Darwin cup day

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 .