Maggie was soon off to Belfast with Claire, so the two of us decided to head to Litchfield togther. It was a public holiday because of the Queen’s Funeral. She handled the lenght of the drive and the bushwalk really well. Overall a great deal of fun. If we go with Ed we might need to stick to Wangi for a while.
Ed’s naps have prevented us from being able to travel to Kakadu and Litchfield, but Berry springs is only 40 minutes away. So we decided to head down early one morning. Claire and I were unsure just how much he would get out of it, but we knew Maggie would love it.
Well, it turned out Ed had a great time! He couldn’t do much but hang onto his Mum in the shallower part, but still thought it was a blast. And Maggie absolutely loved it. It was hard describing it to her, she seemed to think she was going into a big pool that looked like a lake. But when she got there she saw the fish and we swap downstream to the bigger pools she said in her geniune voice “this place is amazing Dad!”.
Some trips just work!
Mike and I went out together looking for some Trevelly and Queenfish action. The plan was to throw lures around – I personally think Queenfish are very underrated as a table fish, though everyone agrees both are terrific fighters.
We went out and it was one of those (great) days! We caught loads, in fact, I twice caught two trevelly on the same lure! I had not seen this before, but it is not likely not that uncommon. They swim as a pack and because of the clear water I could see a fish follow the guy I had on my hook and try to grab the “food” out of its mouth and in doing so get hooked.
Mike caught something huge, it took him a very long time to even get a glimpse of it – brassy trevelly! 74cm and it fought like all hell. Was quite entertaining too, he would get it to the boat and I would get the net out, suddenly the fish would take off and threaten to spool Mike so I would have to start the boat up and chase him down. Then Mike would win the fight, get him to the boat and I’d get the net… only to have to start the boat again. That happened 4-5 times, we started calling him the “gym junkie trevelly”.
My best fish for the day was a 58cm Queenfish (a PB).
We finished the day with some bait in a hole. Not much was happening when suddenly I hooked something huge! I thought perhaps a ray because of how it could stick to the bottom. But it went on long runs, so I was daring to dream I had caught a monster jewie! It took me about 20 minutes to get it to the surface, and it was a turtle. Dissapointing and also a bit upsetting, I love turtles. It went back under and the line snapped right at the point which was good, hopefully it gives it a fighting chance.
Got:
Me – 58cm Queenie, approx 6 queenies, approx 10 trevelly.
Mike – 74cm Brassy Trevelly, approx 3 queenies, approx 15 trevelly, and lots of catfish on bait!
Dad was keen to go out fishing with Maggie for his 70th. Maggie was beyond excited! But the problem at this time of year is the wind. Not to mention launching and retrieving boats with the tides and the winds. In the end we went to Corroboree Billabong knowing that fishing would be difficult but the boating would be easy.
We didn’t even a bite! But we did have a lot of fun – Maggie got to drive the boat which she thought was amazing.
My old mate Mikey had a boat and offered to take me out on it. We hadn’t seen each other for 6 years so it was great to catch up. It felt restorative on the water, it had been so long. Dry seasons with not a lot of wind are amazing – not ideal for catching Barra. Still, I was quite pleased to pull out a 49cm chromie. Very happy. No more Barra, though Mike caught a sizeable catfish on some bait. Overall just great to get back out there.
Got:
Me – 49cm Barra
Mike – Large catfish
Snap:
