Early Start - late finish

For this weekends fishing trip, I asked for a 4am start - but was given 4:30am by Peter as our load the boat time frame - (he likes his sleep ins! and me, well I am a morning person!)

So I should have asked for a 3:30am start and I may have got the 4am start I hoped for!
(but then again when Peter is really tired, he reverts to the side of the road he grew up driving on! Like once we were launching early at Bynoe - lol)

Peter has been very keen lately for exploring and seeing what we could find at a new location
More species- maybe some big fish! and while I love just catching fish - I could do with a new location, more species and a big fish or two if the fishing gods are smiling upon me
So we thought an offshore location to start with was our first option and few spots in the harbour after if the wind came up stronger

So with a few GPS marks from a new website I found - we head off - launching by 5:15am at Dinah's.
But when we get near we see the GPS marks are not worth S#@T - one was in the middle of Melville Island ! Lesson to be learnt: Always double check those wonderful GPS marks you are given before you head out!!! (while not this time but especially ones from the 'dodgy fly tier' we all know, whose 'local' GPS suggestions are usually in Siberia somewhere!)

We still give the area a good search.
however, nothing shows on the sounder or is seen in the surface water for as far as we can see
We troll (dark side), we seek, we troll, we seek
I go to sleep - snoozing while Peter works hard to find reef, structure or fish on the surface
Peter has a few goes at knife jigging on sub-water humps 70-80 feet down - the only result is he gets a bit sweating with all that exercise and winding.

We start to travel back to Lee Point - shortly after we find patches of really muddy water as the tidal current starts to really get flowing after the high tide at 8:20am or so
We find plenty of algae scum on the surface too but no milkies hoovering it
No bait schools, no pelagics harassing them

We continue trolling dark side back to Lee Point in hope of a stray big mack - a needle in a very large haystack so to speak

Off to our left I spy a flash of something floating in the water in the choppy waves
We circle back to have a look
It looks like a dead fish floating on the surface in amongst the algae surface scum

Peter casts his big knife jig near it - it does nothing.
Despite my bagging him about it never reacting to the lure - he casts again
Is it actually dead?
But no - proving me wrong again - the fish chases the big lure across the surface to right near the boat
Before it dives out of sight and we think its over
But a few moments later we spy it again playing doggo on the surface a little further away

This wakes me up from my stupor of trolling lures - instantly
I grab a rigged fly rod - an intermediate line on an 8w with a silicone surf candy on it and start casting furiously
This with quite poorly casting skills sets on display - much to Peter's enjoyment! the sledging was on big time!

I eventually get the fish to follow the candy cast past it and allowed to sink a touch - but after a few meters following the fly it again dives deep out of sight. But then reappears 50m away laying on its side just under the water surface, like it is sunny itself (been told they act dead to attract small baitfish who shelter under its shade - then catches and eats them??)
I change over to a small shrimp pattern size #1 and start casting again
Peter suggests some casting practice to a plate in the backyard - thanks Pete!

About the 10th cast later (trust me as I am sure Peter was counting every bad cast aloud!) the fly placement is finally perfect and it reacts and swoops on the fly
The fish was U-G-L-Y! to also say the least (like chew your arm off ugly, so you don't wake it)

It turned out to be a 48cm Tripletail
The fight was a little weak to say the least in my opinion (in some web sties it speaks of good fight and lots of leaps that tripletails are capable of )
A few quick photos and release - and we continue on our journey to Lee Point - sadly nothing seen for the 20+km ride back to Lee Point (9news fishing segment Sunday night said Fenton patches good for macks - liars!)

When we arrive we see heaps of bust ups around our favourite spot at Lee Point
The tide is dropping and the reef is almost exposed
The predators are chasing the baitfish right over the reef - exposing their bodies as they do so
So it was very easy to know where to cast!

Peter handle mine and his in the mad rush of heaps of fish for the first time that day

We catch a range of fish - once I get three species in three casts - Mack first, then Brassie, then Queenfish
All are small though (sub 50cm - most sub 40s!), so as the tide continues to drop out we search the other reefs between Lee Point and the entrance of Buffalo Creek.

The fishing is really slow but we eventually find some macks and queenies (40-50cm) around a reef barely covered by the tide about 2km east of Lee Point proper.
The bait are holding to the top of this small patch of reef for safety but the predators really slam into them every now and then. We chase them about for a while

A lure tosser and his girlfriend in a nice bikini show up in a hornet(?) - see our bent rods and stop near us - but they are tossing big trolling lures and the baitfish are a fifth of the size of the lure - so they catch nothing - despite casting their lures almost into our boat - as if that is the reason we are catching fish and they are not!

Then we spy three or four large black smudges spread out over a small area, travelling along with the tidal flow towards Lee Point
Really tight bait balls travelling with tide in about 3m of water
The bait are harassed by a few predators and we follow - we get a few, we chase a lot!

Not too much happening at Lee Point as we drift towards it - so we motor to East Point hoping the current lines will concentrate the fish/bait into a more consistent activity location as this area has done many times in the past

Passing the shallow reef between Lee Point and Nightcliffe - we see more baitfish than we have seen in long time. the black slick was audible as it moved along. This one 'patch' of bait would have been 20-30m wide and 150-200m long - quite amazing how much there was!

Interestingly, hardly a predator was harassing them, there were a few we chased but the broad open area they were in meant they were very hard to get close to and to get a cast to.The massive amount of bait in such a tight group and the noise they were making as they bubbled the surface, could have been intimidating to the predators maybe ?

We continued our travels towards East Point
About halfway from Nightcliffe to East Point, we see massive amounts of birds working but under the birds it is just those one of those large schools of long finned trevally (20cm max) - more often then not any surface action in this particular area is usually these small trevally.
Once we identify them by their smaller splashes, we drive past them onwards and towards East Point

Here we find lots, and I mean lots, of birds working again but larger slashes under them
Peter seems to have the mojo touch today and is getting a fish almost every cast even when he not really trying but myself and my results indicate my mojo is no where to be found! I experience many, many lost fish, countless short takes at the fly, a plethora of hits on the fly just as you let the flyline go to grab the next strip of line! Come on you have all experienced that! Probably not as much as I did this trip! Uuuggghhh!!!!!

Once we were using the same fly (two that I had made!), we cast almost parallel to each other (i.e. same location), same brand and type of fly line, different brand of rods yes but....., and using the same strip........ and ...............

He was getting fish and I didn't!
This repeated several times mind you!
Talk about no mojo for the Stig! (and mega mojo for Peter!)

We chase a few groups of predators working the area wide of East Point hoping for bigger fish but they are flighty and moving fast. We arrive in perfect wind drift position and they still disappear (Peter still manages a few though!)

We eventual tuck ourselves inside the up current side of East Point. Here the baitfish are trapped against the rocks - the birds and predators are going nuts

You would grab a hooked and played out fish at side of the boat, take out the barbless fly, toss the fly back into the water and then the fish  - and already the rod tip is bent over and the fly line would be zinging away as another fish had taken the fly as it just sat in the water at the side of the boat!

We have a great time catching fish after fish - well - Peter gets three to the one I get, that is!
Peter wanted bigger fish today but I needed a few for Marine science class  (dissection day!)
The sun was setting, it was a long day but it was great to get amongst heaps of fish
Peter accommodated my need over his - on ya Peter!

We have multiple double hookups with the picturesque Darwin Harbour sunset surrounded by dark storm clouds as a backdrop to our fun  -who'd want to live any where else????? (except maybe those northern seychelle islands!)

One time, I break a leader off my sinking line with one strong fish, and rather than tie on another leader and fly, I grab the intermediate rod/line combo I used to catch the tripletail earlier in the day - and get straight back into it the very next cast.

We are surrounded by several hundred birds and what must be thousands of queenfish in the 50-60cm size range.
In those last 30 minutes we easily caught 20 or so fish between us
simple role cast distance from boat, a couple of strips and on
In front of a few other boats catching squat on bait and lure, I might add!!
Go the fly!!!

With the fish still going crazy as the last rays of sunlight lit up the colourings of the cliffs and rocks at East Point - and after a very long day we finally headed to the ramp around 6:30 - a very long day indeed

Peters phone camera takes great shots!

So.................
Where to next??
What to tie for that location and the fish you hope to catch??

Have a heap of student reports to write by monday - so no fishing this weekend -= maybe next weekend? always planning - always keen!

Get out there you SWOFFERS!
You might not get the size and/or type of fish you planned to get
But keep looking - then have some fun with 'bread and butter' predators in Darwin Harbour at least!
And if you keep casting like Peter always is - you might get a that big one eventually, like Peter does regular (but not lately!)