2023 April 9 FW comp prefish - Corroboree Billabong

 So with Corroboree open for the first weekend since the start of 2023 with the wet season tapering off - all things are put aside - mowing, fence repair, bee hive maintenance, show chook prep, even family - all put aside to see how the billabong is fishing with the focus being that the DFR 2023 FW comp only a three weeks away  

Just after dawn we launch - plenty of trailers in the carpark, more boats arriving as we head off. Goals for today- lots of casting practice, test a few flies, suss out what flies (size, type, colour, action, etc) that the target species are interested in. Hopefully we can find some barra hangouts!

We try a few locations, get some early tarpon tight on the fly line, but no barra 

Water is a touch dirty, not just tannin stained

Not much wind early on, so I used a disco skipping prawn and had a blast with surface strikes - so much fun! Got my first toga, of 39cm, for the day amongst rolling tarpon on edge of weed beds on this effective subsurface fly

Wind starts to increase significantly around 10am, up till then - we get a few toga to the net, but dropped several good toga, and have half a line of 30cm plus tarpon. We were thinking how good the day would be if we had this many fish already 

Its slow work keeping out of wind and controlling the boat - wind and waterflow kept Peter on the remote constantly to keep the boat at the right casting distance from the weed line and heading in the rightish direction (great job Peter under such crappy conditions!)

Still up till the wind increased, we had a hot streak of toga sliding along one bank, dropped more big ones, caught a few average ones. 

We left them biting to check out previous spots from last year’s comp that worked well in 2022 - but nothing happening, no rolls, no follows, no touches. Found a few tarpon in one little back corner pocket but even they went off the chew, also no toga in our favoured spots. The fishing seemed to have had a switch turned off. 

Wind has increased significantly - really hope this type of weather isn’t the norm for the comp - makes the fishing hard as hard, and the fish seem to have shut down - barometric pressure?temperature? Peter’s ugliness? My fishing Shirt? Did I shower? What side did I tuck ‘it’ today? Has my wife cursed my fishing gear in a voodoo ritual involving chickens?

Small storm cells passed around us and over the wetlands. Finally once or twice right over us as we rapidly put up the bimini, only to put it back down minutes later.

We pick up the occasional tarpon but no toga for several hours casting and casting some more. We try different flies - well more so me, as Peter sticks to his tried and tested “jelly bean” fly for most of the day.

We were thinking given the lack of saratoga at other locations that all the Saratoga in the billabong might have all moved to the first location we tried in the morning, so we headed back there, to see if it was the case.

Peter drops another large toga, we catch a few more tarpon, I drop a very strong strong fish that took the fly down deep in the water column far from weed beds (fought like a big toga - but maybe a catfish!) but it eventually spat the fly so never found out what it was

Significant observation was the lack of lily pads along the banks - with nearly all weed beds are floating grass beds. Will that change over the next three weeks? Because those weed beds constantly catch even the best weed guarded fly.

Peter finishes off the day with two more toga above 49cm, bringing his total to 10 toga for the day. We both get full lines (20 fish), with upgrades, of tarpon - Peter with Biggest at 34cm

I got only 5 toga (too many fly changes maybe!) but I got the biggest toga to the net for the day, a big thick shouldered toga of 58cm.

So did we fulfil our goals for the day - casting practice - yes (10hours of it), suss out how billabong is fishing - yes and no (more questions if anything!), next prefish will sort that out (or not! haha). 

Barra hangouts found - zippy toodoodah!!!(^*&%&^#!!~!- so big goal achieved - NO!

Overall - Fun was had, much banter exchanged, plenty of tight lines to strong fish, boat had run in the fresh - who could ask for more! Love fly fishing in the NT!