Using up extra brownie points.....

All week I have been working on our 5 acre block at the back of Humptydoo (30 minutes from Darwin) - clearing, gathering fallen timber into piles, removing dead trees etc. Main task was the putting up of 900 meters of star pickets and pig wire. dividing the block into three parts - two for horses and one part for the house and front lawn - love a large lawn of green grass (good for teaching my kids fly casting!)

Talk about hard work - mostly because I have grown soft in my air-conditioned school science lab! As a sheep farmer's son, my long dead father would roll over in his grave at my softness!
I am still sore all over, with old sports injuries inflamed and pain-killers taken.
But lifting a 20 kilo jack hammer to head height 180 times will do that - used the jack hammer to drive in the 180 star pickets in to compacted ground for the fence line. Then again using the jack hammer far easier than the old ram style by hand method.

So the wife was looking kindly, maybe even fondly!, at me each evening for the 'hard work' I have been doing. So there was not even a murmur when I said I was thinking of fishing on Sunday.

Peter and I hit the water Sunday morning around 6:30am. Hightide was at 9:30am and a spring tide, so we needed to be back at ramp by 2 to avoid not enough water at ramp when taking boat out with Low tide under a meter due around 4pm.

Given we like to SWOFF hard at Lee Point a couple of hours after the high tide, the plan was to detoured to Weed Reef and Mandorah before heading to Lee Point.

But the big problem with fishing Sunday was the wind, the forecast on Thursday had me thinking fencing would be better - lots of wind forecast. On Sunday morning a quick look in the iPad and the forecast was better but gusty 10-15 knots by midday - would that be enough time to target the prime dropping tide at Lee Point??

Weed Reef was empty, Mandorah was empty at first glance but then we saw the birds and then the queenfish and small grey mackerel under the birds!

The water was already exiting Darwin Harbour at 8am and as the water pushed over the reef ledges the predators were taking full measure of the baitfish schools.

We hooked up to several fish, the several boats of lure tossers and bait guys caught nothing!
Another win for the SWOFFERS!!!!!!

Every queenfish that attacked the fly (to its downfall!) - used the fast flowing out going tide to make it feel much larger at the end of the taunt fly line. it was a lot of fun. I once got three fish in four casts - see video for a bit of this action.

After chasing these fish around for an hour or so we continued on our journey towards Lee Point. I almost convince Peter to turn back given the ugly swell and wind chop we were pounding into. Peter's boat handles this swell when going into it but travelling with the swell and chop, is a very different and a very wet story at times. (Might be the two 120amp batteries for the 80lb electric up under the front deck - his is thinking of shifting them)

The extra swell and chop between East Point and Nightcliff that pounded us as we traveled out of the harbour stopped by the time we got to Lee Point.

Finally at the reef, the water flow just wasn't there. Which was strange given an hour earlier we experienced much faster tidal flows at Mandorah! We still needed an hour at Lee Point before the conditions were similar to the awesome SWOFFING we have had here over the last few months.

For the next hour it was one eye on the reef looking for baitfish being harassed, and the other eye on the expected and forecast strong wind from the East-North East. As usual Peter kept casting and casting with the occasional follow and a few fish hooked - me just waiting for some action before casting (remember the getting soft concept - got to save my energy for the important moments ).

First sign of action beginning was the quantity of garfish increasing. These slender long fish were zipping about the inside edge of the reef. Then the garfish started to show panic and would jump about as mackerel and queenfish marauded the smaller baitfish amongst them. Occasionally, quite large slashes were happening as larger fish were really attacking the garfish. You just had to cast when this was occurring.

We caught plenty of fish but then the wind came! And came with a passion!
Frustratingly the fish were just starting to go crazy with regular surface bust ups along the edge of the reef - BUGGER!

However, we kept casting but the wind was causing havoc with out casting. One fly into the back of my head, one in Peter's shoulder blade, then one near Peter's nose with the hook point sticking in his buff material just below his nose - a close one! Time to go home!

But you know how it is even if you have caught some good fish, in numbers - you just can' help to try another location on way home. so we ventured across harbour to Mandorah again.

We caught no more fish but did have a shower from the wave wash the boat created as it hit every swell and chop wave there and back. Both of us were absolutely soaking wet as we drove the boat back to the Dinah Beach boat ramp. we just had enough water to get the boat in. A tiring but good day's SWOFFING.

I kept a few queenfish for the kids and myself. Been on a health kick for a week now,
heaps less sugar, no fizz drink (coca cola mostly!), less processed foods and more exercise!
So breadcrumbed fish fingers and finely chopped salad for dinner tonight.

Today was a good warm up for the NT Fly Fishing Social Mob's Sheep Station Stakes on next weekend.

The five fish species drawn from a hat for Saturday's bonus points are  - Mackerel, Mangrove Jack, Cod, Diamond Trevally, and Threadfin Salmon.


First Three should be ok and I feel confident of catching, but the last two will be more challenge. 50/50 on the Threadfin but the diamond trevally will be interesting.

Look for the Sheep Stakes report after next weekend outing.
Tight lines and go tie some flies
The Stig (aka NT Swoffer)

More of the same awesomeness at Lee Point and its Pelagics

Last weekend found Peter and I off Lee Point from early morning, waiting for the reef to impact the flow of water  (usually an hour or so after high tide) to create that lovely ripple on top of the reef that seems to excite the pelagics in the area.

Wind was 5-10knots most of the day. Varying from almost calm water to white caps and then back again. It would have been quite rough in my shallow profile boat but in Peter's 4.8 Formosa  - a lot safer - even though standing on the high front deck was like a roller-coaster ride.

Firstly, we tried clousers like usual but fish quite tentative
After an hour or so we switched to the silicone surf candy I had been tying lately

So excited at the fly, see above, were the mackerel that on the first cast of it while waiting for it to sink a little, it was hit on the drop without any stripping on my part and I came up tight to a good fish
Then one fish after another come to the net, the fly body was quite durable, the tail not so much however even with the barest wisp of goat hair fibres left - the fly was attacked savagely.

Queenfish like the fly too. We were managing three or four macks to one queenfish numbers wise. But the same sized queenfish fought much better.
Other species also thought the fly perfect - stripies, trevally, golden trevally, small blue bones, butter bream, fringe-finned trevally, yellowtail pike, garfish all coming to the net.

Overall, we enjoyed four hours of non-stop tight lines and double hookups (and losing the fifteen candies I had tied on friday before the weekend and resorting to clousers again - Peter used pink/white clousers and I used white/grey clousers). I did try my epoxy surf candies but while catching a few fish, just not quite with the same enthusiasm by the fish as they did for the silicone version.

By 2pm Peter and I were absolutely exhausted from catching fish - seriously!!! Sore arms from fast stripping the flies. Though a lot of fish were caught on slow or stationary flies drifted near the edge of the reef or dumped into a feeding frenzy of pelagics and bait. It wasn't just one spot, as we did move a few times to find that perfect water and feeding fish but no more than 50m here and there depending on tide direction and water depth over the reef - which influenced where the fish were feeding.

It was the best fun anyone could have while dressed - (even though the fishing was the same result as the last two previous trips). Again we hardly saw any other fish being caught by the one or two boats nearby - but then they were not SWOFFING!

We had planned to go after tuna after an hour of fishing Lee Point for a few fish in the esky, But with fish busting up all along the reef, the chasing of sporadic and inconsistent tuna, spread over a vast area of water - just didn't happen
Maybe next time

Which may be a while - as wife has the next two weekends exhaustively timetabled and planned with family stuff (i.e. me looking after the kids while she goes out! That wasn't the arrangement in the marriage vows/contract was it?)
But I do get a whole weekend three weeks from now for the brownie points I will earn - maybe Bynoe or Perons (if tide OK for Perons boat ramp).

Until I tie more flies or use them in the water - tight lines.............

20150614 - Lee Point Trip report - Goldens, Macks and queenies

Spent late Saturday afternoon helping Canadian Pete, putting in a 24 volt battery system and his new toy - an 80lb motorguide GPS guided trolling motor.

What a huge electric thruster. You can even get 36volt version now. I remember buying one of the first models available in Australia - a hand tiller one I had on a canoe to fish Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast – it was a no combustion engine dam. Would have been late 80’s early 90’s

How things have changes. Track memory, anchor points, home points all at the touch of a button

The scary thing was drilling those holes to hold the plate down and getting it right!

 so absolute 

Once that was done – the rest was easy.

Still a few more things to do – wiring on trailer a bit iffy and get another 120amp battery (using one 

of mine at the moment)

So with that done a little sleep and up at 5;30am to get on water at Dinah Beach ramp before the sunrise.

Weather was going to be windy but manageable in Peter’s higher sided, thicker hulled boat when compared with mine.

We head out to Lee Point with a short stop in Caitlyn Bay – just in case some Golden trevally in that same corner on that same stage of the dropping tide – but not today.

Once out to Lee Point several other boats were there but none fly fishing

Around these boats, fish were readily seen busting up bait that was huddled for shelter over a reef that was being exposed by the dropping tide

The other boats were casting lures and baits for no effect except some small yellow tail pike

Second cast I was on to a mackerel, Peter not much later.

We had double hook ups and at least one of us hooked up most of the next two hours.

The other boats – almost nothing. You could hear them talking about how they wished they had taken up fly fishing.

we had a great time, watching the mackerel react to the flies in very clear water. they were just rolling around in amongst the bait. You could even pick the fish you wanted to cast to - awesome  fun!

It was almost embarrassing the fish numbers we were catching (when compared to the other boat working the same area – Golden trevally when you let the fly sink right down to edge of reef, - yellow tail pike, queenies and mackerel depending on the stripping action you put on the fly and location of cast. used clousers in white,  blue over white, and surf candies  blue, charteuse, and all white. I don't think fly type mattered as much as size, stripping action and location cast to.

While Nothing big - heaps and heaps of fun - Queenies to 45cm, mackerel to 50 (but quite solid in the hand not skinny like previous outings), Goldens to 40cm (kept a few of these Goldens for dinner)

We ventured off to find bigger fish. Found some tuna but they were quite sporadic and only in ones and twos. Bust up here, bust up over there – chase them and they wold bust up  where you once were!

No luck with the tuna - quite frustrating to see them and not get them!*(^*^$*^%#^&%#

Spent rest of day visiting our favourite spots around the harbor for not much else – a queenie or two, a Mack. Once Peter got a small Strippie that got muscled by a huge dark shape that stayed connected for a while before breaking the leader and shredding part of the fly line.

So tough day but plenty of fish early on – best part no one but  fly fishers getting in to the fish at Lee Point – GO THE FLY!!!!

When is the next trip???????????  

(four weeks of school holidays coming up  next week so should get more SWOFFING in - I hope as usually something goes wrong with the my boat in the first trip of school holidays and I don't fish for the rest of the holiday break!

Here is a very bad bit of filming of a small golden under the water just before netting and release

Juvenile Goldens are so vibrant in their colours and in their never say die fighting style that makes them  feel far bigger then what eventually get to the net!

If you can take the heat - great fishing to be had

On the water by 6am

Hot and humid already

A very high cloud mass of a storm is easily seen in the predawn light to the north of the city of Darwin, it has heaps of lightning and rolling thunder. Shouldn’t impact us and our endeavours for a morning’s SWOFFING.

Based on my outing two days ago we are heading straight to Lee Point to fishing the dropping tide.

Hopefully the baitfish will be present and being corralled against the lines of reef, one to three hundred metres offshore of Lee Point by queenfish, trevally, tarpon and macks. We didn't find any tarpon but we are not complaining! (keep reading to see why!)

The water is a little rough - most likely after effects from the series of the nightly coastal storms common this time of year, this morning’s was currently moving offshore to the west.

We get side tracked a few times by working birds on the way to Lee Point- mostly small grey mackerel schools that are very flighty and inconsistent in their movements, and getting anywhere close to the feeding macks, and the birds above them, sees them dispersing faster than we can get there - quite frustrating. Regular deckie, Peter and I call them one of the ‘MMMM’ fish (Maddening Mullet Mackerel and Milkfish) in other words fish that frustrate us when targeting them (usually for no result!).

We catch a virtual aquarium full of species at the various rock bars along the way to Lee Point - but no size - all tiddlers if quite colourful and various. Stripies, baby blue bones, mouth almightys, baby coral trout, and 10 other species I have no idea what they are named. 

On our eventual arrival at Lee Point the wind is dissipating, the water was also calming by the minute, and the birds are working in large flocks in several locations nearby. The unique type of sporadic slashes and splashes on the water’s surface clearly indicate mackerel again. But they are all over the place. Up and down before we can even move to chase at times. Even though and despite being an MMMM fish, we give chase, and we chase, and we get the occasional cast in when they are too busy to notice our approach, and we even get a few macks to hand.

We manage (that is fluke) a few other fish or two. A good queenie, a small giant trevally. I get one good queenie that goes nuts zipping all over the place, then we see the brown smudge of a shark chasing it explaining why it was acting such. I let the drag way off and the queenie alludes the shark but once back into the fight and tight lines again - the shark and this time a mate return. The first shark takes the back half of the 60cm queenie in a cloud of bursting redness. The second shark takes the rest and my fly, my backing streams off rapidly and we are about to give chase when the 20lb leader parts as would be expected with a 3m plus sharp toothed reef shark is connected to you on a mono leader. 

It is now I realize I left my cap that has the head mount for my action cam on the kitchen bench at home – it would have been great to get that action on video! Lucky I brought the railing mounting clip for the cam.

Once a vast pack of 60 -70cm plus queenies hangs under the boat for a while - following flies but not eating them. BUGGER! an awesome sight seeing so many queenies is such crystal clear water.

Questions arise as to fly choice - size colour action, materials - anything to improve the hook up results. We hedge our bets and fish a few different flies. I settle on the 'no see um' mini calf tail clouser baitfish imitation in size #1 and get good hook up rate. But I also used 50mm long surf candies in blue/white, and also in chartreuse/white, for good results too. The queenies seemed very keen on the chartreuse/white surf candy while the trevs liked the tiny white clouser. The macks didn't seemed to care and frustrated our fly experiments by ignoring whatever we cast to them, then a minute later took the same fly with carefree abandon.

We come across a bit of a pressure wave readily seen in the almost calm conditions – most likely caused by the outgoing tide pressing around and over a submerged rocky reef - on the bottom corner of the reef as the tide  flows, fish at constantly busting up the surface attacking the baitfish, along the back and front of the reef more fish are devouring baitfish with abandon. The mackerel are working back and forth and we catch a few, some quite large, as they come within casting range of our anchored boat. Due to lack of wind we can cast in any direction as the fish break the water surface to indicate where to cast to. We catch good queenies to 60cm, trevs to 45cm, and macks to 60-70cm. After a while neither of us have time to count fish caught – it is just cast, strip, “I’m on!", wind in line, net fish, de-hook, toss fish back, cast again – repeat! Over and over. Simply one of the best times we have had on the water up here in Darwin. We would have preferred some larger ones but hey, it was still awesome SWOFFING!

The action for the next 2-3 hours was epic to say the least. Constant double hook ups, rarely was a cast then retrieve done without a follow, several hits or a hook up. We actually were exhausted catching fish and sat down to drink and eat while the fish continued to bust up baitfish schools in every direction from our boat and we were too tired and sore to even put in a cast to the nearest water surface bust up.

Awesome SWOFFING to say the very least. The action was so great we switched over to surface flies for a more visual experience. To have ten to fifteen fish slam your fly in a 30m retrieve was soooo much fun, it should be illegal. Hook ups didn’t even matter. But you never went too many casts using the floating lines and crease flies without a rod getting bent to the handle!

And do you know that we never saw another boat actually fishing and all this only 30mins boat ride from the centre of Darwin city.

Yes it was hot, sweaty and humid but with iced drinks, a few nibbles of food, full and proper sun protection, and resting every now and then to sustain you in such weather conditions - the SWOFFING was out of this world.

On a side note I manage a new PB for a species – this a 68cm Long Tom, schools of them were also into the small baitfish carried along by the fast tidal flow.

The fishing finally slowed to only a few bust ups every few minutes and we thought we would try for a difference experience but with the tide very, very low we had few choices. We visited Weed Reef but I have never ever seen it that exposed and so far from the water. Wickham point too.

For the last hour or so of this outing we hang off the inside gravel bar off Shelly Island waiting for the tide to start to flow in and create a pressure wave. Just like two days ago – like  then it again had small trevs (but this time no queenies - ????) hanging off it readily taking any fly swung across and through the pressure wave.

Peter was had it physically from heat ( and I wasn't far behind) and all the fish we had caught. I had a muscle issue in my casting hand from two days of fighting heaps of fish (so sad isn’t it!).

So, we called it a day and dragged the boat out of the water and headed home – very pleased with ourselves.

I also had permission from the wife to fish the next day (24^th Dec) but I was so fulfilled with my SWOFFING (and physically sore), I stayed home and tied 60 or so more surf candies and 30 tiny white calf tail based clousers.

One bit of bad news, on removing bungs from boat back at home after this outing, almost 60-100 litres of water streams out almost what seemed endlessly from inside the boat. Crap and bugger me!

Seems I have another crack in my hull to be re-welded. That means no boat based SWOFFING for a while.

So the next few blogs will be focusing on boat repair updates and fly tying – might finally do the tying sequences for that Gold Bomber Fly I have promised too many times!

Finally, based on this outing, I suggest despite the hot and humid weather conditions – cover up for the sun, have plenty of fluids (water not beer!) and go catch some fish -  preferably with  flies  you have made yourself!

a boring video on the day's surface action

Lee Point-Darwin Harbour report 24th Aug

I almost went back to bed Sunday morning! mostly from frustration.
Because.....
On Saturday there was so little wind in the morning that even a light mist was clinging to the ground on the oval near my house
The trees were as still as I had seen them for a month
I actually dared to raise my hopes of a glassed off morning on the harbour on the next day!

However........on Sunday morning at 5:30am the trees were basically bending over to the wind! Palm fronds flaying about in the strong wind - BUGGER!!!!

But with the usual optimism (studpidity?) SWOFFERS seem to posses overpowered the logic of strong winds and I drove to my mate's place near Nightcliff boat ramp - at the time I was thinking Option 2 and Saratoga at Corroboree that I discussed in a previous blog would have been a far better choice

On launching the boat - I still had issues because if the wind was this strong now, it would only get stronger through the day as with almost every other day this month of August! So what was the point, "go home now", my logical mind was saying but my casting arm won the argument and we ventured forth.

In the positive, it was much better launching at Nightcliff, it saves 35 minutes run time to Lee Point than if we had launched at East Arm. In the negative, the ramp is not a steep ramp, quite shallow and with my large tyres that I have on my trailer it means the back tyres of my ute are three-quarters underwater - not good for any metal on my truck! (even though i spray everything at back of ute with lanolin spray)


After a short 5-8minute run to Lee Point at 27knots average, there was 20-30cm of wave chop but the smoke in the air created an awesome pink globe type sunrise gradually, changing to orange then to yellow that was spectacular to watch and was enough to keep us fishing

Then miraculously the wind started to dissipate, the chop died down and it turned in a great morning

Very large schools of big garfish were breaking the surface and large slashes by predators were inducing them to jump about. Smaller bait were also around too, mostly hugging the rock bars at Lee Point that were being exposed by the dropping tide. The predators were herding these food sources against these reef/rock bars

The deckie was racking up the species scoreboard points by catching a variety of reef species - snapper, stripies and parrots on clousers but thought he would go to a large fly and had instant success on the grey mackerel about - but in the crystal clear water watching them follow the fly, slash at the fly, come steaming in from the side and swipe at the fly, or follow the fly right to the boat and then turn away or drop into the depths out of sight - all this kept us casting and casting for a couple of hours.


I went the opposite way  to my deckie and was using a small surface candy size 1, that I would normally use for freshwater tarpon in the billabongs and hooked a few mackerel myself. One took my fly as I paused my stripping to look at something and I just came up tight, only a few metres from the boat. Happened a second time  too but I got cut cutoff so easily on my 20lb fluorocarbon leader. At other times a fast strip of the fly got the macks excited and worked well hookup wise.

Almost every cast and retrieve brought some interest from the large number of grey mackerel about
I did have one quite large Spanish mackerel show show interest in the fly I was casting, so easily different to identify from the grey mackerel in size, markings and colour - it followed the fly right to the boat and its rapid turn caused a swirl of water that was as large as my 4.7m boat - so awesome to watch in the clear water of this neap tide - of course it would have been much better had it hooked up!

We only lost a few flies, so didn't bother with wire traces - the fish were not exactly leaping onto our flies, almost like they had full stomachs and were window shopping with out buying anything

A sporadic pod of longtail tuna starting busting up three hundred metres away but before we got there some lure tossers (and I do mean 'tossers') drove them away, or down?, by driving their boat through them a few times. A kayaker nearby was just as frustrated by their lack of skill in maneuvering their boat upwind and drifting into casting distance from the pod - especially given all the paddling he had done to get there amongst the longtail pod about 1.5 km from shore.

After a few hours of these grey mackerel herding bait against the rock bars and following our flies half halfheartedly, it was time for something else, something bigger, somewhere else - and with the wind still very low in intensity, we drove across the front of harbour looking for birds working  but sadly found nothing. We did get chased along by some naval vessels impressive in their size and weaponry. There was about four larger sized frigates or missile cruisers entering the harbour as we cross it - hoping we were identified as masked gunmen racing our 'speed boat' towards them..

Off Mandorah point on other side of harbour and its outer rock bars - we again found nothing, so we travelled along the shore line and rock bars looking for some action
On a rock bar 200 meters south of Mandorah I had a follow from a 50-60cm barra which woke us from our fishing stupor. The shape of the head, the silver side and that obvious yellow tail made it easy to identify- bugger - missed my nemisis again!

Peter got a small hand sized queenie, while I got a small coral trout on the surf candy, its iridescent blue spots brilliant in the bright light. Both fish taken from very tight up against the rock bar.

There was a dark patch of rock in front of the rock bar (95% exposed at this time of the tide) that turned out to be a school of about 20 largish blue bastards handing behind a rock down current of the tide that was starting to come in

Peter (the deckie kicking my butt in the scorecard today!) inquired about what they ate and what fly, so I got him to tie on one of my BFCW (Bynoe Flats Crustacean Wannabees) as a possible crab/prawn food source. On second cast Peter thought he had snagged the fly, only to have the 'rock' start to move about. He had hooked one of the bastards,sadly the fly come lose after a short run - bugger! Peter was impressed by their strength (so looks like we will be targeting them more often now and tying some more crab like patterns - see future blogs for my feeble crab like fly attempts).


So on that action, we cruised the flat around the corner of this rock bar searching for more bastards, but found trevally, well we spooked trevally, some more spooked bastards. Peter did get a small coral trout on the BFCW fly.

The water was crystal clear but I am using the chop and flash of sunlight on it as my excuse for spooking more fish that I got to cast to.

Later we moved our way further into the harbour with the wind hurrying us along and we found some working birds and got some more grey mackerel behind woods inlet. (that's the point at front of Woods Inlet behind the coral trout, in the right of picture)

Without more indication of fish activity we moved over to Weed Reef and again found nothing.
By this time the wind speed and white caps on the waves was increasing rapidly. So headed  for the leeward side of the harbour near the naval base. There we got chased out of the naval area by some seaman in one of their inflatable pursuit boats - first time in five years I have been chased out of there, weird? might have been due to the extra naval presence in harbour.

With wind still increasing and large swell coming straight down the harbour from the north - plus no fish activity showing we headed back to Nightcliff ramp
With the expected strong winds finally arriving - the assaulting waves and wind wash that we pounded through on way to Nightcliff ramp wasn't much fun - it was a slow wet trip back - but hey its better then working on a Sunday!

Now to start planning the next trip!