Day Two on the water was a predawn start again

Day Two on the water was a predawn start again.

We headed to the same first up location as yesterday

Arms quite fatigued from the plethora of casts made yesterday during the 6:30am to 6pm, that’s a 12 hour Day1, but after a few casts the smoothness soon returned ready for Day2’s 9 hour day (6:30am to 3pm)

The first hour of Day2 certainly didn’t set the world on fire but I eventually got a good toga and 9 or so small tarpon from the very back corner of the shallow bay.

Still dropping fish though – bugger.
One was a huge slab of fish, so mega deep in body depth it was heart breaking to drop it – the size was readily seen in the roll it made as it attacked the fly. Had it on for a few minutes before the line went slack metres out in open water – uuggghhh!

To add insult to my already wounded pride and fishing prowess - very next cast I get a 25cm catfish

We ventured back up the billabong to a place that Peter got four Saratoga in quick succession yesterday. Again it fired for us. I got one, dropped a few more and Peter got three.

We started to sink our flies deeper along the edge of the lilies. Wait for the fly to sink and then a few slow strips and we were on to bigger fish for a change. Smaller flies working for us rather than larger rabbit Barra flies I have previously had success with.
Peter got his biggest Saratoga this way – 63cm.

Tarpon again proved hard to get, especially the bigger ones. Which again impacted our score cards, unlike the top teams and participants.

Was grateful for the talk given by the eventual individual and team winner about how he did what he did to get the first place honours. we targeted the gapes between long weed lines, where he chose short length weed/lily patches let the fly sink deep amongst the lilies and then stripped it out. His all yellow size two hook clouser also attracted attention of the Tarpon allowing him to catch a full scoresheet line of tarpon (20 fish of a species on a line allowed) and even upgraded as bigger fish came to the net. Catching high teen figures of Saratoga numbers as well – especially when the total centimeters of saratoga and barra were doubled in value at end of the day. Interestingly the winner didn’t catch any Barra (or maybe one can’t remember – or could have been none like all but two anglers given low water conditions). Though Lord Jim who was not fishing the comp found a heap of Barra right up the opposite arm that we fished - when hardly anyone else could mind you - great angler is our Lord Jim! - see his recent blogs on the NT Fly Fishers blog site - Flood Drains and Love my Weekends

So back to the ramp at 3pm for lines in and once there Peter handed in scorecards to Tony and that was it for the comp - just debriefing to go

So in the end I managed just under 600 points for Day2 but still well below what I expected to get. I gained a few places from Day1 to end up coming 27th place. Peter dropped one place ending up 11th. Though he still caught seven good Saratoga, it was less Saratoga and tarpon than the others who were in front of him. Our toga on Day2 were bigger on average than the previous day due to us fishing our flies deeper under the lilies

At the debrief and finger food back at the Tavern, I got door prize raffle of a gift voucher from Voyager Trailers (much needed for my poor and busted rusting trailer). Peter got a large box of fly materials ($200 worth) for his door prize (hoping to pinch some of that on the sly!). For coming 11th – he got a six pack of sponsors beer, a hat etc. Plus for catching the biggest Saratoga for the comp he won a new TFO fly rod. So while wanting to end up higher in the teams and individual that he did get, Peter was still very pleased with his outcomes from the competition.

So I feel I let the team down considerably as a team we came 10th out of sixteen teams. We are keen for next year to improve our results.

Our team '2FLY4u' got 2492 points in total - first place had 4799 points. Seems those dropped toga of mine were crucial - and the lack of bigger tarpon as too a full line of them (usually easy points).

As such a few practice sessions are planned, well once a few size 2 hook yellow white clousers with lead eyes are tied (images and details blogged about this process soon) . And when Peter gets back from two weeks back in Canada with his Dad and one week in Cairns with some old friends over the next month.

i may not get a fish while he is away as my boat trailer is still not roadworthy – but I am working on it with my limited metal working skills and experience. Thinking of welding on a large triangle of plate steel that encompasses the broken part top and bottom. Also need a new electric motor before I head to the billabongs in my boat such its the need to be in the right place and the right distance from the places the target species would be waiting in ambush. So many things to do so little time and money!

More Fly fishing (SWOFFING) blogs to come soon – stay tuned.