Short Darwin Harbour Trip

Despite the windy forecast Friday morning started off quite calm

So after playing around with the daughter’s new pony – feeding, poo collecting, brushing, putting on saddle, riding, walking (i.e. boring!!! And a ‘job’ that is going to interfere with fishing most Sundays from now on!) – and the 'calmish' wind conditions - I suggested a boat drive around the harbour for the kids (with a bit of fishing tucked in of course!!) Yes was the answer. so while they washed the horse etc I head home to get boat ready.

Crank battery was flat, so while loading up boat with ice, drink and tackle – gave it enough charge to get it started then family gets home and its off to the water with all and sundry. much less gear when i go by myself and easier!

One of my older daughters from my first marriage has been visiting and since an episode when a toddler when I launched my boat with her in it - alone and she thought I was sending her off alone in boat she hasn’t exactly loved fishing or boating – or water for that matter!

So when she consented to come out on the water with us I was quite excited. The wife and my youngest two were soon covered up for sun and life jackets on, Emily has all the trappings of a fly fisher on - buff, pants, fly fishing shirt – so off we go.

Impeller not working the best at low revs, so have to look into that quite soon before it causes any damage, but off we go.

Not much chop, wind in the right direction, first stop Shell Island near the ore/cattle loading wharf of East Arm. Nothing about. So continued the boat ride for the family back past the new gas plant being built for a look at the progress of the construction.

Next thing I knew the littlest daughter was asleep driving the boat. Yep, one minute she steering the boat with me while sitting in my lap and then she is asleep! 

So who is boring now!

Dropping the wife and youngest two back at the boat ramp freed up older daughter and I for an hour or two of fishing! Yeeeh haahhh!!

Wickham Point was the first spot. Hour after dropping tide should have heated up the sand/gravel bar at back of Wickham Point rocks but nothing about. We used the electric motor to travel west along shoreline towards the liquid gas loading wharf.

A few fish showing, a boil or two – then absolute mayhem amongst the rocks on the western side of the beach area as a pack of Trevally about the size of a family car exploded the water harassing bait against and up onto the rocks. I pulled one 45cm trevally out of the writhing pack of fish. My daughter astounded by the actively highly visible fish right next to the boat - fish oblivious to our presence such was the trevally’s focus on eating so voraciously. Quite a spectacular scene having several hundred fish gulping down baitfish on the surface – huge open mouths and backs out of the water.

The commotion brought in queenfish that could be seen flashing past us to join in the feeding frenzy. My daughter was wearing polaroids so was seeing all the action around the feeding fish as well, follows of multiple fish on the fly she was casting on a spin rod. We saw rays and sharks much to her enjoyment of the outing. Eventual all went quite. Well mostly due to my anchor activities.

My lead blob anchor got caught around some rocks and I made a fair bit of commotion trying to get it loose. I left it there with the ball float to come back at a lower tide in a hour or two to try to get it off the rock it was attached to.

To fill in the time while waiting for tide to drop, we ventured over to Weed Reef. The wind had been dropping all the time we had been on the water so the trip was relatively smooth travelling. My daughter even had a drive - wooohooo!

On arrival at Weed Reef, the dropping tide was putting the gravel bar into play for the predators and baitfish

As the tidal rush went over the gravel bar it created a barrier line for the bait and the predators were slashing away at the bait on the up tidal flow side of the gravel bar where the water was almost glass. With the water also being so clear we could easily see the predators (goldens and bigger queenies) moving about the 4 foot deep flat.  

Daughter, Emily, was very much enjoying casting to surface disturbances and particularly watching the multiple fish slash and charge after the fly she was using.

She hooked up a few and so did I, then it was time to leave. 

The multiple active fishing locations, the exuberance of the aggressively feeding fish - reignited my daughters fishing fire - so awesome! 

Now to get her SWOFFING again like when she was 10 catching carp with roll casts in Lake Liddell near Newcastle

Blob anchor still there at Wickham Point near the beach rocks - even with me jumping in the water to try to dislodge it.

Overall it was a great couple of hours on the water. Well worth the effort

Still a few litres of water in bottom of boat for those couple of hours – so more investigations needed there!

See you on the water.

NT Swoffer

20150705 - Lee Point and glassy baitfish

Started off this last Sunday morning in Peter's boat at Dinah Beach Ramp before the sun was up

The wind that was in our faces was so way off the forecast that someone should sacked. The wind was howling 10-15 knots rather than the 1-5 knot forecast and in the opposite direction! The 30cm chop that pounded the boat ramp as soon as we were in the water – was not encouraging! Given it was supposed to be a lot calmer.

Still we headed out to Lee Point with no stops along the way - getting pretty wet in the wind swept and choppy harbour as we headed out to the front of the harbour and Lee Point. we wove through a large number of naval boats here for exercises in the Timor Sea in the next couple of weeks, even a large black submarine off Talc Head was seen. 

Once we arrived at Lee Point, while the water was very clear, we were still about an hour before the top of the ‘springish’ tide – and absolutely nothing was showing fish wise - and worse there was still lots of wind and a heavy chop coming all the way across from Shoal bay.

We moved around a bit searching the various spots near Lee Point. We hung around the area because we knew even though nothing was showing at the top of the tide as soon as it dropped a bit the baitfish would be funnelled around and over our favourite reef and its Spot 'X'.

It was pretty boring with nothing happening fish wise - so I was being lulled into sleep mode by the chop and wave action waiting for the pelagics to start slashing at the water surface.

At the reef we mostly target, the tidal current goes the opposite way you would expect given the swirl from Shoal bay and the flow in and out of the main harbour. High tide was 8:15am and at around 10am we started seeing action around the area. We chased a few in the area around the reef but quite flighty and inconsistent. So we kept heading back to our Spot X about 500m North-West off the tip of the beach of Lee Point. It’s a semi-circle reef section  that corrals the baitfish to gaps in the reef. Sadly for the bait fish the pelagics gang up on them in front and behind the reef as they slip though – but awesome fun for us. as it tells us where to cast.

Plus the wind had started to back off - so it was feeling quite nice out on the point 

For the next two hours it was if someone had touched a switch changing the attitude of the fish in the immediate area – total mayhem after a hour or two of nothing. Macks to 50-60cm, queenies were small 40-50cm but the odd big one over 60-70cm mixed in. 

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There were some absolutely huge slashes at times in the distance and once a large number of meter plus macks and queenies were right under the boat in very clear water easily seen harassing the big garfish and yellowtail pike who were also gorging themselves on the prolific numbers of small baitfish. The 20cm size garfish and pike were jumping everywhere to get out of their way.

The pike were also jumping about and flicking out of the water - right at the back of the boat. I was wondering why, when I finally had a closer look I saw a patch of the small baitfish next to the prop of the outboard, seemingly sheltering for safety near it. Thousands and thousands of them were in the area between us and the reef. I even scooped a few up to feed my large tropical fish at school. 

See video here for a clip on the bait hiding at the back of the boat around the motor.

We kept a few macks for the table and a couple of the bigger queenies. Off the side of the reef Peter got a nice 35cm stripie - one of the biggest I have seen since coming up here to Darwin, and we both caught a plethora of other reef species. There was a short period when the golden trevally were about but we only got one of them to hand. It was so brilliant in its yellow hues. I think the flies never got deep enough for them, with the queenies and macks taking most flies we cast

Once Peter was on a hot streak with the macks and as the new Deckie I would net the fish, and as we wanted a few for the table, I would wack its head to calm it down (that is kill it!) and head to back of boat to de-head it, bleed it and clean it. But before I had time to finish he had cast again and was hooked up again. He had three in the net and the one I was cleaning all in four casts. and the poor deckie wasn't getting any fishing in!!! wah wah wah!  poor me!

We used closuers of any type and colour – only size seemed the main criteria – if the fly equal to the size of the bait fish (4-5cm) and you got follows and hits. I mostly was using a grey over white clouser on size 1 hooks with beadchain eyes. We also used a silicone based surf candy I made up 20 of last week - which were if a touch longer than the actual baitfish - were an almost perfect match texture, colouring and size for the glassy baitfish everything was eating. note: I feel the silicone has a different sink rate to an all epoxy surf candy. Adding a different bite and feel in the mouth to the predator fish too.

After over two hours of great SWOFFING with fish after fish, and multiple double hookups - we left the fish biting and slashing at the bait and our flies as sadly I had to be back home for afternoon family stuff and we had a change of shift at the boat ramp between myself and Peter's wife and her daughter - for their family time (a picnic on the low tide sand bar off Cullen Bay). I hope the wind stayed calm for their outing.

Adding to our excitement of our SWOFFING was that it was another time when the fly reigned supreme with Peter and I being to only ones catching fish of any numbers of the 6 or so boats working the area. You just cant match the size and action of the targeted baitfish with metal slices or soft plastics which sink too fast - most of the takes we got where on subtly stripped flies rather than rapidly stripped ones. Casting the flies across the tidal current to drift the across the edges of the reef worked the best. It wasn't just cast long and strip fast - you had to think about it and cast accurately to the actively feeding fish. Longer cast were made almost full line length (wind assisted in my case) but most casts made were only 40-60feet. Even caught a few fish after dehooking a fish and tossing the fly to sink slowly right at back of the boat while washing hands of fish slime, such was the aggressive mood of the predator fish.

So now to clean a few fish I kept and cook them up for dinner.

See you on the water.

NT Swoffer 

Got an email from Jeff Watson - a fellow Darwinite SWOFFER - with this photo asking if this was me and Peter fishing. That's Peter up front and me in back with yellow shirt right on Spot X. Twice now he has been on the beach at Lee Point and seen us getting into the fish. He was land based and targeting sand whiting on the beaches.