Tag Archives: fishing

Kakadu Trip for Easter

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I wasn’t able to get home to Paradise Valley for my normal Easter Trip, so Claire and I decided to go away for the night and booked into Cooinda. On the way down we stopped at Ubirr. It was interesting to see it with a lot of water, it was extremely green. We also got to do a small creek crossing, just 40mm over a road.

We stopped at a few of the culverts and I had a flick. It was the middle of the day so I wasn’t very hopeful that we would get anything and we didn’t. But it was still good fun. In the afternoon friends of ours arrived (Renee and Mick) with their boat. We fished yellow water for about an hour and half, didn’t get a lot of barra, but got some a few tarpon, Claire was very impressed and took this photo:

I guess the other interesting thing was the sheer amount of dragonflies that were mating each other. Everywhere. All over the boat, a few landed on my rod and just started going at it. Good on them I guess. Had a few beers in the evening. Saw the eclipse or “Blood Moon” which looked great.

On Sunday we drove the full look and went to Ikoymarrwa for a swim. I was amazed about how cold it was, despite the opressive heat! Also only a few groups stopped off, the majority of the time it was empty, this being the only swimmable water hole in Kakadu on Easter Sunday. It just goes to show how much more you can get of things with a bit of research.

Harbour fails again

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The harbour is so tempting with its tiny travel times and awesome boat ramps. Since I only had about 4 hours of fishing time there were no options really. We went out and got nothing. I saw three size barra for the day

1) My third cast, he followed my zerek prawn by 1cm all the way to the boat but decided it wasn’t for him
2) I hooked a fish with my lucky lures (with new heavy duty hooks) but he spat it… I can’t help but wonder if the much smaller hooks would have stuck
3) A barra chased his prey right into my boat… literally the barra jumped at him, the prey jumped away and went THUD right into the side of the hull!

Got:
Nada!

Story of the trip:
Used the electric motor for nearly 4 hours, worked fine, which means the charging of the batteries has the boat running smooth, plus the pedal I ordered from the USA works great.

Boat problems:
Nothing. Though I have to moan about dinah beach boat ramp being full of tenders! Made it very hard to retrieve on the low.

Snap
Going home, still glad to be on the water

Shady Camp Madness!!

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The drought is over!

An insane fishing trip. We went for the day to Shady camp for the day, which is over 3 hours from my place, meaning we only had about 4 hours fishing in the day for a 6 to 6.5 hour drive. We hit the barrages… In about the first 5 minutes Mud had us a 62cm keeper. Great stuff. It got bigger from there. Mud got a 60 something one soon after. And then another. Okay, good stuff Mud. Then BANG I am on… I think the excitement got to me – soon I had reeled in a nice, large, silver… catfish!

Soon Mud had pulled in an undersized barra, and not long after I was on. I won’t play it up (that will happen later) I knew it was small as soon as I got him, a 50cm barra.

We moved about 5 metres down to give us better access to what looked like a hotspot. Mud soon hooked up a 70cm barra, which was great, but I was getting a mite frustrated. I was using the exact same lure, technique, and spots as he was, and not much to show for it. There was a 30 minute lull after that, but soon BANG Mud was on again… this time with a 74cm fat barra. I netted it (despite my urge to crack Mud over the back of the head an leave him there… outfishing the captain like that is plain rude) and soon lost my white squidgy.

I decided it was time for my “lucky lure” the gold Starlo hardbody with the terrible hooks that I hadn’t gotten around to changing. As well as my custom rod (a present from the fiancee) I had set the drag a tad loose as there weren’t any snags… what could go wrong?

I tried and tried to get something, 30 minutes later I was starting to lose heart, about 1 metre from the boat a massive barra inhaled lucky and started peeling off line. It had a massive run before I brought it back to the boat. Soon it went on its second massive run. At this point I realised the drag was too lose, so I thought on the third run I would tighten it. It jumped on the wind back and I saw the lure was on the outside of the mouth, and I hate adjusting on the run, so I scrapped that plan. Soon it was on its third run away, and I was thinking “man this is fun!”, you’ve got to enjoy these moments. I got it back to the boat for a third time…. it was off again of its forth run. This time I got back it decided it should hide under my boat, that made me tighten the drag, and the fish was spent. Booyah!! He straightened 2 hooks in one treble, 1 in another, but it held him.

(If you think this paragraph is a bit much for a single fish, read over what I’ve done this year to get him)

I was going to release it… I tried to revive it for about 5 minutes but it was done, it had given everything to the fight, ah well it will get eaten and enjoyed.

Oh yeah, we then hit the main barrage and had a crack at the huge school of tarpon there for some fun

Got:
Mud: 5 keepers, 3 rats, 62cm smallest keeper, 74cm biggest, 2 tarpon
Me: Catfish, 50cm barra, 72cm barra, 4 tarpon
(I won the tarpon-off at least)

Story of the trip:
My 3 goals for 2015 was to:
1) Get a metery
2) Bag out
3) Release a keeper (I never do that unless I have very, very good reason)

So that is item (2) done. Bagged out in 3 hours! Most people at the ramp said it was a poor day…

Boat problems:
Nothing. Barely used it though, went about 500metres

Snap:
Very happy (the red is from my esky)

Lots of work, one small barra

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Well, well. Looking at the tides I thought the harbour would be good, but ended up hitting shoal bay instead. Lots of work for this trip! Apart from the 8 hours of solid fishing for one undersized barra, other fun included:
– Motor constantly getting blocked with mud
– Electric motor problems, culminating with the foot pedal starting to smoke
– Someone’s crab pot rope wrapped around the prop
– A constant battle to keep the main battery charged (I had a back up battery for the trip home, but I wouldn’t lekkie from it)

Wasn’t all bad. I learnt a lot from the experience, shoal bay and buffalo creek boat ramp is a nice spot, and the boat handled the small chop really well. I’m sure I’ll get some results soon, though that electric motor is critical to how I fish.

Got:
Me: 1 undersized barra
Mud: Nothing

Story of the trip:
Some guys were battling a large barra. I think they were live baiting and it kept taking it and jumping out of the water. I really wanted to go over and start flicking at it, but that would have been majorly uncool. I don’t think they ever landed it, but they hooked it a few times.

Boat problems:
Need a new foot pedal. No more electric motor until I get one. And at this time of the year…

Snap

A crock getting stuck on a float

Lots of life, no fish

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So this was my theory, I wanted to do more quick fishing trips. If I don’t have time for a full day, I would just put the boat in Dinah Beach Boat Ramp (10 mins away) and spend a few hours in the water, (plus an extra 2 packing up). Well I had to work Saturday so I figured I might as well give it a shot, and everything went great, except no fish.

Things are doing really well elsewhere so next weekend I need to put in the miles.

Got:
Me: 1 small, 1 medium catfish
Tameka: Nothing

Story of the trip:
Went down to Reichart’s and there was life everywhere. A few boofs, fish jumping, it all looked pretty good. Yet nothing was biting, apart from a couple of catfish. So much life for nothing. At one point I could see a fish (thought it was a barra, but a closer inspection now thinking maybe a shark) and I swam a lure past its face a few times, once I dragged the lure into its body, it just lazily continued swimming along without a care in the world.

Boat problems:
The battery ran out, I think I did too much on the minnkota, and not enough on the engine. I started it on the second one and managed to charge it a bit on the drive home. Started on battery 1 for the engine flush so I think it is okay.

Snap
Lost in the photobucket episode of 2017