As much fun as it is - its time to stop casting candies and clousers to the bread and butter species of Darwin harbour (trevally, macks and queenies - well not all the time, of course! --- far too addictive)
So I tied up a few mullet like flies based on a GnG Hollow Baitfish. These on 2/0s - no extra lead wire in base as suggested by #Dronlee of Fly Tying Nation blog - also see his blog for some very interesting flies, all step by step with instructions and tips -- flies for both salt and fresh)
Now I have to get the patience to hunt the fish that would take these flies rather than the excitement of ravaging predators erupting the water surface at the various rock bars and reefs around the harbour
Tied it basically like #Dronlee but I used a tuft of grizzle craft fur in middle after tying in the pink ice dubbing to add the optical allusion of movement when stripped - think it looks not too bad if I can say so myself!
I also mashed into head area a dollop of clear silicone to help give head shape and to attach the 3D eyes to, additionally with a layer or two of nail polish over this to help keep the 3D eyes on longer.
Come on, go tie some yourself and GO SWOFFING!
You simply can't catch fish while sitting and looking at this blog!
Last weekend found Peter and I off Lee Point from early morning, waiting for the reef to impact the flow of water (usually an hour or so after high tide) to create that lovely ripple on top of the reef that seems to excite the pelagics in the area.
Wind was 5-10knots most of the day. Varying from almost calm water to white caps and then back again. It would have been quite rough in my shallow profile boat but in Peter's 4.8 Formosa - a lot safer - even though standing on the high front deck was like a roller-coaster ride.
Firstly, we tried clousers like usual but fish quite tentative
After an hour or so we switched to the silicone surf candy I had been tying lately
So excited at the fly, see above, were the mackerel that on the first cast of it while waiting for it to sink a little, it was hit on the drop without any stripping on my part and I came up tight to a good fish
Then one fish after another come to the net, the fly body was quite durable, the tail not so much however even with the barest wisp of goat hair fibres left - the fly was attacked savagely.
Queenfish like the fly too. We were managing three or four macks to one queenfish numbers wise. But the same sized queenfish fought much better.
Other species also thought the fly perfect - stripies, trevally, golden trevally, small blue bones, butter bream, fringe-finned trevally, yellowtail pike, garfish all coming to the net.
Overall, we enjoyed four hours of non-stop tight lines and double hookups (and losing the fifteen candies I had tied on friday before the weekend and resorting to clousers again - Peter used pink/white clousers and I used white/grey clousers). I did try my epoxy surf candies but while catching a few fish, just not quite with the same enthusiasm by the fish as they did for the silicone version.
By 2pm Peter and I were absolutely exhausted from catching fish - seriously!!! Sore arms from fast stripping the flies. Though a lot of fish were caught on slow or stationary flies drifted near the edge of the reef or dumped into a feeding frenzy of pelagics and bait. It wasn't just one spot, as we did move a few times to find that perfect water and feeding fish but no more than 50m here and there depending on tide direction and water depth over the reef - which influenced where the fish were feeding.
It was the best fun anyone could have while dressed - (even though the fishing was the same result as the last two previous trips). Again we hardly saw any other fish being caught by the one or two boats nearby - but then they were not SWOFFING!
We had planned to go after tuna after an hour of fishing Lee Point for a few fish in the esky, But with fish busting up all along the reef, the chasing of sporadic and inconsistent tuna, spread over a vast area of water - just didn't happen
Maybe next time
Which may be a while - as wife has the next two weekends exhaustively timetabled and planned with family stuff (i.e. me looking after the kids while she goes out! That wasn't the arrangement in the marriage vows/contract was it?)
But I do get a whole weekend three weeks from now for the brownie points I will earn - maybe Bynoe or Perons (if tide OK for Perons boat ramp).
Until I tie more flies or use them in the water - tight lines.............
More silicone surf candies to replace the fifteen I lost
last weekend to small Macks and queenies
The pelagics at Lee Point couldn't resist this fly as it
matched perfectly the predominant baitfish they were eating so voraciously
20 of them this time
very simple to tie - though a little bit tricky with the silicone
Tail of goat hair and Krystalflash- goat hair fragile to
toothy critters but Better movement
Underbody - a wide pinkish holo flash wrapped along hook
shank
Clear silicone body squeezed/moulded around the hook shank (you dip your fingers in water/dishwashing liquid mixture to stop it sticking to your fingers
but not too much fluid or silicone won't stick to shank) - ensure its the clear silicone
not the translucent variety. I use the Parafix maxi clear brand. MOuld the silicone into a cylinder around the hook shank
Eyes and gills - red and black marker pen - only cause I didn't have any 3mm prism eyes left
a couple of layers of clear nail polish over the top of
every thing - don't brush too much over the marker pen bits as the nail polish can smear
them
Also some 3/0 poppers for the bigger queenies that were about last weekend but didn't fancy the little candies
Off Swoffing the local harbour on Sunday - report up soon as I get boat off water on Sunday So on Friday night I tied some flies for it 20x #1 Goat hair clousers with fluoro head and red spot 15x /0 Clear Silicone candies - better feel in preadator mouth than hard epoxy versions, slower sink rate too, perfect size for baitfish roaming Darwin Harbour currently
A public holiday in Darwin last Monday - time for SWOFFING!!!!
Had 20 grey over white clousers tied for the pelagics
Why tie one when you can tie 20..........
I tie these very rough and untidy - adds to the subtlety of the fly
Peter and I head off early for Dinah Beach ramp, on the water by 6:30am as sun peaking over the horizon - and then to Lee Point again (why not, as fish always there on dropping tide)
Forecast was for strong winds all day so we thought an hour at Lee Point and then onto creeks to try for some Barra and such on mud flats as last of tide dropped out. the low was just after lunch at just a little more than a meter so we would see a lot of structure we hadn't see before or for a while so a great opportunity to explore when the inevitable wind started howling across the harbour
However, the fish were all over the reef at Lee Point.
At first with so much water over the reefs (max spring tides to 7+m high at eight a.m.) the fish were spread out and tentative
But still we caught fish and were the only boat out there, other boats off in the distance but we had the whole of Lee Point close in reefs to ourselves
As the tide dropped the fish started to get more aggressive towards the fly and the bait hugging the reef
By 9am the water had glassed off (see video at end of this blog) and the fly fishing just got better and better. At times a fish a cast.
I needed a few fish for a school subject (dissection and identifying gut contents) and the variety of species proved fortuitous
Large stripies, goldens, GTs, grey macks, small narrow barred macks, queenfish, yellow tail pike, longtom and even one foul hooked garfish - a large one good enough to even fillet.
Till 1pm we had calm seas, mirror calm, and fish action all around us. Then in seconds the wind came up, shifted, and white caps pushed us off the reef
We then headed for the creeks, however with a stopover at Cullen Bay ferry ramp for a pit stop (me) and the most awesome hot chips i have eaten in a while. Which Peter's lovely wife brought to us. We headed back out to the wind towards the creeks and we heard a loud whistle.
Initially we thought it was the plethora of birds of prey (Brown Buzzards) swirling above us and the entrance to Cullen Bay Dock area, but it was Peter's wife again (man! Has she got a whistle) - in that wind, with us almost out of the small bay....
She had forgotten to gives us the prime reason for the stopover in Cullen Bay - the remote for the electric Peter had forgotten this morning. they live on the waterfront at Nightcliff but the water was too far out to get in to Nightcliff wharf, let alone the silted up boat ramp there.
Now off to the creeks....
Fairly slow fishing, tide was already rising - we had missed my favourite time of tide for creeks - the very last of the outgoing tide. Just love casting to the ends of 'snake' drains and the muddy plume that flows from them as they are perfect ambush points for the predators - namely Barra and Threadfin salmon.
For the next few hours we cast and cast but to no avail. We sighted a few disturbances of bait being harassed. But only had one half take from the boil, flash and location a Barra - my Barra nemesis issues continue!
Before we knew it it was 5pm and we had been going since hitting the water 6:30am
Long day. Lee Point proved awesome again! We learnt more about Darwin Harbour creeks - soooo much more to learn .
