Kakadu Camping Trip

The first camping trip we have been on up here since the kids were born and it went off very well. Eddie loved the tents (and we knew Maggie would). We stayed at Cooinda and there was a highlight of Eddie playing on the jumping pillow with all the other camp kids.

Saturday we went to Ubirr and Nourlangie. We spend the afternoon in the swimming pool.

Sunday we found Ikomarywa water hole. We went to pine creek but unfortunately the old trains were closed due to lack of volunteers to run it.

Overall a very successful trip.

Vernon Fishing Fun

Went out exploring today. Lots of small fish and a few “alright”ones.

Mike got a great Queenie in and two big trevelly nearly in but sharks took them. We found a stream full of life but there were sharks everywhere. Did some shore fishing too – always fun.

Got 10 coral trout on lures all quite small. Probably 30-50 bluebones all small

My best was working for 30 mins to get what we thought was a metre trevelly in… only to find a shark!

Two sad stories of the day was hooking up a decent trevelly and having the hook pull free from my new expensive lure. The other was me filliting the Queenie for dinner… dropped it in the water to give it a quick clean and the fish grippers somehow came out from its jaw! Dropped it right under so no dinner for me.

Fishing with Maggie – Back in Darwin!

Claire and myself finally managed to move back to Darwin, so hopefully this blog can come alive once again. Today I took Maggie off for her first fishing adventure via Darwin Harbour Fishing Charters.

We went and it was a fairly quiet day at first. Maggie caught her first fish (I believe a grunter) and things came alive at the tide, the boat caught a couple of jewfish and some golden snapper. I hooked a couple of good sharks (probably sharks) but they busted me off.

The good news was that Maggie absolutely loved the trip and is looking forward to the next time we can go.

Maggie very happy on the water

All quiet on the western front

“Beware the westerly” Stewie from work says. He believes as soon as it starts blowing, the barra shut down.

But it had been a month since I had taken my boat out, with the rain and holidays coming up I needed to take the chance. Just out for a quick 5 hours in the harbour.

When we first got there, there was action. A few splashes, and heaps of baitfish. Not only that, but far out, so many boats in my choice creek, a lot wearing the competition outfits.

So I thought we might be in with a chance. Marko and I both got a total of one hit each. Each person I spoke to said they had nothing. And so we headed home, without anything.

Got:
Me: 1kg of magpie goose breast, thanks Mark!
Mark: nothing

Snap:
Took this to help my sell my boat:

Land based hopping

Well I haven’t been out on my boat in a while and Mud and I were planning on having a shot. However a few terrible storms on the Saturday made me rethink the idea of getting out on my boat. A mistake based on the weather and the fishing reports but oh well.

We decided to jump in the car and bit some billabongs and culverts. We hit a billabong early in the morning and there was definitely fish there, you can see them from time to time as the water was pretty shallow. But they wouldn’t take anything. Which is rude as it was a 4.30am wake up to ensure we were there at dawn!

So we headed onto shady camp barrage for a flick – zero water on the salty side for as far as the eye can see. Had a go and fresh, but nothing on.

Decided to head to another culvert that was a long way away. When we go there we were surprised by the amount of water. Only had about 40 minutes there as we had to head back home. Mud got two big hits but no hook up. I caught the world’s smallest barra.

Got one tiny barra, and that’s it!

Snap