20161001 - Darwin Offshore again

 So talked Peter (didn’t take much!) into heading offshore in his boat to target the fish around a drilling platform sitting 64km offshore, sort of near North Gutter - like I had done the weekend before (he was busy doing family stuff that weekend). We think they are refurbishing platform rather than drilling.

After fuelling and icing up and seeing three other boats at service station (off to catch the ‘million dollar Barra’ they all said), we found ourselves at the Nightcliffe ramp at 4:30am giving us one and a half hours before sun up to get a head start on the long journey out. Problem was we arrived at the Nightcliffe ramp we would be heading into a 10knot wind and subsequent wave chop. Peter almost called it for another location closer to shore (– so glad he didn’t). But with that faint glimmer of hope and optimism in what most fly fisherman have when heading out to a new location - we set forth.

On a side note: Peter and I are starting to really hate this Nightcliffe ramp - it’s too shallow and too silted up on bottom half – also only usable in tides above 3m. Most times you have the four of your car wheels in the water as well as the underneath of your vehicle as you retrieve or launch your boat- this even at high tide. We decided once we were launched to get one of us to drive the trailer to Dinah Beach ramp on our return. We need more and better ramps on this side of the harbour!

Due to the ugly chop we could not do more than 15-20km per hour as we travelled out to our intended fishing location. About halfway out to our spot X, we past all the large ships anchored off shore. We thought they were navy boats, or at least fuel tankers for such, for the recent war games held up here and we were worried what they thought when seeing us amongst them on their radars. Talk of 50 cals lighting up with tracers bullets, if we got too close was the chatter amongst us.

I hadn’t taken a copy of the GPS marks when out at ‘Spot X’ with some lure tosser mates last weekend, but still had a general idea of the location. But after we past the anchored ships we saw a distance light that was on top of the rigging of the platform on the horizon that helped us re-adjust our heading. The seas started to calm down a little and the glow from rising sun behind us allowing us to see the swell better all saw our speed increasing as we got closer and closer to the drilling platform.

On arrival it was just us at the location. Previous weekend it was 10 or so boats. Aside from a bit of slow and long sea swell - for the next 6 hours we have fairly calm seas, if not quite calm in the later stages of our time at the location.

Despite nothing visually happening on the surface in all directions, the very first drift of the fly down past the leading pylon of the drilling platform saw us come up tight to strong fish.

In the majority the fish caught were mostly tealeaf trevally. A few (??) black finned trevally which I didn’t catch last week. One 60cm Queenfish was caught from the sporadic schools passing through, However, the huge numbers of 50-60cm Queenfish that were here last week were not present. The copious numbers of meter plus longtoms were still hanging in the shadows of the platform. Off wide about 2km there were occasional huge slashes (big macks??) but not consistent enough to head off and target them.

After 10 or so battles with very strong tealeaf trevally fighting way above their 45-55cm length, Peter puts out a long cast away from the platform letting it sink a long time and first couple of strips comes up tight. It fought not at all like it should have and we took it for another trevally but when it saw the boat it took off at a speed its species is renowned for. The 70cm mack eventually came to the net – it would make Peter’s wife Nat very happy as she likes her fresh mack fillets. Here is the mack below splashing on surface before heading to the esky.

We tried several spots around the rig and every pylon with current sweeping past it had trevally – it got very tiring. We would catch a few then retreat from the sun to rest a bit in the shade of the platform before the itch to catch more or hopefully one of the bigger ones we had seen accompany their hooked mates to the boat.

The sheer number of fish was astounding, with at the minimum four to six fish, and at times 20-30 fish – all the same size moving along with the hooked fish. Whether they were teasing the hooked fish for getting fooled by feather and fur or encouraging them to dive to the bottom again and again is unsure – but they all fought soooooo hard for what is basically an average sized fish. I was done several times by big fish that on my ten weight with straight forty pound leader could just not be stopped! And this kept us casting for those few fish not seen that had done us so easily (for me it was knots and treating them too harshly during the fight). We would lose fish down deep after a few minutes of fight, at times hooks would pull and you were almost relieved but not a second later a fresh fish would take the fly and it would start all over again - but with bashed knuckles from a spinning fly reel as the fresh fish stormed away. Once I lost four fish and hooked up immediately again down deep in this fashion – my left thumb aches greatly as I type this blog from such punishment from spinning fly reel handles!

Are you not sad for me?????

Do you not feel my pain????

or do you laugh at me like my heartless wife does????

We chased some tuna and other large bust ups up current of the platform – I fluke a spotty mack and we got a few other species as well. Several different pelagic trevally species again were caught like last weekend.

Previously, Peter had won a Channel Nine fishermans pack for a photo he sent in for a large trevally and huge Queenfish he caught on fly off Lee Point and in that pack was a small lure. So while recovering from the strong tealeaf trevally near the pylons we put up the Bimini and trolled lures around for macks till we were ready to tackle the pylon fish on fly again (Peter just had a late forties birthday and complained all day about tennis elbow from too much fly fishing – hard life isn’t it!!!). Peter swapped over one of the big mack lures for the lure from the prize pack with the Ch9 logo on it and not long into the troll caught a tealeaf trevally. We were going to write in to Ch9 and tell them their lure sucked and fly was better – this fish ruined that !!!!

Another time while trolling to rest and convalesce from our arduous endeavours at the pylons, I spot a typical large red/white mack lure floating along ahead of us. I steer the boat towards it and Peter swoops the net to retrieve it. In the net along with the twenty dollar plus lure are two small fish that must have been hanging under it for protection. Very cool looking fish. One was like a trevally with camouflage, the other looked a bit like a leather jacket. See below. The trevally look alike was only 5-6cm long, the other smaller still.

Once we had recovered enough, we found ourselves back on the front corner of the platform casting flies again. Peter was telling me how much he loved his 8w Sage while hooked up to another trevally slugging it out deep and snap went his rod. No high sticking just a gentle bend. In fighting these strong fish we didn’t take the rods past the horizontal rather repeated short lifts and quick winds of reel – lots of this and fast, never letting the fish get its head down. The fights lasted a lot less when using this method but occasionally the fish would have nothing of it and despite the applied pressure from rod and reel would slam itself into another gear and zoom down at such a high rate of speed (usually pulling hooks or the knots would fail – mine anyway). Peter’s rod broke because of such a fish – lucky a life time guarantee comes with such rods!

Peter used his 12w after this (he had shredded a 10w sinking line in the first half hour at the location) and still the fish were hard to get up. – Awesome fun but totally exhausting!!

I cast one of my big flies and enjoyed the several fish I caught on it before losing it to something huge down deep. Had a blast once fish started following it by skidding it across the surface in front of them just out of reach, they would slash at it with such venom and gusto, you could see them strutting their fins and colouring up as they slunk back to the shadows of the platform after missing the fly – soooooo pissed off at missing it. It really got them excited.

Given the numbers of fly happy fish, I worked through a heap of different flies. Once I cast a huge jointed popper I was experimenting with at the tying bench – the face is 3-4cm across – worked a treat. It really got them excited before losing it to another bigger fish after catching a few smaller ones.

Peter was casting this massive billfish fly and the fish would go nuts for it. Once he had four or so followers tagging after the fly, he would start skipping across the surface just out of their reach and they would get even more excited and attract even more fish to the area between us and the pylons.

We both switch to surface flies and when a fish would take it – we would not strip strike rather let the line go slack so the fish would spit the fly, then start retrieving again, only to hook up before the fly floated to the surface. Once while helping Peter get a fish into the boat my 10w almost went overboard – I had left the pencil popper hanging in the water at the back of the boat and next thing I look and several fish were fighting over it with one hooking itself and crash diving for the bottom. I only just grab the rod before it went over the side! Sooooo close!

The pencil popper I was using lost most of its paint job and messed up big time the tail materials with all the fish that had chewed on it - and it still caught fish even in that un-kept and degraded state!

We had a great time using the surface flies, trying to see who could get the fly back to the boat without a fish hooking up itself and taking the fly down deep to slug it out again.

Absolutely exhausted from catching fish on fly we started to head back to Darwin as we knew the wind would be picking up. It was so oily calm and the fish were still keen as for the correctly placed fly but we had to go - or it would be a very rough ride back in.

We took a bearing for Lee Point but once there – it was choppy and dirty. We talked about hanging about till wind started to dissipate as predicted. Then I remembered the wife was heading out for a ladies evening - Bugger! So I dropped Peter off at Nightcliffe ramp (too low water and as said before a crappy ramp!) and then I headed back into harbour and motored around to Dinah Beach Ramp where Peter would meet me with the trailer).

What a wet ride that was with wind and wave at that perfect angle to shower me with even thump and bump on the way back. Once back at ramp – Peter the champion that he is – had some junkfood ready for me in the form of the most delicious hot chips. Why is it that after a long day on the water – junk food tastes so awesome?

We get back to Peter’s and I race off  in my ute to get my two little girls (so mother can go out) and I return to Peter’s place to help clean up boat and fillet the mack for him. My girls love talking to Peter. My youngest girl told me it was lucky we both fish and hang out together. I think so too!

We had hung on to a few other fish for some of the old people near my place that love a fish and don’t get much opportunity to catch them. So once Peter’s boat was clean, my girls loved the cuddles and thanks they got from these grateful people when they received their fish.

What a very long day it was – started at 3am for me. But we were on the water from 4:30am til 4:50pm, then clean up, then delivery of the few fish we had kept, then gear servicing at home (had a sticky reel handle), cleanup tackle boxes, wash clothes, and finally fillet up a few fish and prepare them for the family (and my cat who attacked me the whole time I was preparing the fish - for his share) – 

Long day but don’t you agree that there is nothing better than fresh fish, cooked just right, that you have caught that day!  

If only the rest of life was as easy as fly fishing in the Darwin region to catch a small feed and stretch a line or two!
Bring on some more SWOFFING!

Where to next????
Video to come!