and I headed the boat towards  the boat ramp at East Arm to meet them at home.

However the tide was way way out 0.5m and the ramp was high and dry. Giving at least an hour before we could even think about hauling the boat out of the water.

Great! More fishing.

We popped back to other side of harbour to Weed Reef again. I haven't been on the harbour at such a low time and we saw reefs and sand bars that I didn't know were even there. At Weed Reef we managed a heap of small trevally – (Giant and Fringed Finned). There were also heaps of really big (and I mean big mother big!) Milkies actively feeding the area. These were not working in waves sucking down algae off the surface but viciously slashing and turning to get at whatever they were eating. They were not interested in the algae flies I have caught them on before, nor the tiny white clousers cast repeatedly in their direction after a boil on the surface used in the hope they were eating the tiny baitfish we had seen earlier in the day at Katlyn Bay. I have had a large Milkie off Lee Point take a large clouser (lost that one as quick as I  hooked it!) while chasing queenies, so they do take flies other than scum  flies.

Frustrating ourselves with these big Milkies eventually saw us heading back to take the boat out but a short stop at Wickham Point gave us some more mini GT action and queenies to delay going to the boat ramp. This occupied us for about an hour. Eventually seeing the time was way after we should have been back, we again started towards the boat ramp at East Point.

However, when zipping past the wharf side of Shelly Island we saw a heap of slashes and bust ups on the surface off the corner of the island this had us stopping for another few casts (or twenty!). Two hours later we eventually headed for the boat ramp, as it took that long for the action to slow down (it wasn't because I was worn out and too old for catching fish as my son suggested!)

The water on this side of the small island near the loading wharf comes from deep water up over the shallow rock bar on this side and goes back down into more deep water. The effect on the water created all sorts of  pressure waves and turbulence – one that must disorientate the baitfish making them easy prey for predatory fish like the GTs and queenies patrolling this stretch of water.
see diagram here abouts for location tips

Cast after cast received hits and takes - giving bent rods and heaps of laughter and smiles from us both enjoying some good father/son bonding. It was great action in the strong flowing incoming tide – for which the hooked fish used well to their advantage to make them seem much bigger than what actually came to hand.

My son and I had an absolute blast casting our flies into the the tip of the disturbed water and letting the flies drift along the face of the pressure wave before starting a staccato type retrieve. Every cast receive some sort of attention. Many, many times we had double hook ups  and raced each other to get the fish in and cast before the other could. We didn't keep score, just enjoyed the constant action and father/son rivalry ---  AND HEAPS OF SLEDGING! over dropped fish or a retrieve that didn't get a take from the frenzied fish.

One fish my son caught a 40cm queenie with a couple of small bites out of its back (quite recently from looking at wound). Which was quite interesting to my son who had to take a picture of it.

So a slowish day to start with but still lots of fun and a few fish from each spot we gave a cast or two - that ended in a great last couple of hours for the trip of non-stop ‘a-cast-a-fish’ action.

Here is a bit of a video clip of the days trip.

             

I will be out again in two days time with my regular fly fishing deckie Canadian Peter Cooke.

Blog report and a bit of video on that outing - up on this blog soon.

Half day trip - Tuesday 20141216

School out for the year, house painted, moved into the bigger side of house, cleaned granny flat we have lived in for last 5 years - so its now fishing time!!!

Popped out early Tuesday morning
Took a couple of local young blokes out to see what was around

Plenty of small trevs around Weed Reef but inconsistent as they moved about heaps
Keen to chase the flies but not so keen to hook up!
when one hooked up always 10 or so similar sized following along

A few really big milkies blowing up surface and their sickle tail cutting the surface. - regularly fascinating the new deckies.

The young blokes are not SWOFFERs - yet!
So used my flies on spin gear to get their trevs
meter of leader material tied to a swivel and small running ball sinker above the swivel, with fly on the end of leader. use like a jig retrieve

however, I was catching two or three to their one - so they are keen for fly casting & fly tying lessons in 2015

The weather was blowy first up. But calmed off around 9am as the wind changed directions
But for the most the wind seemed always in the wrong direction no matter where & what structure was being cast at.

Though the wind was nice as it was was mega hot and steamy. It cooled the sweat constantly rolling down the body (and into the eyes). High levels of sun protection needed on the water this time of year.

The young guys got small giant trevs and a few small estuary cod
Still Enough to inspire them towards more fishing and eventually some SWOFFING!
I got the same trevs a& a few small queenies but nothing worth bragging at the pub about

Out with son who is up from Sydney, this Friday (but more tide movement than today so might be better results). Look for blog of that outing soon.
(Currently sitting in Darwin airport waiting for his plane to arrive)

I am still in land of living......

I am still in the land of the living but you wouldn't think it given how long since I have blogged

Crazy life at times and with school reports, painting, and other daily stuff so not much fishing lately

But I have my son coming up in a week or so
and a fly fishing mate from Perth coming up for a weeks  remote swoffing in January
over all 6 weeks of school holidays to fish at least three or four times a week weather permitting

Classes are winding down at school
So have started tying for all this SWOFFING I will HOPEFULLY be doing
I have also earned heaps of brownie points with the internal house painting so hopefully will get the time to get some serious swoffing done

Here are some soft blue surf candies I tied today for the Pelagics in the harbour
very Simple pattern to tie:........
Tie in white fibres and a touch of blue
Synthetics last longer with the toothy pelagics
while naturals look better
- choice is yours
you can even go all white

once tied in, tie off thread
then give a light layer of epoxy to the hook shank area, leaving tail section free to flutter in the current
Put on drying rotor till epoxy is set - don't be in a rush even if it takes three or four layers to build up a clear body over the tied in materials on the hook shank
Give enough layers of epoxy till appropriately sized body for the size prism eyes you are using
Again dry each layer on drying rotor
Add prism eyes, add more epoxy
More drying on rotor

Go SWOFFING - too easy

my 20 year old drying rotor

I have caught 30plus fish on the same fly before changing flies. So thanks to Mr Popovics we have a great tough as nails pattern that best of all catches most species out there.

20141019 - Lee Point Trip Report

So was given Sunday morning off (again!)
And as much as I whinge about my wife she does let me go fishing quite a lot!

So just before 6am saw us launching at Nightcliff Boat Ramp
Just launched! As still quite shallow at the end of ramp when we launched given low tide in a little over three hours at 9:35am.

The wind was only slight, from north-east but predicted to increase at midday
We headed for Lee Point for the couple of hours we had

As soon as we arrived birds were working the edges of the reef lines running east west across the front of Lee Point land based rocks.
We were hooked up multiple times in a short period of time

Tarpon, Trevally, Queenfish and Mackerel were all mixed in  together -  creating a lucky dip to what would come the boat. the tarpon were most enjoyable, Having not caught them in the harbour since I got a few landbased off east point to 63cm on surface poppers a few years ago, it was nice to get into some very fit, thick shouldered tarpon - man are they good fighters for their size!!

Large shoals of baitfish were working their way through from the harbour proper towards Shoal Bay. The east west parallel reefs that are evenly spaced in line with Lee Point land based rocks funnel the baitfish and concentrate them making them easier targets for the pelagics.

While there were bust ups all over the place, we found one spot where the they were regularly attacking the baitfish - the large number of birds above this action helped us know exactly where they were.

We had some 50cm queenies get almost eaten by some monster fish while getting them in. Once a trevally of at least a metre and another time a metre plus cod (see video for brown blur of Cod as it swiped at the queenie).

We were into fish or chasing fish for most of the the few hours we were at Lee Point.
A great morning of SWOFFING indeed

The Mackerel were bigger too (well than previous trips anyway).
Here's Peter with of the better one's, he got this one on a tube fly with a trailing stinger hook.

On getting back to  Nightcliff ramp around midday - the water was still fairly low. So much so the boat before us once on it's trailer could not get up the ramp and had to dump itself back into the water to wait on the rising tide.

Given the flat end of the ramp, even I had to put most of my ute into the water to get my boat on - at least I had four wheel drive to get it up over the edge of ramp (unlike the previous boat which was twice my size and only a two wheel drive light ute to tow it!)

we were happy to be off the water as the wind was now absolutely howling from the NW, outside the shelter of the small rock jetty at the ramp white caps were everywhere. It would have quite unpleasant out there in my low profile Stessl Protracker

It had been a really fun morning trip with heaps of fish caught, lots of double hook ups and a varitey of species coming to hand. Surface and subsurface flies used - mostly silicone surf candies by me (no epoxy like a normal surf candy, just a thin layer of clear silicone over hook shank and tail material tie in point, with prism eyes added and a few layers of nail polish to give it a crisp scale/shell like feel to crunch of fish teeth)

Bring on the next trip!  (got to do those gold bomber tying instructions blog, promise - soon!)

*********

10min summary video of what happened for the trip

Current status - blogs delayed due to time constraints

I keep dreaming about those goldens I caught a few weeks ago, one after the other, every few casts. the fight hard, the fish so awesome in colour and location.

Got to get out there again!!!!!

Well almost went fishing last weekend but a huge pile of marking (yr8 assignments and tests for grades 7,8,9) kept me off the water as too extreme tides and a forecast early and strong wind.

Was going to tie some flies and write up blogs about tying them this week.....
But painting the house started this week, as too it is the first week back at school, (sadly also my program supervisor asked me to re-write my programs into the format she wants - mind you it is an out of date format and doesn't reflect the significant use of technology I use in my lessons bah humbug!), as too starting very last assignment for my Master in Education studies.

Haven't also had time to put new CB radio into the boat, so a little more security on long range trips we are planning to Bynoe wide reefs (if weather holds!) and Vernon's.

I think I am turning back into the self centered bastard I was just before my last divorce -

ALL I WANT TO DO IS GO SWOFFING

ALL of the TIME!!!

Its all I think about lately,

Here I am right now in class at school - its a Yr7 Science class and while they are drawing pictures of the cell structure of the five kingdoms of organisms in our world (AMinal, Plany, Fungi, Protists, & Monera)

And all I can think about is a flat someone told me about that at times holds permit
I think about the crab and prawn flies I need to tie - merkins, velcro button, Dangerous prawns and more,

Then there is this story I heard elsewhere about HUGE queenfish on outer Bynoe Harbour reef that need catching on fly
And I know the perfect fly for them - but have i had the chance to get out there NO! got to work! got to mark assignments, got to do stuff at home, got to spend time with wife, got to spend time with kids, got to do stuff and more stuff ----- and so I haven't put that perfect fly in front of those monster queenfish!

Then I think  about a flat in Bynoe harbour behind an island that as the tide drops is filled with 50-70cm blues and threadies

Then there are trips to Vernon's, Coburg, and Peron's group to imagine, plan and hope for
Let alone the flies I will need to tie!!!

AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!! and I am stuck here earning a living, painting house for wife, marking student major assignment for the year that for most have had only five minutes effort put into them.

Seems I have about five or more jobs currently - painter, teacher, father, husband, student, builder (new house on 5acres to start soon)

and all I want to be is a SWOFFER that is actually SWOFFING! one job, the only job!

Must tie some flies to eliminate some lack of swoffing stress or I am going to explode with longing for more SWOFFING!

Trip Report 20141005 - Darwin Harbour

Quite surprisingly the wife let me go on another outing so close to the last. Problem was my casting hand had a few sore spots from all the awesome fishing last Thursday and my body hadn't recovered yet. Still a little pain isn't enough to stop me taking up the offer of more time for fishing!!

It was a very early start – why? Cause the deckie’s alarm went off an hour early and consequently arrived at my place early! In the positive we were on the water way before the sun peeked above the horizon. Stopped at Shelly again not sign of life.

Due to low tide at 9:30 we thought we would fish the last of the dropping tide for barra and such up West Arm. At first arrival fish were going nuts past the deep hole on the right arm. There is a rock bar extending across the river 300m past the hole. We cast around it for a while picking up various species. Got one good snapper, an ock ock (Javlin fish?), plus plenty of small trevally. I did see a huge flash of a lrge fish that followed the fly from the deep rocks to the boat before slinking away - could have been a barra given broad tail (the barra nemesis is still continuing to frustrate me!)

Also there were plenty of little sharks that kept distracting us till the tide bottomed out, then we moved out of arm to Weed reef. Here bait were boiling away but no predators. We did see a gigantic shark with its dorsal fin protruding the water - very pointed making us wonder at the shark species it may have been. There had to have been 2-2.5m between the dorsal and tail fin - so estimate it at at least 4.5 metres, the dorsal fin was huge like a sail sticking out of the water. It was just swirling around lazily in the one spot til we got too close and it slunk away to do whatever it is big sharks do.

Weed Reef proved vacant of fish as well – well fish that would take our flies at least. 

Next Spot was Mandorah, the little T bar rock platform south of the jetty was almost covered by water and a plethora small queenfish and trevally were swarming over any baitfish passing the rock bar. Even pulled a couple of nice stripies from the rock ledge.

We switched to poppers for more visual fishing but the fish didn’t want to travel too far from rock bar - so after one or two strips from rock bar the following fish would skittle back to the rock bar. We did managed one or two better fish on the poppers – I got the best fish of the day on a crease fly. The GT was very keen on the fly because he came  a long way from rock bar to get the crease fly! the surface strike was spectacular!!!!!

We popped back over the harbor to see if the goldens were still in Katlin bay area but alas no goldens. There was some ‘moving rocks’ in the form of schools of small trevally and queenfish harassing baitfish congregations. These keep us amused for 30minutes or so while we searched for the goldens.

So compared to last Thursday a very slow day, however we both caught 20 or so small fish with one or two bigger ones every now and then to keep us casting in hope of something larger. I only had half a day due to some work I had to do in afternoon , so we ended it there.

Weather was kind, wind light if there at all most of the day. The sunrise spectacular behind us as we headed towards West Arm. It is definitely getting more hot and steamy than last month - bring on the build up - let it get the fish biting freely!

My deckie just got us a new CB radio, so once this is installed we might be working more positively towards that hope for trip to Vernons. More updates and radio installation blogs to follow.

Video of trip report 20141002 - Darwin Harbour

here is some of the salt fly fishing action (20141002) on Darwin Harbour.
First it was small mackerel,
Then a heap of queenies and an inquisitive seabird.
Then a heap of Goldens tucked into a back corner of a small bay.
An awesome days fishing!
40 plus fish caught all up - queenies to 60cm, macks to 55cm, goldens to 50cm

Trip Report - Darwin Harbour 20141002

6am start to get on the water in the pre-Dawn light - so nice to go fishing midweek. The boat ramp was empty.
Met up with one fly fisher at the fuel pump on way to ramp (Wayne from Show Ponies team) -
Him to work, me to fishing - what can you say!
Someone has to do it!
He was muttering something about something being unfair, but what?
I can't see it!

First stop Shelly Is - nothing
Wickham Point - zip!
Weed Reef - a few splashes then nothing
Mandorah rock bars - very quiet!
I crossed over the harbour to Cullen Bay - quieter still
Headed towards East Point and a little action bird and slashing fish - hope rises

Finally, at 9:30am I managed two mackerel quickly in succession off the extreme outer edge of the reef now at the high tide level of 5.3m
A few more bust ups on bait on the drop off of East Point reef - a 60cm queenfish this time.

Then quiet again.......casting,,,,casting,,,,for naught!
The decision was then do I go to Lee Point knowing the wind would increase at lunchtime and it would be a rough ride back into harbour in the afternoon

I chose to go the other way (softie!) - and went round the corner from East Point into Fannie Bay.
Here birds were working, mainly in small groups but there was one large flock of birds worth investigation. Firstly I thought it would be mackerel - not the best to chase around as very skittish. But the slashes were different to mackerel.

It turned out to be large packs of 50-60cm queenfish, while very sporadic in their appearance and almost always out of casting distance when they did show up - I chased them around Fanny Bay amongst the kids learning to sail.

I stop counting after 20 fish to hand, they all seemed to fight above their size and weight class. It was tremendous SWOFFING! heaps of fun!
I used clousers and surf candies on sinking lines - neither fly showing any dominance over the other. The fishing was so good I switched to a floating line and a crease fly but after only a few follows went back to the deep setup even though only in 3 metres of water (best for a faster stripping style)

I was looking around the area for fish with the fly hanging in the water and fluked a 55cm mackerel on the stationary fly I wasn't even looking at - don't think that one counts! (at least ethically maybe)

Interestingly when I was netting this mackerel, a large seabird dove into the net to grab the fish. I told him it was mine!

The bird (I think its name is a Brown Booby(?)) seemed quite lazy in its attempts to feed, just sitting on the water and occasionally putting its head under the water searching. I got focusing on fishing again and next thing the bird is sitting on my console not a metre from me. Eventually it took off after some rest time.

A few of the fish vomited up some bait, the bait varied in length from 3-5 cm - which help explain why the smaller candies and clousers were taken aggressively, rather then the half-hearted attempts of fish at the large flies I tested out.

Having had my fill of chasing fish around the bay, I needed a different fish under different circumstances - so headed up into the harbour, back towards my eventual take out point at East Arm Boat Ramp. It is not often I leave the fish biting in search of new horizons.

The wind was already starting to blow harder, so was thinking of heading back to boat ramp given the great Swoffing already experienced but around 11am about an hour after the turn of the tide, I stopped off in a little bay called (I think) Katlin Bay between Cullen bay and Larrakeyah

First thing seen was a couple of very small surface ripples in the opposite direction of the wind waves
Once closer the tell tail indication of yellow flash tells me Golden Trevally. There was a couple of schools the size of a small car, working the area.

To start with and from a distance, they looked quite small and right in the shallows, but the first hookup immediately told me differently. As usual the Golden's fought much harder than the same sized Giant trevally.

One took me into my backing very strongly in a matter of seconds. but my leader parted after a few minutes of back and forth. Bugger! would have liked to seen that one, definitely bigger than the others I had been catching, giving its determined long run with that tell tale trevally 'thumping' on the end of the line.

After fifteen Goldens to the boat up to 55cm, they didn't want to play anymore. But my day was done so no issue. The wind was increasing and it had been a great morning SWOFFING Darwin Harbour.

A little mischief to explain as well
Fished by myself this trip but I had asked a few mates to come - my regular deckie had to work (in Court all day so couldn't take a sickie), one on a course he couldn't get out of, another moving house, two others that didn't reply to my messages and emails - so all the time I was fishing, well when I caught a fish - a photo was duly taken and sent to them with a count of fish caught.
One said he hates me, one asked for a fillet or two from the Goldens, the one on the course sent back 'Grrrrrrr!" - me laughing the whole time! hahahahaha lol lol lol lol!
Love SWOFFING Darwin Harbour!

Enjoy the video - (up soon)

BSSS Day 2 report

BSSS Day 2 - (sorry not a lot of pictures as just average size fish caught, lots of them and too busy chasing points for the comp - even forgot to turn my head cam on!)

Again up at 5:30am, wide open throttle by 6:15am (the deckie needed a hot coffee today!)
The species for the day were: mackerel, any trevally (Golden, GT, Tea-leaf etc all frequent Bynoe Harbour), barramundi, threadfin, and tuna. Now the tuna would be very difficult given time of year, but two species could be targeted in the same area, as well as two other. Flats for barra and threadies, reefs/rock bars for the macks and trevally (well GTs anyway).
We made for Simms reef for the macks of yesterday but frustratingly nothing for first 2 hours.

We saw a little splash on shallow side of Simms reef and after watching this for 10-15 minutes finally went over to get at least something even if tiny small as the splashes seemed to indicate.
However, once there, the water was excitingly boiling with fish and we had 45 minutes of fish after fish. GTs to 38 cm and queenies to 45cm mixed together in a patch of 2m deep water behind a sand/gravel bar. The deckie was really enjoying himself (so was I). The water tidal flow created an eddy as it curled over and around the sand bar and the fish were boiling the water with their feeding activity. There were some small macks too, but we didn't manage to get hook them. Once the water dropped a bit more (25-30 minutes later) the action died off just as quick. We moved  back to front to the occasional large slash of fish along a tide line but nothing consistent and for an hour casting no result.

The water on Sunday was mirror calm, no wind - making it quite hot. Something we hadn't experience in quite a few months. The sweat was beading down our backs as we were casting and trying all sorts of retrieves to entice the macks to bite. We saw one or two slashes of a fish or two behind the flies but action was very very very slow.

Given the ultra calm conditions we decided to head into wide open water to find some working birds.
We came across 10+ adult dolphins and one baby swimming with them.  We cut the motor and watched them for 10 minutes - so graceful sliding through the water. They were in about 4 metres of water harassing some quite small 30cm grey macks (which we could catch!), this dolphin food was skipping across the surface in 5-10m skips to escape the dolphins.

A little later, we came upon some sand/gravel bars way offshore that some large queenies were  patrolling- we got follows but no takes. Awesome to see such fish in such clear and shallow water, Must visit this spot again!

Later a massive black backed ray about the size of a dining table came by and I cast to it in hope of an accompanying GT, however the two GTs that appeared off the ray's back that chased my fly caused my knees to wobble. They were absolutely huge 90+cm plus versions. Massive in shoulder thickness and body depth. Again sadly only a couple of follows was all we got - no hookups.

The rocks and ledges nearby however were covered in fish - Stripies, Moses perch, Queenfish, and sub 40cm GTs. The deckie, thoroughly enjoying himself, got 10 or so GTs in 15 or so casts with a crease fly.  He also enjoyed a shark pinching one of his fish, after this he switched to one of my mega flies to target bigger fish. The little guys were very keen to slash at the mega fly but not the big fish.

this Moses Perch that was smaller than the fly it ate!

While he was casting around trying to catch a big one, I with my small clouser (orange over white) caught a cricket score - full of stripes, Moses perch, the occasional queenfish and small GTs - all racking up the points. I too had a large shark take a 30cm fish right at the side of the boat. While it hung onto the fish, it wrapped my fly line around several reef lumps before breaking off the leader. Luckily the fly line survived the episode without any nicks.

We had another mega GT visit working along the reef edge looking for a live meal and it also chase one of the small stripies I had on the line, but saw the boat and slithered away between the structure nearby. Peter again went to the big flies for a while, I was still catching heaps of reef species one after the other, a fish almost every cast not big but lots of them. I didn't  put them all on the scoresheet as they just keep biting and I kept casting with out worrying about the scorecard. In a moment of calm, I would write a few of the lengths of fish caught down.  We had multiple double hook ups. I really enjoyed Peter working the fish into frenzy with his crease fly and I would then cast behind the fish when the popper was removed - resulting in an instant hook up on the small clouser.

Working around the reef edges we found some queenies and macks of one reef point. The wind was picking up making it hard to hold our position. As the tide was rising, I parked up on the reef and we cast to the bubbling bait off the point. I managed to snag a mackerel in the top lip, giving me two species and thus into bonus points. Up to that time we were not comp focused, mainly enjoying a great hot bite and many species. Now things changed comp wise with two species from the list.

Peter was working his hardest to catch a mack but time was short to lines out and heading back to put scorecards in on time. Peter hooked up to something good and we hoped it was a mack but it was a 50cm queenie. Peter got all loud and excited about something. When he finally calmed down it I found out it was another mega GT that took interest in his queenie making - it look like a live bait, the GT was so large.

Peter quickly measured and released the queenie and cast back to where the mega GT had moved and instantly hooked up to it. Line tore off his reel, I put electric down, pulled plumb bob anchor in and gave chase to the fast fleeing fish. The fight was intense and just as we were getting close to the fish 20 minutes later the leader parted- BUGGER! To say the least!

Given that disappointment we motored straight to the ramp to get the score cards in on time.
Both us had a great day of sighted fish, peter a few big fish on and seen - something he had been working a while on that gave him great enjoyment. With my bucket filled scorecard I was hoping to move up a few positions.

A few of the front runners of Day 1 getting their 600 point or so, I was feeling confident with my 1300 plus points for Day2 (still wishing I had gone to the flats to get a barra or threadie). In the end I managed third for the comp and for Day2, which made me mildly regret my not so good fish wise Saturday . The two in front got three species and the subsequent extra bonus points and managed 1500 plus.  points for the day.

It was a great weekend, plenty of learning curve and a heap of fish. The sighted mega GTs and queenies gave me many hopes and ideas for future trips. My flies worked well, Everyone loved the boat boxes that were donated. Lots of positives.

Not to mention - great people to fish with, as too great accommodation and food at the Sand palms motel and pub
Check out the Mobs blog site for more BSSS 2014 trip reports.
here is five minutes of the small fish action along a reef edge -

BSSS 2014 - Day 1 report

BSSS day one.
Arrived 8pm Friday, given the low key nature of the comp, no real Comp info session.  After chatting to various BSSS SWOFFERs fishing the comp, it managed to swiftly tick over the clock and we were in bed snoring by 11pm.
Up at 5:30 Saturday morning, we launch by 6:10am (awesome morning by the way!)



The five species for Saturday were: queenfish, any cod species, bream (pikey version up here), javelin or ock ock, and lastly blue salmon.

I really like the manner of scoring in this comp. All fish caught are worth 1 point per cm, but of the chosen five species for the day, you multiply the top five lengths by the number of the chosen species caught. For example catch 3 of the 5 chosen species and all the top five of those species are multiplied by 3. Really makes you think about where, when and how you will fish to catch those chosen species drawn from the proverbial hat list of 20 or so species. Best thing is it is all new the next day with a new five species chosen.

So we planned to fish the flat behind turtle island first up.  As we saw heaps of blues on this flat two week earlier - plus barra & queenies. But like last time the fish that were on the flat were very touchy and not interested in our offerings of clouser, full blown imitative prawns, and every other fly we could think of to no avail. Result of Location one - no score
We planned to then chase blues in a deep hole in a creek nearby after that but the tide had receded too far and we were cut off by a sand bar form the deep hole that always has blue in it, so what now? Location two, again no score.

With the sea flat and almost no wind about we popped the 15 minutes over to Simms reef for a hopeful queenfish before find some filling creeks on the rising tide to target rock bars for OckOck, the bream and an estuary cod - hopefully!

At Simms, we found no queenies but plenty of small Spanish macks willing to slash at the fly (but sadly, not stay tight to the reel)
We lost more flies than when previously catching macks, but we managed to fluke two for about 15 or so flies lost. Great! something on the scorecard

By now the wind was steadily increasing as forecast limited possible fishing locations
We decided then to chase some cod. But risking winds would change our plans. There is a rocky flat NW of Knife Is near the Paspaley pearl work base I had caught cod before so we ventured to it with hopes high. Once there we caught a few giant trevally off rock structure. We had one large cod chase after a 10cm GT, that got us excited for a bit - but all to no avail with the larger flies we cast to it
We drifted over the many rock bars and shallow reefs in this area. The deckie got a great visual catch of a 50cm queenfish hiding between two rock bars that came up to take his fly.

On one little rock platform bear Knife Island, I managed a first of species since coming to Darwin of a 40cm barracuda, which was quite novel to catch.
(insert image of cuda)

We thought we would head right to back of Bynoe to some rock bars to find fish but by time we got there the wind was atrocious for the location we tried. Given the wind was still increasing and it had been such a hard frustrating day, we headed back for an early swim in the accommodation' spool
The deckie managed about 150 or so points and was in 11th place, While I got a few more points to be in 10th place. The front runners were getting 600+ points.

The evening seemed quite short after the awesome group dinner as most were feeling the long day fishing in the wind. After the five species for the next day were drawn, I crashed into bed by 9pm, feeling it to be much much later! (Old man syndrome!)

Despite a below average day - expectations were still high for the next day.
More to come!

final flies done - so looking forward to two days solid fishing..

Off to Bynoe Harbour (1.5 hours SW of Darwin) for weekend
Two days of competition and tow evenings chatting to like minded SWOFFERS

Just finished the last flies for the door prize boxes for comp

20 each of - Crease, Clouser MInnow, Pink Thing and Wild THing Flies

Trip report to follow next week
until then - tight lines! and fast fish!

 thinghs to the left of me

crease and clouser to the right of me

Into the Bynoe Harbour we ride!

BSSS boat boxes made - half flies to go yet

Boxes all been made, varnished and hinged

Half the flies done

Here's a glimpse - size is 420 long and 200 wide, 3 brass hinges, 1x clasp
inside is lined each side with 5mm black hi-density foam

Tying Pink Things and Wild Things for the BSSS boat boxes

So far in the flies tied for the BSSS Boat boxes, we've covered species who frequent the surface (Crease Fly) and the depths (Clouser Minnow Fly)

Now to cover the Barra, and Threadies

The Pink Thing has been an Australian SWOFFING icon fly, since the early eighties.
Origins spoken about a lot in fly fishing magazines - so wont go into that except the NT as being part of its development.

Basically a whistler style pattern - feathered tail, bushy feather based collar, and beadchain eyes
I tie this pattern all in rabbit fur more than I use a feather based traditional style.

However, for the flies to go in the Boat box being made up for BSSS, I will be using some awesome feathers off some full capes supplied for the purpose of tying these flies by NTFFSM founders (the imfamous Rodgie Dodgie and the famously and wonderfully talented Cathie)

So I will have to put on my tying helmet and ensure the "Fly Tying Stig" is up to the challenge of tying some good flies with these quality capes.

Both patterns are basically the same - the difference being primarily and obviously the colours

Lets start tying......
Start with matching up six white feathers for tail - curve in or out is a choice to make. When placed on hook curve out you can get an enhanced kick and flutter. However, for these flies I will tie it curve in. I suggest you take the paired feathers from one side of the cape for one side of fly and from the other side of cape for the other side of the fly - puts the tendency of the feather to sit correctly when stripped through the water.
Like always when tying a number of flies,  I set out all the materials, pre-trimmed of fluff etc, for the feathers I put them between two bits of foam and place a weight on them to keep them all in place

Tying sequence......
Tie on some flash material to go between the paired feather of fly tail
Tie in feathers to form tail section of fly - 3 on each of hook shank
Tie in a grizzle hackle feather each side
tie in a bunch of bucktail - helps keep feather from wrapping into hook bend
Depending on hook shank length, more so on longer shank hooks I would add some crystal or ice chenille for back third of hook shank - adds a subtle mini collar the main collar can flare over.
Tie in your eyes and V shaped mono weed guard now - I find it so much easier to wind the collar up to the eyes than tie eyes and guard in later
Tie in tip of collar feather and wrap around the hook shank flare the feather barbels, keep tying in more feathers until you have a thick full collar
Here, I am using high quality spey feathers from a cape, Spey feather make a collar a bit more sparse than other materials than i usually use. However a mate outfished me by a factor of 4 to 1 using a pick this with such a collar compared to my schapplen based collar at the time. other materials you could use are marabou, rabbit fur, schapplen hackle, normal hackle, even a self made dubbing brush can be used for the collar made from synthetics or natural or combination of both. Love using 'Bird Fur' feathers for this but haven't seen any anywhere for a while now.
I swap threads now and form a tapered thread head in a a hot shot colour - this case fluoro pink.

The wild thing is basically the same but in the colourings of that ever successful soft plastic, the Nuclear Chicken (just not coloured horizontally like the soft plastic) - fluoro feathered tail and hot pink collar.

Tying for Boat Box prize for upcoming NTFFSM - BSSS comp

Been tying furiously for the upcoming saltwater comp at Bynoe run by the NT Fly Fishers Social Mob on the 20-21st Sept - a week and a bit from now.
Not only for myself as I am also tying up 40 or so flies for each of the two boat boxes my woodwork students have made in elective class - they are to be raffle or door prizes at the comp

So far I have tied 20 crease flies, (actually 25)

10 each for the two boat boxes to cover surface action (last five are for me!)
Crease flies are a great surface fly for most NT waters predator species

These Crease flies are tied on O'Shaunessy hooks - these ones are 2/0 stainless
First step is to tie in a bunch of white fibres off the hook bend
Then for this version add a touch of green flash over the top of this
Tie a full length of thread along the hook shank to give something for the foam body and subsequent super glue to stick to.
I tie 10 to 20 of these to this stage before working on the bodies.

I find tying one fly at a time cumbersome, have to change tools too often. Rather focusing on - less tool changes means tying faster.  Before the actual tying of a number of flies of a certain type, I spend a fair bit of time getting ready to tie, like ensuring all material at hand, all the bits cut to size and shape, hooks de-barbed and in a piece of foam so they don't slide about the tying area and later are easier to coat in a batch with nail polish if needed, additionally that all tools in the right places, nothing else on tying area, etc (yes, I am sure I have some level of OCD!)

For the body I use a sticky sided foam I got from Clark Rubber, about 4mm thick and 35-40mm wide. Don't know what is meant to be used for, you can buy it by the metre off a large roll
I cut slightly diagonally across the foam to form a blunt wedge shape - normally for a 2/0 hook I measure the wedge - 25mm across head end and 10mm across tail end.

Now you are ready to take off the protective cover for sticky side and lay pre-tied hook shank along one the edge of the wedge - best about a mm or two from very edge of foam
Evenly fold over, sticky side in, so both edges of foam tape meet just past the thread covered hook shank.
Then hold the tail material out of the way and trim with scissors trim the foam at an angle, just past the hook bend
Sometimes you need to add a little super glue to the thread covered shank to get it all to hold together
If you squeeze edges together for a while it all holds - blowing on it seems to make it work faster - think it has something to do with the moisture in your breathe
Then add your choice of prism or 3D stick on eyes.
Then use marker pen for a black back (you could use green marker), a little touch of red underneath for gills. For the back markings I used to cover top of back in clear nail polish and while still wet dip the area into appropriately coloured glitter powder. Lots of options! Some tyers are now using small air brush guns to paint artistic and realistic patterns - art using the foam back of the crease fly as a canvas!

Now you can cover the join of the edges, the face of the popper and the eyes with epoxy but I find lately I use more often clear nail polish as seems to last as long but is much easier to apply. What ever your choice - cover eyes, front face of fly and areas of marker pen use - at least two coats of the nail polish. Plus nail polish less likely to turn yellow with age like epoxy does.
Be careful with the chemical interaction between marker pen and nail polish as it can 'bleed' the marker pen, I find a light coat of polish applied first without much over brushing then apply more nail polish later avoids this problem
 
Clousers now done - these ones have a white first layer then a sage coloured layer to provide a subtle colour change. For these clousers I have used large beadchain eyes but lead eyes or even plastic eyes can be chosen depending on the depth you want to fish the fly.

The tail material (DNA fibre) I used has enough flash material inbuilt in it, but if the material you use doesn't, add a few fibres of flash between the two main layers of materials - I like the flash buried in the middle of the fly as I feel it provides depth in the fly's appearance when in the water.
These versions for the prize box also have a hot spot of some hot pink heads (and some salmon coloured). I used to do this with some of my trout flies, so I am thinking it would work for saltwater species too (???), Also hoping it to be mistaken for an egg case or the like.
This is done by switching from the white thread used in main stages of making the fly, after fly is finished to your choice of hot coloured thread - fluoro orange and hot pink are my usually choices. Tie off and cut off white thread, then tie in coloured thread and apply a good layer of thread between beadchain eyes and hook eye before tying off. I then give the thread head and eyes - at least two coats of clear nail polish
I chose clousers for the boat box prize due to the breadth of species it can catch.

Got the Pink things and Wild Things to go
pics and tying instructions  to follow soon