Tag Archives: darwin

Boating around the Harbour

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Claire and I finally had a Saturday together, so we decided to go out on the boat. Claire had actually never been out on the boat before, we weren’t sure how she would go.

I decided to hit a few more blue water locations, as it was across the low and therefore a bit prettier. It wasn’t a fishing trip, but I was planning on having a bit of a cast around.

We hit this nice area of exposed rocks and I flicked around a bit. Got a few small items like a cod and a blue bones. Finally hooked onto something decent, but it spat the lure half way through. Really wish I had of known what it was. Soon we stopped for ‘elevensies’ and Claire had some beer, water, and food. Then the wind kicked up. It wasn’t long before she started to feel sea sick, and that was the day. We tried to go up some mangroves, that stopped her feeling sea sick, but the sun was out and so were the bugs.

So we decided to call it a day. Cracked my first can at the car wash.

 

Billabong Dreaming

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Mud had done well recently at billabong, so we decided to head there in the boat and see what we could get. The plan was to get there before dark and fish it first thing in the morning. That didn’t work too well as Mud managed to get robbed the night before. Not too much was taken, but a set of keys were. So he got some locks changed and instead we got there in the arvo and fished until dusk. A lot of wildlife around, wallabies, jabirus, a few very pale crocs. Yeah, the fishing was that bad I am now discussing wildlife. Anyway Mud managed to get a decent Toga, we both got some large archer fish, but no barra.

I like to look at the positives of a trip… no bait, freshwater, no fish = quick clean up.

Got:
Mud: Toga, archer fish
Me: Archer fish

Story of the trip:
I had to steer the boat into the perfect position so my deckie could take the perfect selfie… what is the world coming to?

Snap:

Quick trip to Berry Springs

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I was supposed to go fishing but I was a little too eager on my squats Thursday night, given my back was a bit sore, I thought a nice trip to Berry Springs would be better.

Given it was a public holiday I expected it to be full, and the carpark was overflowing when we got there around 10.30am. However it is a very large space, so really wasn’t too bad.

I was a bit more comfortable when I got out to the deeper water. The kids were being kids and super excited in the water, which is fine, but when your lower back is a whisker away from a spasm, it was easy to get a little freaked out.

Had a nice picnic and a swim for a few hours. Claire really likes “big things” and since we had never been to the big stockwhip we made a detour on the way back.

 

 

Clear water, No fish

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Had a lot of fun camping recently, see my website for the stories. But it’s meant that my poor boat hasn’t gotten a decent run in a while. I’m getting more busy, not less, until mid September. So with a public holiday on the Friday, off we went.

Hit Stokes point first thing, a few splashes and good boof had me in an optimistic mood. For those who don’t know, Darwin has huge tides. Combined with heavy dry season wind, water visibility is usually poor. Today was totally different, I could see the ground from about 2.5m, it was amazing. It meant I was able to sight cast, but nope, no luck there.

Moved across to the weeds near Swires Bluff. Water visibility meant we saw about 20 rays, and about 10 turtles, a few said hello. Saw lots of fish too, trevelly, queenies, sharks, a bright blue beast sitting on the bottom I was unable to identify. (It didn’t look like a tuskfish to me). Twitched some hardbodies by them all. And some squidgies. Also: gulp, poppers, vibes… you get the idea. Bait fish and life everywhere, none of it interested. Here we caught our sole fish for the day, a long tom.

Once the tide started to recede we the rocks at talc head, and soon saw schools of fish swimming out of the creek. None of them wanted to bite. In fairness, they may have been milkfish, I was struggling to identify them. Up and down, plus a quick trip to some flats on the way home… pretty disappointing day. You could not have picked a better day for it. If I had of known the wind would have been so far down, I would have taken some bait and sat somewhere.

Two boats at the ramp also came up empty.

Ah well, good way to spend a day.

Got:
Joe: Long tom

Story of the trip:
Water visibility. Never seen the harbour like that before.

Boat problems:
Haven’t launched it in a while and when we went to push it off it was firmly stuck. Just would not budge. Then we tried this new method that I’d heard about, which involves unhooking the boat before trying to launch. Slid off no worries!

Snap
In two metres of water here, check out the bottom

Wading through Catfish

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Been doing a bit of camping and other busy work, combined with a small boat, bluewater season, and a decent wind – I haven’t been fishing much. Decided to head out with Mud and Alice to Leeders creek to try to get some Jewies on the turn of the tide. We both managed to mistime what the tide would be, which meant an hour less fishing, but also an hour less on the incoming tide which was where we expected to get fish.

The catfish were on! At the start of the day it was catfish after catfish, Mud termed the phrase “wading through the catfish” as every now and again we would get a blue salmon, or a goldie. Never got the jew we were aiming for. I hooked something quite large that jumped, but it managed to bite through my 80lb mono leader.

After the turn of the tide the fishing dropped right off. Still the occasional catfish but

Got:
Me: Decent blue salmon
Mud: Slightly smaller blue salmon, impressive black tipped reef shark
Alice: Small goldie
All with lots of catfish!

Story of the trip:
Not sure, my first try at fish cakes with the salmon worked out quite well. Or perhaps not being able to land the largest fish, even though it jumped we didn’t know what it was.

Boat problems:
None for today, after a rather expensive service it was running like a dream.

Snap: