Whats next in 2017?..................

So picking up the new (read second hand) aluminium trailer within a week (hopefully as
deposit is paid and now waiting on the sellers new trailer to arrive)

Next job is switch over the jockey wheel with my old trailer (its in better nick)
Then a little wiring but no rush on that with the old light board off old boat/trailer available

Then its a trip to marine mechanic - tune and service the motor, look at the motor ram (the bit that puts motor up and down that currently does nothing)
Finally, install new electric motor, install new sounder/GPS unit
Got to get a 2mp charge for deep cell - told by charging slowly the battery lasts longer (?????)

Have plenty of time over the next few weeks as I start school holidays as of this weekend and a heap of severance pay to pay for it all (starting at new school in new year)
(well wife taking most of last payday at this school for our rural block and building house starts in May)
But the bit of it that I get - should be enough to get boat on the water!

This week, I have also been showing my replacements at my current school how to do the things I do. One of those tasks was how to make a wooden jewellery or nick-nack box. A great project for students with hardly any skills with their hands. When I was at school 30 years ago it was one or two students per class who did not have the skills to make something. With the students I teach today, it is only one or two per class that I can trust with a hammer or tenon saw - very sad!

The advantage of showing this project to the new teacher all the "how to's" of making the boxes - being the boxes I made with them will end up as my fly boxes for on the boat.

Fun to make and so easy to make but vastly variable for many types of needs.
I also spiced mine boxes up with a few pencil drawings on the lids. I do a bit of water colours (not for a while) but never been one to do something from scratch so in this case copied an online design or two off some excellent artists - don't sell them so that might be OK, "oh well" if its not! It's hard to quote and reference the drawing right on the wooden box.

Now the task is to fill them up...............................
But what to tie????

Throughout 2017 I am looking at being more deliberate about my flats fishing - basically more of it!

Over the last seven years that I have been in Darwin, I have been lucky enough to catch a plethora of pelagics - queenfish, macks and trevs but although some trips we only get a couple, on other trips it is almost too easy to catch fifty plus fish under the right conditions. With the occasionally over-sized specimen mixed in to keep me on my toes.

So dedicated time (investigative and lots casting to learn what I don't) for flats species specifically with so many good flats species up here in Darwin and surrounds - milkies, bluebones, bastards, Barra (my nemesis fish), blue salmon, threadies, Jacks and more. Inspiring and most exciting, is being told of (and seen but not caught) the occasional permit at a couple of Spot Xs, also rumours of bonefish on some of the outer islands of Bynoe Harbour and similar type locations like near Dundee, Perons and Vernons (top of Tiwis too) - so must be more fish out there as viable targets - if it is focused on. Heaps of reef type flats too next to deep water.

Most fishermen (fisher-persons) up here - bait danglers, lure tossers, and in part fly fishers - fish for jewfish, golden snapper, and barra (particularly) as their ("be all to end all") primary targets - yet so many more species at different phases of the tide if you change your viewpoint.

Soooooo much to learn, to explore and so many possibilities for such good sight Swoffing - in 2017!

So to fill up the freshly made boxes - it is crab shrimp and such flies to be made (tying blog entries posted as they are designed, made and tested). A few bits of pre-work too, in eyes, claws, bodies, dubbing brushes, and other fly parts can be made before the final fly creations are complete.

Quite exciting really - so much anticipation of what is to come, the tying, let alone the Swoffing!
Yes, many hot days in the sun in skinny water (need a push pole)...........

But who wouldn't want to see a subtle fish cruising through the water oblivious to you (for the moment),
Cast the perfect fly you made yourself to it,
Watch the fish react positively to the fly
(yes, many will be negatively reacting towards the noises I make, the poor approaches made and flies cast on to their heads too!)
But that one reaction,
That one take,
That first response to the hook point sliding home,
That first moment of desperate rush with the zipping line rooster-tailing across the flat

That will make it all worth it! 

Might even get one to the enviro-net for a photo and release

Cant wait for the journey and the ride!
Want to come along!
Lets go!