two different days - two different prominent fish

So all Saturday I am getting messages
Now these are the types of messages no fly fisherman wants to get after turning down a fishing trip
They went like this
"Just lost a tuna after a 3-4 minute fight!"

"They've stopped - I saw at least 30 individuals- Drive me crazy"

Then a few messages back and forth concerning his faulty start up battery

Then - "TUNA BACK - BYE"

"That was brief"

Later on
'In em again - lost one"

No messages for a while so I write back - "got one yet??"
No reply for a while longer

Then
"Lost another - I am going nuts"

How did this come about........
With Peter keen to get as much fishing as possible with his wife away, when I could not get away from family commitments to be a deckie, he offered others to join but still no takers - so he went by himself

The weather was better than it had been for a while wind wise and the tuna, thus Peter too, took advantage of it

And Peter found himself amongst the tuna more than ever before. These messages where making me go nuts too - sitting at home finishing student reports and doing house work

The next message was - "I finally got one - I am going to faint!"

The selfie he sent just didn't do the fish justice or Peter's efforts to get a tuna while solo on the boat
well done Peter. (remember about sun angles when taking photos please!)

His tally for the day was 8 hooked, one sharked just before the netting took place and one to hand for sashimi

Now we had planned to go together on the Sunday, so I was really looking forward to getting out there at 6am Sunday morning given the above action the day before.

Even tied 20 silicone surf candies and 10 salty gurglers the night before to ensure I was ready to go

Sunday morning Peter was a little stiff and sorry for himself when I arrived, but we eventually got the boat loaded and soon found our selves launching at Dinah Beach Boat Ramp

Launching at Dinah Beach had its usual hassles with "anglers" with no idea, no etiquette, and could not even begin to explain how they do what they do while doing it wrong! (stupid!!!!)
Ensure you can start your motor before you get to bottom of ramp, take the straps off at top of ramp, what ever you do get out of everyone's way while you screw it up!
Better still grow a brain!!!

Anyway after waiting for the crazy brain dead people to get out of the way - we zoomed off
as the water was as flat as

We stopped for nothing till we get almost to Lee Point where we found a couple of tuna porpoising around the surface

A few other boats about with lure tossers on board but sadly kept bombing the fish, we were carefully targeting, by racing into the middle - in fact probably only putting the fish down

Given this we headed on to the Main area we fish in anticipation of a good day's SWOFFING ahead if the tuna were already about

The tide was rising but the reef was already past the point that would trap the bait against it - so that didn't help

So we after a while of looking for targets like small macks, trevs and queenies - close to the main reef - and finding nothing - we head a touch further north to a pinnacle Peter had fished before

On a high tide this Pinnacle (now called Pete's Hump) sits in 10m of water and of about 5-6m in height itself. With no fish showing on the surface and only the sounder showing schools of bait and the occasional big fish being indicated on the sounder. So blind casting it was till we found other action around us. We don't mind blind casting here as we have always found large fish about it. And today proved no exception.

We would cast to the front quarter of the boat and as the line sank and move with the tidal flow towards the back of the boat all the time anticipating a take on the drop and drift, then when at an angle to the back of the boat and the fly had sunk deep, we would start a stop pause or fast staccato or mixture.

(be careful here with your sinking lines as I now have an 8w and a 10w full sinking line that are not that full anymore - bugger!)

Sixth cast I come up tight to a strong fish - backing almost instantly out the rod tip on the first run. The fish on each run for the horizon used the tidal flow masterfully against me. We should have stopped trying to guess the species as eventually the line angled towards the surface and the tell tale image of a large queenfish exiting the water in a manner typically crazy of a queenfish, flopping about as it returns to the water with very if any style or poise.

I was sooooo stoked at seeing the size and thickness of the jumping fish for it has been a while between big fish for me, I have been watching Peter catch them regularly but never quite getting them to hand myself (I am too hard on the fish at times). So this fish was significant to say the least - well if only for my inner ego.

The tightness of the line, the irresistible steady pull of line off the reel - all creating a buzz in me that nothing else can
JUST LOVE MY SWOFFING - bring it on!

Peter missed a couple of netting chances, had it slip off one, then with a final grab that almost saw him fall out of the boat we had it on board for photos

At 91cm the largest in four years

The fly was a silicone surf candy number 1 hook - it took it right down and left a bit (?) of blood on it such was the depth of hook up. I tried several other flies, bigger, and type but the one all the fish wanted on Sunday was the silicone surf candy.

I was using 20lb leader and was very worried during the fight as to whether the leader would wear through (or the fish get taken by a shark like one of Peter's tuna did yesterday). The leader was very frayed so I was lucky

About 10-15minutes later Peter also gets a big queenie
This one 93cm

Sinking flies down deep can be a bit boring but with nothing else showing we kept at it
Peter lost one very strong fish after several minutes of back and forth - things like this kept us casting

I got the fright of my life once when the hugest flash of side on body, that occurred right behind my fly as I stripped - only a rod length from the boat as it slashed at the fly and turned. It had to be one of the biggest trevallys I have seen in a while - so clearly was it seen in the clear water - it is still burnt in my memory of a lost opportunity.
For the few moments after the episode - I was full of excitement, fear and regret all at the same time

Tarpon were also present - they fight so strongly and never give up - as soon as you hook them you know it to be a tarpon - then when on the surface its starts jumping - awesome!

This one went 51cm but I had a bigger one on that finally threw the hook after three contorting jumps and twists out of the water - spectacular fly fishing!

 We caught heaps and heaps 40-50cm queenies as well but you had to be deep, small trevally too.
But as the tide turned the fish moved on and so did we
With nothing about we searched and searched

We found tuna again but small groups spread out and although we came close - no hook ups. however it was fantastic (and frustrating!) to see the tuna zipping about just under the water searching for baitfish

The increasing wind made the whole aspect of targeting the tuna so hard. The tuna also stopped showing themselves

We found some small macks and targetted them for a while - they were very tentative - following the fly and rarely hooking up - but they too kept us casting

We search around the reefs towards Shoal Bay hoping for fish to target but instead found a 3.5-4m croc floating above the reef. As we came near the croc dropped out of sight. We followed along near by hoping it would rise up again but it sulked on the bottom eventually evading us and we lost it amongst the reef area. The smudge in next image is the croc under the water 15 feet down

Come 4pm - Peter was done (me too) so we headed back into harbour to the boat ramp - the trip uncomfortable with the increasing wind and swell

So two days - two species prominent - one on each day - but over all heaps of fun in the local Darwin Harbour. We are getting much better at handling the wind - at times during the day the wind was recorded at 18-23knots.

I was glad to bag a big fish for a change (although Peter pipped it by 2cm only 15 minutes later)

Cant wait to get out there again and get amongst it

Go a head - tie some flies - cast them to some structure or actively feeding fish - and hopefully get a zinging taunt line as the result

See you out there!