Shady Camp Crowded

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The spring-high looked pretty good for Shady Camp. Mud and I decided to head down to the same spot that we did so well on. Wow, oh wow, four weeks can make a difference. Last time there were one other two boat there, this time at 8am there were seven.

No doubt everyone has been through this before, you live in Darwin, travel 2.5 hours to a remote location, and it is bow to stern crowded.

Unsurprisingly, the fishing wasn’t as good as last time.

Frustratingly, it was especially bad for me.

Looking around at the other boats, most got a fish or two, but it seems I can declare that section overfished. But who knows, things vary from day to day, maybe soon it will be going off again.

Mud hooked a very large barra, around 80-90cm at the start of the day. He fought it for a bit, unfortunately it broke through the leader. I suggested the drag wasn’t loose enough (see previous Shady story) but I guess these things happen, I think he is going to start rocking 80lb mono.

When the tide turned and started dropping they came on a bit more. Alice got the first fish (had to pass it to Mud for a second to get it from under a snag, see video) but she was pretty happy getting the first fish of the day. Mud soon hooked a fish and handed the rod over to Alice, she didn’t have too much trouble getting it in, a nice 67cm barra.

At this point there was a certain debate about what to do with the fish, I didn’t realise my boat was a democracy, and it was let go.

Another fish was hooked which wrapped itself under a snag, my guess from the jump was around 55-60cm.

Other than that I was standing there casting for 6 hours straight with nothing to show for it!

Ah well, always next time.
Got:
Me: Nothing, two hits, but zero hook ups
Alice – Mud’s daughter: 1 58cm barra, 1 67cm barra
Mud: Nothing, though hooked the 67

Story of the trip:
The way that that tiny stretch that we found last time had turned into nav-point-alpha for most of Darwin.

Boat problems:
Went great! Pretty happy these days

Snap

Nibble, Chomp, Spit

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The tides didn’t really suit a harbour run, but I won’t travel to remote locations alone, and Marko was keen for a fish but due to time constraints could only do the harbour. But I took it as an opportunity to check out a lot of places I always thought “this would be great on a high”. We hit a small island first and there was plenty of life. Saw a few trevelly around, got one real good hit. Got a few small cod. Something was busting up around some rocks but we couldn’t get there in time.

Then hit snags around the various creeks I fish in across the spring lows. Got a couple of good hits early. As the tide receded I had a nice queenie grab and spit my zerek prawn with a jighead, as I wound it back to the boat it went at it a second time (where I saw him) but still wouldn’t hook. Just when we were about to quit I had something decent grab the same prawn and nearly pull it clean off the hook, but still, no hook up.

Got:
Me: 2 small cod
Marko: nothing

Story of the trip:
Sorry to say all the near misses. Especially that queenie, I had all the ingredients for nummus too.

Boat problems:
Nothing, pretty happy each time I take the bung out and don’t get water. I might have to get rid of this section with all the luck I am having… or will that jinx me?

Snap
“Better take a snap in case we don’t get anything else”

Little fellas on the bite in the Harbour

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Thought I might spend the high on a wreck fishing with bait, get a few fish, I did not realise how hard it was match up GPS coordinates. After a bit of stuffing around we bailed and went chasing barra. Should have been doing from the start really…

We caught 3 of them, but they were all undersized. Two of them were close though. A lot of life, mostly (what I think is) threadies feeding on jelly prawns. Would have loved a keeper over Easter, I think I need to do the time to travel… also my freezer is still full from Shady so I can’t complain too much.

Nothing worse than taking bait and coming home empty… bait or fish adds at least 30 minutes to my cleaning-the-boat ritual.

Got:
Me: 52cm barra, approx 30cm barra
callmejoe: 52cm barra, 2 catfish

Story of the trip:
The fuzz came by! Got a safety check by the police. Passed with flying colours of course.

Boat problems:
Nothing… and after adding that silicone spray it seems I can easily launch it myself

Snap
So close!

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