20141019 - Lee Point Trip Report

So was given Sunday morning off (again!)
And as much as I whinge about my wife she does let me go fishing quite a lot!

So just before 6am saw us launching at Nightcliff Boat Ramp
Just launched! As still quite shallow at the end of ramp when we launched given low tide in a little over three hours at 9:35am.

The wind was only slight, from north-east but predicted to increase at midday
We headed for Lee Point for the couple of hours we had

As soon as we arrived birds were working the edges of the reef lines running east west across the front of Lee Point land based rocks.
We were hooked up multiple times in a short period of time

Tarpon, Trevally, Queenfish and Mackerel were all mixed in  together -  creating a lucky dip to what would come the boat. the tarpon were most enjoyable, Having not caught them in the harbour since I got a few landbased off east point to 63cm on surface poppers a few years ago, it was nice to get into some very fit, thick shouldered tarpon - man are they good fighters for their size!!

Large shoals of baitfish were working their way through from the harbour proper towards Shoal Bay. The east west parallel reefs that are evenly spaced in line with Lee Point land based rocks funnel the baitfish and concentrate them making them easier targets for the pelagics.

While there were bust ups all over the place, we found one spot where the they were regularly attacking the baitfish - the large number of birds above this action helped us know exactly where they were.

We had some 50cm queenies get almost eaten by some monster fish while getting them in. Once a trevally of at least a metre and another time a metre plus cod (see video for brown blur of Cod as it swiped at the queenie).

We were into fish or chasing fish for most of the the few hours we were at Lee Point.
A great morning of SWOFFING indeed

The Mackerel were bigger too (well than previous trips anyway).
Here's Peter with of the better one's, he got this one on a tube fly with a trailing stinger hook.

On getting back to  Nightcliff ramp around midday - the water was still fairly low. So much so the boat before us once on it's trailer could not get up the ramp and had to dump itself back into the water to wait on the rising tide.

Given the flat end of the ramp, even I had to put most of my ute into the water to get my boat on - at least I had four wheel drive to get it up over the edge of ramp (unlike the previous boat which was twice my size and only a two wheel drive light ute to tow it!)

we were happy to be off the water as the wind was now absolutely howling from the NW, outside the shelter of the small rock jetty at the ramp white caps were everywhere. It would have quite unpleasant out there in my low profile Stessl Protracker

It had been a really fun morning trip with heaps of fish caught, lots of double hook ups and a varitey of species coming to hand. Surface and subsurface flies used - mostly silicone surf candies by me (no epoxy like a normal surf candy, just a thin layer of clear silicone over hook shank and tail material tie in point, with prism eyes added and a few layers of nail polish to give it a crisp scale/shell like feel to crunch of fish teeth)

Bring on the next trip!  (got to do those gold bomber tying instructions blog, promise - soon!)

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10min summary video of what happened for the trip

Current status - blogs delayed due to time constraints

I keep dreaming about those goldens I caught a few weeks ago, one after the other, every few casts. the fight hard, the fish so awesome in colour and location.

Got to get out there again!!!!!

Well almost went fishing last weekend but a huge pile of marking (yr8 assignments and tests for grades 7,8,9) kept me off the water as too extreme tides and a forecast early and strong wind.

Was going to tie some flies and write up blogs about tying them this week.....
But painting the house started this week, as too it is the first week back at school, (sadly also my program supervisor asked me to re-write my programs into the format she wants - mind you it is an out of date format and doesn't reflect the significant use of technology I use in my lessons bah humbug!), as too starting very last assignment for my Master in Education studies.

Haven't also had time to put new CB radio into the boat, so a little more security on long range trips we are planning to Bynoe wide reefs (if weather holds!) and Vernon's.

I think I am turning back into the self centered bastard I was just before my last divorce -

ALL I WANT TO DO IS GO SWOFFING

ALL of the TIME!!!

Its all I think about lately,

Here I am right now in class at school - its a Yr7 Science class and while they are drawing pictures of the cell structure of the five kingdoms of organisms in our world (AMinal, Plany, Fungi, Protists, & Monera)

And all I can think about is a flat someone told me about that at times holds permit
I think about the crab and prawn flies I need to tie - merkins, velcro button, Dangerous prawns and more,

Then there is this story I heard elsewhere about HUGE queenfish on outer Bynoe Harbour reef that need catching on fly
And I know the perfect fly for them - but have i had the chance to get out there NO! got to work! got to mark assignments, got to do stuff at home, got to spend time with wife, got to spend time with kids, got to do stuff and more stuff ----- and so I haven't put that perfect fly in front of those monster queenfish!

Then I think  about a flat in Bynoe harbour behind an island that as the tide drops is filled with 50-70cm blues and threadies

Then there are trips to Vernon's, Coburg, and Peron's group to imagine, plan and hope for
Let alone the flies I will need to tie!!!

AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!! and I am stuck here earning a living, painting house for wife, marking student major assignment for the year that for most have had only five minutes effort put into them.

Seems I have about five or more jobs currently - painter, teacher, father, husband, student, builder (new house on 5acres to start soon)

and all I want to be is a SWOFFER that is actually SWOFFING! one job, the only job!

Must tie some flies to eliminate some lack of swoffing stress or I am going to explode with longing for more SWOFFING!

Trip Report 20141005 - Darwin Harbour

Quite surprisingly the wife let me go on another outing so close to the last. Problem was my casting hand had a few sore spots from all the awesome fishing last Thursday and my body hadn't recovered yet. Still a little pain isn't enough to stop me taking up the offer of more time for fishing!!

It was a very early start – why? Cause the deckie’s alarm went off an hour early and consequently arrived at my place early! In the positive we were on the water way before the sun peeked above the horizon. Stopped at Shelly again not sign of life.

Due to low tide at 9:30 we thought we would fish the last of the dropping tide for barra and such up West Arm. At first arrival fish were going nuts past the deep hole on the right arm. There is a rock bar extending across the river 300m past the hole. We cast around it for a while picking up various species. Got one good snapper, an ock ock (Javlin fish?), plus plenty of small trevally. I did see a huge flash of a lrge fish that followed the fly from the deep rocks to the boat before slinking away - could have been a barra given broad tail (the barra nemesis is still continuing to frustrate me!)

Also there were plenty of little sharks that kept distracting us till the tide bottomed out, then we moved out of arm to Weed reef. Here bait were boiling away but no predators. We did see a gigantic shark with its dorsal fin protruding the water - very pointed making us wonder at the shark species it may have been. There had to have been 2-2.5m between the dorsal and tail fin - so estimate it at at least 4.5 metres, the dorsal fin was huge like a sail sticking out of the water. It was just swirling around lazily in the one spot til we got too close and it slunk away to do whatever it is big sharks do.

Weed Reef proved vacant of fish as well – well fish that would take our flies at least. 

Next Spot was Mandorah, the little T bar rock platform south of the jetty was almost covered by water and a plethora small queenfish and trevally were swarming over any baitfish passing the rock bar. Even pulled a couple of nice stripies from the rock ledge.

We switched to poppers for more visual fishing but the fish didn’t want to travel too far from rock bar - so after one or two strips from rock bar the following fish would skittle back to the rock bar. We did managed one or two better fish on the poppers – I got the best fish of the day on a crease fly. The GT was very keen on the fly because he came  a long way from rock bar to get the crease fly! the surface strike was spectacular!!!!!

We popped back over the harbor to see if the goldens were still in Katlin bay area but alas no goldens. There was some ‘moving rocks’ in the form of schools of small trevally and queenfish harassing baitfish congregations. These keep us amused for 30minutes or so while we searched for the goldens.

So compared to last Thursday a very slow day, however we both caught 20 or so small fish with one or two bigger ones every now and then to keep us casting in hope of something larger. I only had half a day due to some work I had to do in afternoon , so we ended it there.

Weather was kind, wind light if there at all most of the day. The sunrise spectacular behind us as we headed towards West Arm. It is definitely getting more hot and steamy than last month - bring on the build up - let it get the fish biting freely!

My deckie just got us a new CB radio, so once this is installed we might be working more positively towards that hope for trip to Vernons. More updates and radio installation blogs to follow.

Video of trip report 20141002 - Darwin Harbour

here is some of the salt fly fishing action (20141002) on Darwin Harbour.
First it was small mackerel,
Then a heap of queenies and an inquisitive seabird.
Then a heap of Goldens tucked into a back corner of a small bay.
An awesome days fishing!
40 plus fish caught all up - queenies to 60cm, macks to 55cm, goldens to 50cm

Trip Report - Darwin Harbour 20141002

6am start to get on the water in the pre-Dawn light - so nice to go fishing midweek. The boat ramp was empty.
Met up with one fly fisher at the fuel pump on way to ramp (Wayne from Show Ponies team) -
Him to work, me to fishing - what can you say!
Someone has to do it!
He was muttering something about something being unfair, but what?
I can't see it!

First stop Shelly Is - nothing
Wickham Point - zip!
Weed Reef - a few splashes then nothing
Mandorah rock bars - very quiet!
I crossed over the harbour to Cullen Bay - quieter still
Headed towards East Point and a little action bird and slashing fish - hope rises

Finally, at 9:30am I managed two mackerel quickly in succession off the extreme outer edge of the reef now at the high tide level of 5.3m
A few more bust ups on bait on the drop off of East Point reef - a 60cm queenfish this time.

Then quiet again.......casting,,,,casting,,,,for naught!
The decision was then do I go to Lee Point knowing the wind would increase at lunchtime and it would be a rough ride back into harbour in the afternoon

I chose to go the other way (softie!) - and went round the corner from East Point into Fannie Bay.
Here birds were working, mainly in small groups but there was one large flock of birds worth investigation. Firstly I thought it would be mackerel - not the best to chase around as very skittish. But the slashes were different to mackerel.

It turned out to be large packs of 50-60cm queenfish, while very sporadic in their appearance and almost always out of casting distance when they did show up - I chased them around Fanny Bay amongst the kids learning to sail.

I stop counting after 20 fish to hand, they all seemed to fight above their size and weight class. It was tremendous SWOFFING! heaps of fun!
I used clousers and surf candies on sinking lines - neither fly showing any dominance over the other. The fishing was so good I switched to a floating line and a crease fly but after only a few follows went back to the deep setup even though only in 3 metres of water (best for a faster stripping style)

I was looking around the area for fish with the fly hanging in the water and fluked a 55cm mackerel on the stationary fly I wasn't even looking at - don't think that one counts! (at least ethically maybe)

Interestingly when I was netting this mackerel, a large seabird dove into the net to grab the fish. I told him it was mine!

The bird (I think its name is a Brown Booby(?)) seemed quite lazy in its attempts to feed, just sitting on the water and occasionally putting its head under the water searching. I got focusing on fishing again and next thing the bird is sitting on my console not a metre from me. Eventually it took off after some rest time.

A few of the fish vomited up some bait, the bait varied in length from 3-5 cm - which help explain why the smaller candies and clousers were taken aggressively, rather then the half-hearted attempts of fish at the large flies I tested out.

Having had my fill of chasing fish around the bay, I needed a different fish under different circumstances - so headed up into the harbour, back towards my eventual take out point at East Arm Boat Ramp. It is not often I leave the fish biting in search of new horizons.

The wind was already starting to blow harder, so was thinking of heading back to boat ramp given the great Swoffing already experienced but around 11am about an hour after the turn of the tide, I stopped off in a little bay called (I think) Katlin Bay between Cullen bay and Larrakeyah

First thing seen was a couple of very small surface ripples in the opposite direction of the wind waves
Once closer the tell tail indication of yellow flash tells me Golden Trevally. There was a couple of schools the size of a small car, working the area.

To start with and from a distance, they looked quite small and right in the shallows, but the first hookup immediately told me differently. As usual the Golden's fought much harder than the same sized Giant trevally.

One took me into my backing very strongly in a matter of seconds. but my leader parted after a few minutes of back and forth. Bugger! would have liked to seen that one, definitely bigger than the others I had been catching, giving its determined long run with that tell tale trevally 'thumping' on the end of the line.

After fifteen Goldens to the boat up to 55cm, they didn't want to play anymore. But my day was done so no issue. The wind was increasing and it had been a great morning SWOFFING Darwin Harbour.

A little mischief to explain as well
Fished by myself this trip but I had asked a few mates to come - my regular deckie had to work (in Court all day so couldn't take a sickie), one on a course he couldn't get out of, another moving house, two others that didn't reply to my messages and emails - so all the time I was fishing, well when I caught a fish - a photo was duly taken and sent to them with a count of fish caught.
One said he hates me, one asked for a fillet or two from the Goldens, the one on the course sent back 'Grrrrrrr!" - me laughing the whole time! hahahahaha lol lol lol lol!
Love SWOFFING Darwin Harbour!

Enjoy the video - (up soon)

BSSS Day 2 report

BSSS Day 2 - (sorry not a lot of pictures as just average size fish caught, lots of them and too busy chasing points for the comp - even forgot to turn my head cam on!)

Again up at 5:30am, wide open throttle by 6:15am (the deckie needed a hot coffee today!)
The species for the day were: mackerel, any trevally (Golden, GT, Tea-leaf etc all frequent Bynoe Harbour), barramundi, threadfin, and tuna. Now the tuna would be very difficult given time of year, but two species could be targeted in the same area, as well as two other. Flats for barra and threadies, reefs/rock bars for the macks and trevally (well GTs anyway).
We made for Simms reef for the macks of yesterday but frustratingly nothing for first 2 hours.

We saw a little splash on shallow side of Simms reef and after watching this for 10-15 minutes finally went over to get at least something even if tiny small as the splashes seemed to indicate.
However, once there, the water was excitingly boiling with fish and we had 45 minutes of fish after fish. GTs to 38 cm and queenies to 45cm mixed together in a patch of 2m deep water behind a sand/gravel bar. The deckie was really enjoying himself (so was I). The water tidal flow created an eddy as it curled over and around the sand bar and the fish were boiling the water with their feeding activity. There were some small macks too, but we didn't manage to get hook them. Once the water dropped a bit more (25-30 minutes later) the action died off just as quick. We moved  back to front to the occasional large slash of fish along a tide line but nothing consistent and for an hour casting no result.

The water on Sunday was mirror calm, no wind - making it quite hot. Something we hadn't experience in quite a few months. The sweat was beading down our backs as we were casting and trying all sorts of retrieves to entice the macks to bite. We saw one or two slashes of a fish or two behind the flies but action was very very very slow.

Given the ultra calm conditions we decided to head into wide open water to find some working birds.
We came across 10+ adult dolphins and one baby swimming with them.  We cut the motor and watched them for 10 minutes - so graceful sliding through the water. They were in about 4 metres of water harassing some quite small 30cm grey macks (which we could catch!), this dolphin food was skipping across the surface in 5-10m skips to escape the dolphins.

A little later, we came upon some sand/gravel bars way offshore that some large queenies were  patrolling- we got follows but no takes. Awesome to see such fish in such clear and shallow water, Must visit this spot again!

Later a massive black backed ray about the size of a dining table came by and I cast to it in hope of an accompanying GT, however the two GTs that appeared off the ray's back that chased my fly caused my knees to wobble. They were absolutely huge 90+cm plus versions. Massive in shoulder thickness and body depth. Again sadly only a couple of follows was all we got - no hookups.

The rocks and ledges nearby however were covered in fish - Stripies, Moses perch, Queenfish, and sub 40cm GTs. The deckie, thoroughly enjoying himself, got 10 or so GTs in 15 or so casts with a crease fly.  He also enjoyed a shark pinching one of his fish, after this he switched to one of my mega flies to target bigger fish. The little guys were very keen to slash at the mega fly but not the big fish.

this Moses Perch that was smaller than the fly it ate!

While he was casting around trying to catch a big one, I with my small clouser (orange over white) caught a cricket score - full of stripes, Moses perch, the occasional queenfish and small GTs - all racking up the points. I too had a large shark take a 30cm fish right at the side of the boat. While it hung onto the fish, it wrapped my fly line around several reef lumps before breaking off the leader. Luckily the fly line survived the episode without any nicks.

We had another mega GT visit working along the reef edge looking for a live meal and it also chase one of the small stripies I had on the line, but saw the boat and slithered away between the structure nearby. Peter again went to the big flies for a while, I was still catching heaps of reef species one after the other, a fish almost every cast not big but lots of them. I didn't  put them all on the scoresheet as they just keep biting and I kept casting with out worrying about the scorecard. In a moment of calm, I would write a few of the lengths of fish caught down.  We had multiple double hook ups. I really enjoyed Peter working the fish into frenzy with his crease fly and I would then cast behind the fish when the popper was removed - resulting in an instant hook up on the small clouser.

Working around the reef edges we found some queenies and macks of one reef point. The wind was picking up making it hard to hold our position. As the tide was rising, I parked up on the reef and we cast to the bubbling bait off the point. I managed to snag a mackerel in the top lip, giving me two species and thus into bonus points. Up to that time we were not comp focused, mainly enjoying a great hot bite and many species. Now things changed comp wise with two species from the list.

Peter was working his hardest to catch a mack but time was short to lines out and heading back to put scorecards in on time. Peter hooked up to something good and we hoped it was a mack but it was a 50cm queenie. Peter got all loud and excited about something. When he finally calmed down it I found out it was another mega GT that took interest in his queenie making - it look like a live bait, the GT was so large.

Peter quickly measured and released the queenie and cast back to where the mega GT had moved and instantly hooked up to it. Line tore off his reel, I put electric down, pulled plumb bob anchor in and gave chase to the fast fleeing fish. The fight was intense and just as we were getting close to the fish 20 minutes later the leader parted- BUGGER! To say the least!

Given that disappointment we motored straight to the ramp to get the score cards in on time.
Both us had a great day of sighted fish, peter a few big fish on and seen - something he had been working a while on that gave him great enjoyment. With my bucket filled scorecard I was hoping to move up a few positions.

A few of the front runners of Day 1 getting their 600 point or so, I was feeling confident with my 1300 plus points for Day2 (still wishing I had gone to the flats to get a barra or threadie). In the end I managed third for the comp and for Day2, which made me mildly regret my not so good fish wise Saturday . The two in front got three species and the subsequent extra bonus points and managed 1500 plus.  points for the day.

It was a great weekend, plenty of learning curve and a heap of fish. The sighted mega GTs and queenies gave me many hopes and ideas for future trips. My flies worked well, Everyone loved the boat boxes that were donated. Lots of positives.

Not to mention - great people to fish with, as too great accommodation and food at the Sand palms motel and pub
Check out the Mobs blog site for more BSSS 2014 trip reports.
here is five minutes of the small fish action along a reef edge -

BSSS 2014 - Day 1 report

BSSS day one.
Arrived 8pm Friday, given the low key nature of the comp, no real Comp info session.  After chatting to various BSSS SWOFFERs fishing the comp, it managed to swiftly tick over the clock and we were in bed snoring by 11pm.
Up at 5:30 Saturday morning, we launch by 6:10am (awesome morning by the way!)



The five species for Saturday were: queenfish, any cod species, bream (pikey version up here), javelin or ock ock, and lastly blue salmon.

I really like the manner of scoring in this comp. All fish caught are worth 1 point per cm, but of the chosen five species for the day, you multiply the top five lengths by the number of the chosen species caught. For example catch 3 of the 5 chosen species and all the top five of those species are multiplied by 3. Really makes you think about where, when and how you will fish to catch those chosen species drawn from the proverbial hat list of 20 or so species. Best thing is it is all new the next day with a new five species chosen.

So we planned to fish the flat behind turtle island first up.  As we saw heaps of blues on this flat two week earlier - plus barra & queenies. But like last time the fish that were on the flat were very touchy and not interested in our offerings of clouser, full blown imitative prawns, and every other fly we could think of to no avail. Result of Location one - no score
We planned to then chase blues in a deep hole in a creek nearby after that but the tide had receded too far and we were cut off by a sand bar form the deep hole that always has blue in it, so what now? Location two, again no score.

With the sea flat and almost no wind about we popped the 15 minutes over to Simms reef for a hopeful queenfish before find some filling creeks on the rising tide to target rock bars for OckOck, the bream and an estuary cod - hopefully!

At Simms, we found no queenies but plenty of small Spanish macks willing to slash at the fly (but sadly, not stay tight to the reel)
We lost more flies than when previously catching macks, but we managed to fluke two for about 15 or so flies lost. Great! something on the scorecard

By now the wind was steadily increasing as forecast limited possible fishing locations
We decided then to chase some cod. But risking winds would change our plans. There is a rocky flat NW of Knife Is near the Paspaley pearl work base I had caught cod before so we ventured to it with hopes high. Once there we caught a few giant trevally off rock structure. We had one large cod chase after a 10cm GT, that got us excited for a bit - but all to no avail with the larger flies we cast to it
We drifted over the many rock bars and shallow reefs in this area. The deckie got a great visual catch of a 50cm queenfish hiding between two rock bars that came up to take his fly.

On one little rock platform bear Knife Island, I managed a first of species since coming to Darwin of a 40cm barracuda, which was quite novel to catch.
(insert image of cuda)

We thought we would head right to back of Bynoe to some rock bars to find fish but by time we got there the wind was atrocious for the location we tried. Given the wind was still increasing and it had been such a hard frustrating day, we headed back for an early swim in the accommodation' spool
The deckie managed about 150 or so points and was in 11th place, While I got a few more points to be in 10th place. The front runners were getting 600+ points.

The evening seemed quite short after the awesome group dinner as most were feeling the long day fishing in the wind. After the five species for the next day were drawn, I crashed into bed by 9pm, feeling it to be much much later! (Old man syndrome!)

Despite a below average day - expectations were still high for the next day.
More to come!