Leeder’s Creek with no wind

Perfect tides. Great wind. Heaps of boats around. No one got anything! At least not in the creeks or the mouth, those that went out to the islands did well. I hate to admit, there is some comfort in the fact that no one got anything, it wasn’t just us. I have been a bit unlucky lately, hope I didn’t jinx an entire region!

Got:
Me: Two decent mud crabs, kept a large bream, mostly because the hook took his eye out I thought it was more humane to kill him.

Story of the trip:
Pretty quiet! Umm, I guess it was that my tarp & rope worked very well down the dirt road.

Boat problems:
Nearly has a clean report card, except the foot pedal of the lekkie couldn’t get fixed, so I will have to get a new one. Am going to work on that.

Fuel Stats
8 Litres
30km travelled
43km max speed

Snap

Adelaide – Salty Arm for the first time

Wanted to go jewfish hunting at leeders but Mud suggested barra chasing at the Adelaide. I never have much success but agreed to it. Not much success! The electric motor got fried a couple of hours in which hindered us. Was just getting out in the bluewater when the wind got picked up and had to come back. Put the pots in for nothing, again.

Got:
Me: One decent cod
Mud: 53cm barra & a large shark. Could stretch the barra to 54 lol but not 55. πŸ™

Story of the trip:
Not sure really. Helped a guy with a large boat retrieve his as he had snapped his Achilles when he got off the boat. Fishing by yourself is scary. He still had to drive about 2 hours home.

Boat problems:
At first the electric motor wouldn’t turn, but would go. Then power cut out all together. Hope I don’t need a new one, I use it about every trip, hard to be without for the fishing I do.

Snap
53cm barra caught in morning… half assed photo as I was sure we’d get something better to photograph later in the day:

Blue Salmon at Leeder’s

Went out on a sunday so haven’t had much of a chance to type it up. Went out to Leeders to go Jewfish chasing! Caught lots and lots of juvies out of the reef… goldies, sweet lip, blue bones, jewies, grunter, every species you can think of. Just tiny! Got some good blue salmon (which are delicious imo, most people don’t like them unless they are fresh)

Got:
Me: One medium blue salmon
Mud: One large blue salmon and one small blue salmon
Mud’s 10 year old daughter: Massive (64cm) blue salmon

Story of the trip:
Watching the girl fight the salmon! They fish was giving it a red hot crack.

Boat problems:
Woke up and one tyre on the trailer was completely deflated. I couldn’t change it to the spare as my spanner wouldn’t grip it (as I found out) so I pumped it up and went off. Had to do it a couple of times on the way home. Bought a new tyre and put nuts on it so my suzuki tool can do the boat.

Snap
Alice with her big catch

Bynoe with my mates

Had some mates up here from Queensland so took a day off work to take them out to Bynoe

Got:
Me: Small cod & bream
Mate: Nothing
Matess: Reasonable Queenie & bream

Story of the trip:
Driving to the ramp in the dark and this guy is coming the other way. I took probably a second too long to turn my overlights off. He starts flashing and flashing me. “Take it easy” I thought. We pass each other and in about 5 seconds I slam the brakes on. A tree has burnt out and has fallen across the road. I dropped it back to about 60km before impact. My side the trunk was up to my thigh, so I swerved onto the other lane and went over the smaller section. Bullbar broke a bit of the tree off. Got away with a punctured tyre. Pretty lucky really. I changed the tyre while mate cleared the road. A couple of chaps who came by pulled over and helped with the tree. Crazy.

Boat problems:
I thought I was in the clear… but when I got home the electric motor wont unplug. Not sure it really needs to. But weird. Plus the $250 for the tyre πŸ™

Snap
Zero wind for most the day, the you could have skied across the harbour

Kakadu and Litchfield without the camping

Did some serious kilometres with this one.

Had some friends from Queensland up, due to space in the car restrictions, we stayed in Jabiru for the night. We drove from Darwin to Maguk for a swim. We went to Ubirr for sunset, then to Jabiru to watch the mighty Kangaroos comeback against the evil Bombers. The next morning we went down to Bukbuluk, and spent most of the day in Gunlom. Afterwards we went to Ikoymarrwa, then onwards home. Stopped at Emerald Springs for dinner, it’s a pretty good roadhouse.

If you’re familiar with geography of Kakadu, you will see that we added about 300km needlessly by going back and forth, mostly because we wanted to see Ubirr at sunset, and stay in Jabiru. Next time I will stop at Ubirr on the way and stay at Cooinda. Much more sensible!

A few days later we went to Litchfield. Saw the usual spots – Florence, Wangi, Buley Rockpools in the termite mounds. But we spent most of the time in Tjaynera which was empty the majority of the time. Nothing better than an empty waterhole!

Went back to Mindle markets on that Thursday, there were some dolphins playing in the water at sunset entertaining the crowd. Pretty hard to photograph, but I did my best!

 


Claire and I in Maguk


Claire at Ubir


The four of us at Gunlom


Dolphins playing in the water