NT FISH STOCKS UNDER ATTACK - by JACK WHITE

Jack White is one of the young guns in the Mob and here is an article that he submitted for a school project and it must give heart to all of us that want to see our fishing paradise, remain just that, a paradise. 

Jack with an elusive 'Dart'

Does the Territory really need more fisherman to admire and plunder what is on offer in our local waters, asks Jack White.   

Survey's provided by NT Fisheries show that Golden Snapper (Fingermark Bream) and Black Jewfish numbers are quickly diminishing around the reefs of five hot fishing locations including Melville Island and Bathurst Island.  This is believed to be due to the influx in recreational fisherman over a period of seven years and the impact of commercial fishing.

In the long term, this issue will not only affect recreational fisherman, but also charter operators and commercial fisherman.

A five-year protection plan has already been established and has shut down five popular fishing locations: Melville Island, Bathurst Island, Charles Point, Lorna Shoal and Port Keats.  The personal possession limits have also been lowered to 3 Golden Snapper and 2 Black Jewfish.  But is it enough?

The Million Dollar Fish scheme, to encourage tourists to travel to the NT and fish in our waters, can't be good for the future Golden Snapper and Jewfish populations.  The inexperience and limited education that 'Southerners' have about legal fish sizes and fish sustainability in the NT is a substantial problem.  Unfortunately, many have no concept of 'catch and release'.  Charter and guiding operators are faced with continual dilemmas of letting their clients know that it is not right to keep their fish when it is the size of a successful breeder.

In saying that, Golden Snapper and Black Jewfish are known to suffer from barotrauma when caught in a depth of ten metres or more, meaning that it would be a waste to release as the chance of their survival is slim.

Should commercial sectors be allowed to fish the protection areas?  Commercial fisherman cull fish in masses for the demand from restaurants, fish markets and the cat food industry.  Is the need for fish that large? 

Commercial fisherman primarily target Barramundi and King Threadfin Salmon, however a common bycatch is Black Jewfish yet not Golden Snapper.  They have particular zones to fish and have a season of 7 months.

The Amateur Fisherman's Association of the NT (AFANT) discovered that commercial fisherman were still operating in the reef protection areas, "this was despite governments repeated assurances that all stakeholders; commercial, recreational, indigenous and tour fishing operators were required to 'share the pain' and be excluded from fishing these areas to aid in the protection and recovery of at risk reef fish species." says AFANT President Warren de With.  Recreational fisherman are permitted to keep 3 Golden Snapper and 2 Jewfish at a time, whereas commercial fisherman fish on an unsustainable level with no limits at all.

Great size Golden Snapper, 2015 

Unfortunately they are unable to target different species due to the use of nets, as there is minimal guarantee that a Snapper or Jewfish will not be caught.  Perhaps, to keep things fair, all fishing must be excluded from all stakeholders in the protection areas to allow the fish to develop growth in both size and quantity.  Shortening the commercial fishing season may be a good alternative as this would raise the demand for fish and also their prices, creating a sustainable income for the fishermen.

Healthy Jewfish caught in October, 2015 - Photo by Rod and Rifle Tackleworld

Long time flyfisher's Cathie and Roger Bassett, spoke of an entry in Captain Cook's journal where his sailors caught fish in their nets.  However, when the nets were brought ashore the indigenous people, who up until then had been peaceful bystanders, suddenly became disturbed and gestured threats to the sailors.  The sailors retreated leaving behind the net.  The indigenous people then began reducing the catch by two thirds and releasing these fish, thereby ensuring that the sailors only kept what they needed and not the entire catch.  This is a great example of the 'catch and release' method that is used today and sustainability at its best.

So, in order to keep the actions fair and just, a 'happy medium' must be found where everyone in the fishing community and industry 'shares the pain' because we are all held accountable for the decline of two of the Territory's most beloved eating and sporting fish.  Assuming that many people would oppose the introduction of fishing licences, let's do our part and show our concern for the welfare of fishing in the Territory!

Yellow Waters

Last weekend ventured out to Yellow Waters to try my luck. The drive out was met with a nice cooling storm at Jabiru and was to be the first of a couple of storms to eventuate over the next couple of days.

Rain on its way!

Fished both Home and Yellow Waters over the weekend with Home providing fish that seemed to be in much better condition and were much more receptive to the fly. Yellow Water stock was very visible but would shy away from the fly, frustrating to the max. Don’t know if the water temp had anything to do with it, Home 30-31 degrees, Yellow Waters 32-34 degrees.

Great fish to catch!

While the numbers of fish caught came nowhere near to that of my last visit about a month ago it is a great place to visit at this time of the year to sight all the wildlife that has congregated on the billabongs. Crocs by the hundreds with one taking my largest fish of the weekend, estimated at 70-75 cms, right at the boat, came out of nowhere. It then spent the next half an hour trying to evade other crocs that wished to have a feed also. Hope it did not have a Million Dollars stuck in its back! Waterbirds covered the water surface and often wondered if their activity of landing and taking off en-mass had anything to do with the Yellow Water fish being timid!

He wanted it more than me!

While the temperature was hot it wasn’t unbearable and the evening storms cooled it enough for good sleeping under the stars.

Home Sweet Home

Remember “You’ll never never know, if you never never go. Get out there and fish”.

Tight lines

Jim Churchley

Nostalgia from the mid 80's

When I first came to the Northern Territory in 1985 it was to view a destination with then local Col Roberts (Wildfish Magazine today) the idea was to build a Floatel in the waters of Port Hurd Bathurst Island.This later for various reasons changed to the option of building a more permanent fixture that today is known as the The Barra Base.

In the process Rod Harrison and Dean Butler who were producing videos using John Haenke as the cameraman came to Barra Base and shot a video called "Top End Barra" it was during this that Rod requested that Dorothee and I  host, in part American Flyfishing Legend Lefty Kreh on his upcoming down under tour.

The upshot was a video called the " New Frontier " Harro was admiring an approach we developed in the visual stalking of Mangrove flats for Barramundi ,Threadfin and anything else that showed its nose, The tour was very successful with Goose Creek (Saratoga) being included in the Barra base section,The Drysdale, Cobourg peninsula  and New Guinea Black Bass .

The Mid 80's with Alex Julius then in the Fisheries Department and Mike Reid the Minister spearheaded what was to become a major tourism thrust that we still reap the benefits of today,Alex with Harro and John Haenke later spent a week producing a 10 Min promo of Fishing in the NT it recently was taken from Beta cam to a digital format and is uploaded here.

Names such as Alan Philiskirk, Phil Hall, Alex Julius,Gary ( bigfoot ) Simpson,Rod Harrison, Dean Butler, Lex Silvester and other locals obviously skinnier and  much younger are here.

Hope you enjoy this 27 yr old video.

 After clicking wait

 15 seconds

ROUGH PARADISE?

What a difference a fortnight can make, tides, weather, everything looked good for a great weekend, the moon was coming to its peak (see Graeme the Greys post by clicking THE MOON), but we didn't take into account the storms. It was pouring when we left Durack, the gutters were running full and the sky was black.  As usual with the rain up here we drove out of heavy rain where you could hardly see into dry clear areas where you could see another heavy shower ahead.  What a wonderful place the NT is, just to see the storms and the magnificent lightning shows.

Actually we were a bit worried, because sometimes the big storms cause some flash flooding on the smaller crossing that still exist on the road to Sand Palms, but they were as dry as what Roggie calls a  'Çamel's Fart'.  I think that's very very dry?

Poured at Sandpalms, and while we had the bungs out in the boat, we forgot to put it on a slope the next morning and travelled around with a heavy listing boat for the first day.  On the ramp when we returned it must have had a hundred or more litre of fresh water in it.  We made sure that the next day we drained it even only after a small storm, and it was amazing the water that gets in them.

Now we got to Sandpalms for the Thursday night pizza, and I invented a new one that the staff made up for me....a Salawaiian  (instead of a ham and pineapple hawaiian), it was salami and pineapple  Plus of course some of that wonderful red wine

Matt with the great wine

Friday was horrendous, we went up to the top of the harbour but there was swell coming in that you could not get through, so we turned back as the heavens opened, but the swell was the strangest, the poor old boat seemed to have trouble getting through it, so we headed back to the sheltered creeks and Knife Island.   Saw Bill and Danny Wilson at Knife Island, they had a good day, some of the best fishing according to Bill, but the swell was a pain.  They came back out the next day with the grandson, but I'm not sure how they went.

This was the smooth water in Phoenix Creek 

We had a lot of action in 'Flog'em Flats', didn't see any of the usual threadies there but heaps of barra, but with the swell the boat was up and down onto the mud, and Roggie said something rude about the waves so we moved on.  He said he was putting on a 'special prop' for the next day.....very silly.

We did manage a heap of 'Tea Leaf' trevally around China Wall and queenies, bream and trevally in the Charlotte.  Then I managed a cast at a fish that Roggie said was a black trevally in the murky water, but it was a flat head with a very colourful striped tail.

This flathead took the 'barra'fly 

Typical Tea Leaf

Friday evening was 'Schnitzel' night at Sandpalms...they were amazing, Roggie and Marty had to have their pork chops though. All with that wonderful red wine.

Saturday we all headed up to 'Jim's secret spot' but the weather was horrid and the sea was worse.  Lord Jim had managed barra in Jim's Bay???, and Big Dave was at the secret spot, (when we got there) but there were only spasmodic queenies and wolf herring.  The other boats had headed into the creeks out of the rough sea and as usual the Brokenflagens killed a pig.  The Triple J boat ( Jenni, Jon and Jack) got some fish and we were late to all the spots, why??, Roggie had decided to put that 'Special Prop' on the night before.  Well! it worked until we got into the waves and swell then the motor would not go over 3800 rpm.   I didn't say, "I told you so"...but that prop is going to the Sea Gods to fix.

We had to  limp back in a terrible sea, to a safe beach, where, with the boat rocking up and down, all over the place, Roggie put the old prop back on......fixed the problem.

We left the secret spot and went into a couple of creeks, one of them was alive with barra, we first saw one about 80cm and then as it swam into clear water realised that it was with a school of smaller barra.  We threw everything we had at them...no good.  Back to the every reliable Knife Island and there were birds everywhere with small macs jumping all over the place, but all we could manage was those bloody queenies.  Roggie keeps telling me that I'm whinging, because most people would love catching a heap of them, but I know its so good up here, so I can whinge.  I know...I'm spoilt!

The Brokenflagens heading into the 'storm'?

Lord Jim setting up as it clears

That evening there was a lot of planning, and decisions to make if we would go out the next day because of the horrid sea.   The predictions were great, just like Friday and Saturday, and after drinking to the fish Gods and Marty doing a 'Fish' dance. (Something like an Irish Jig done by a German..which is what it was)...and all of us, except Jenni who had an injury from bike riding, decided to take on the rough sea for Sunday.

Marty doing the 'fish Gods'dance....(a German Haka?) ..it worked!!!

The Stig, Canadian Pete getting the 'drum' and the map references?  

So the next day arrived, no black clouds, fantastic...

Looks good....fingers crossed

Fish a cast!!!

Sunday looked great, we went with Double J boat down into the harbour, and stopped at one of the rock bars that usually goes well...it didn't disappoint, Jack and Jon were on double hook ups and it was a fish a cast for a while.   Roggie always says you shouldn't leave fish to catch fish, but we wanted to show the boys around, so we went to a few other spots that can fish well.   Jack managed to get the barra to chase him, but it wasn't until we got onto the flats (I think Jim calls them Jim's flats) that he got his first barra, small but a barra but no red tag.

You could see fish moving in the shallows for 100 feet either side of the boat, great, but not a lot of fish.

Jacks barra on an EP fly.

A bit different to the previous days...smooth but really really hot.

Keeping under the Great Northern shade.

The Minchins got barra and salmon ...

Add caption

and the Brokenflagons had a ball...

A PB Jack for Jus

Marty with one of the barra

A beautiful morning.

Some exotic fly fishing

Hi guys

Greetings from London. Hope all is well in the Top End. I'm guessing the weather is probably a bit warmer there than where I am!

Thought you might be interested in these shots from a mate of mine, Mark Pettini, who has been sending me pics from his fly fishing trip to Argentina in a successful attempt to make me jealous.

He has been getting some incredible dorado on the fly over there.

One to put on the bucket list for any flyrodder.

Cheers - Dave Krantz

SEVENTY TWO STILL OUT THERE

Yes, four (4) of the tagged barra have been caught, but that leaves us another seventy one at $10,000.00 and one at the $1,000,000.00 mark.

This weekend looks good for tides and weather if you are a swoffer, wind may be predicted to come up around mid day ie the sea breeze, but the low is before the wind comes up so the flats should fish well.  Not sure what fly to use, but we have translucent green/brown and green/yellow/white which did well a fortnight ago.

here is the info on the tides etc

and the wind?????

there is a mob of us heading to Sand Palms, because its time for Bynoe to give up at least one $10,000.00 fish...we hope, but in any case, its always  'Just for Fun'.

The Bassetts                       

What horse race? - I was fishing!

More from the Stig....see his blog at THE STIG

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Off late this time

Got up late as I promised to help get wife and kids off to school, bought a few things from the shop for a class I didn't want anyone else to teach during my long service leave - a year 10 Marine Studies subject where we collect and document marine species (that is 'fish' for specimens on high tides, search on rock platforms on low tides).

But that class was at 10:40am - conveniently held at East Arm boat ramp and its high tide at 10:30am today. I had arranged the school bus driver to have them at the ramp at just the right time.


So prior to that I had 2 hours of SWOFFING time - yes!!!
A fast run to Wickham Point had me seeing fish - these around the sand/gravel bar behind the couple of trees amongst the furthest rocks from the shoreline.
They didn't take or show interest in the fly i was casting -

Then I see a disturbance about a 100m out from the trees on the mud flats north of Wickham Point. So use the electric to move closer and investigate

The water was super smooth, zero wind - so easy to see things happening
Once I arrived, it was a few large manta rays, 10 or so feet across - wing tip to wing tip
They were looping over and over back-flipping in the process
All the while they were scooping thousands of bait into their mouths

And guess what was hanging of them eating the dregs - a few hundred small trevally

A cast across the back of the flipping rays with a silicone surf candy or a small white clouser resulted in a hookup most casts. So with the two hours I had over 30 trevally to hand. A few sub thirty centimetres , most 40-45cm. Absolutely awesome fun

Then the alarm on my phone went off to tell me time to head back to ramp to take my class
bugger!
So hard to leave fish biting in such awesome conditions and circumstances.

The students were enthused to see me as I tied up my boat to the end of the floating platform at the boat ramp and bagging me out about my dress style (sun smart!)

We had a good time with students collect several specimens

a small jellyfish that was collected - yet to be identified - homework for students

Until the wind came up from the north-west
This wind would bugger my options for the afternoon given its steady increase in speed

While I was waiting for the class to end, my constant thought was the question of whether to take boat out of the water or go fishing?
So at 12:30pm despite the white caps I head back out of the harbour to find some fish

It is a slow trip past East Arm Wharf with a good sized chop slamming into the boat, every lift and fall has wind assisted salt spray hitting me.
But I keep going - eventually getting to Stokes Wharf and begin to search for fish along the foreshore with the idea to eventual head towards Kaitlyn Bay. The water here while still wind swept only has a riffle of chop.

About halfway to Doctor's Gully, I see some birds working the up current side of a little rock bar that juts out from the area off from the derelict water tank. The wind was opposite to the tide flow, so trying to drift into the working birds would be difficult.
 
None of that matters when I spied the golden ball of fish about the size of my boat working under the birds. What a rush of excitement I felt stripping line off the reel for that first cast at the golden ball of fish harassing the baitfish school.

I cast quickly, instantly hooking up - the fish tries to stay with its mates and really goes hard. Awesome!!!
It breaks me off - bugger!

There seems to be three packs of golden trevally roaming the area.
I soon worked out that if I cast late and the fly sank in front of the moving packs I would get a small golden but if I cast 4 or so metres in front of the writhing mass of fish letting the fly sink right to the bottom (about four feet deep) and hope the pack continued on its original path (not always!) - then as the fish moved over the fly start my retrieve - I would hook up to the the bigger fish

The small ones were 35-40cm, with most around 50cm. While the biggest I caught went 67cm to fork and put up such an awesome fight as it tried to stay with the school - twice it took me well into my backing trying to stay with its mates.

17 golden fish came to the net, and 6 bust offs for the afternoon session - what a great day I had experienced - the mantas-trevally in the morning and the goldens in the afternoon.

When I got back to the ramp, some lure tossers were complaining about their wasted day with no fish to hand and that they should have watch the big horse race.

I replied "What horse race? = I was catching fish!"
           - horses don't take the fly (or could they? - a hay fly maybe)

So after that outing (and the other 5 trips in the last 9 days) - and even though some say I am spoilt -
          I still need one more trip before the weekend - Thursday or Friday

Then there's Sunday at Bynoe with Canadian Pete (not that name for much longer he tells me he got 100% for his citizenship test - well done Peter!)
Better tie some more silicone surf candies as I have none left in the fly box!

until next trip report

GO SWOFFING - no better way to catch a fish

STIG & SON DAY FOUR

Courtesy of 'The Stig' & Son.....come back soon BradleySunday, November 1, 2015

Day 4 (last outing) of Father and Son fishing Darwin Harbour

So off early again but we were delayed by a flat tyre = well blown tyre that was absolutely shredded. after only a few metres of hearing the noise. As my normal rear tyres have worn down to slicks I replaced them with my trailer spares while waiting for some BF Goodridge all-terrains to be delivered - told none in town till December 16th = not happy!. Not sure what cause the blow out but it happened and lets get it changed!

So off the side of McMillans Rd we changed the rear driver side ute tyre - it was a bugger of a job as the mechanism that holds the spare tyre under the truck has rust up and it took quite an effort to get it loose - note to self: grease and check the mechanism from now on!!!!!

Finally on the way to ramp but not as early as originally planned.

the hooded father and son

Expecting the forecasted stronger winds, we hug the city cliffs looking for fish, we see the third giant passenger liner for the week docking at Stokes Wharf. The Darwin government should really make a priority the beautifying of this area for the visitors coming off these boats. That empty block of land in front of docking area is not exactly promoting Darwin as a modern tropical city.

The Latest Stokes Wharf visitor

We motor on out of the harbor and find some splashes near a yellow bouy out from the esplanade area halfway to Doctor's Gulley area. There were massive amounts of bait moving through the area hugging close to the muddy clouds in the water. As the bait got close to the edges of the mud clouds the predators would strike rapidly ( but the inconsistency in their arrival and location was impacting our efforts and success)

We caught several fringe finned trevally - again not very big. Would be great fun on 2weight rod or for kids learning to fly fish as the species is quite aggressive and very willing to take a small surf candy or white clouser, plus short casts as the species as not afraid of the boat nearby. Plus thousands of them at times.

We continued along the shoreline looking for activity. Which ended up being along the drop off of Kaitlyn Bay again. Same scenario as the yellow beacon earlier with baitfish hiding in the muddy clouds in the water. Again the predators were inconsistent. We increased our blind casing chances by casting along the edges of the muddy clouds. We managed to snag a few queenfish this way.

We noticed that wind had dropped to almost nothing and the harbour is mirror calm (again poor info from the BOM which predicted the opposite) Thinking that Weed Reef would be more exposed by now given the raging tidal flow on this side of the harbour, off we go expecting the conditions of Wednesday's awesome fishing.

on the way to Weed Reef - so smooth!

But on arrival the tide was hardly flowing at all and only the tips of the trees were exposed. Weird to see no tide flow here and yet only a kilometre away on other side of the harbor - a raging tidal flow.

Weed Reef  as smooth as - with just the tips of the mangroves showing

We hang round for an hour waiting for the action to start but no go. We speculated that the phase of tide combined with timing of sunrise on Wednesday were the factors of the awesome action on Wednesday. We saw a couple of slashes but that was it.

So no fish this morning at Weed Reef, so off to Mandorah to check things out. We found the tide still quite high but there were packs of queenfish working over the baitfish as they crossed over a sand/gravel bar 300m south of the wharf.
This was a heap of fun. We caught several queenfish before we had enough chasing them around.

East Point was the next destination. Here we found birds working in the same place as Wednesday. This in an area off the pedestrian viewing area of East Point. During a low tide earlier in the week we found a rock bar extending to middle of harbour from this point. Although not huge it seemed enough to hold the bait and thus the predators in the area. Still the fish were all over the place, rapidly moving about. Again they seemed to be targeting baitfish on the edges of the mud clouds moving along through the tidal flow. With the tidal flow quite fast we had to motor around to the front of the working birds and the fish under them, drift through the mayhem, catch a couple and repeat the whole process again. but frustrating as when you think you were up current of them and kill the motor only to them dive and come up a 100 metres to left or right.

they are over there now!!!!!!! )(&(^$*&^$(&^$!

But the queenfish were bigger here (like last few trips ) and worth the hassle. They also were really strong fish using the tidal flow to their advantage during the fight. Great fun!

We worked our way back to East Arm boat ramp, as the both of us were very tired after several early mornings, long days on the water during hot weather, lots of fish and late evenings talking and chatting - we called it enough and pulled the boat out for the last time of our father and son adventures on Darwin Harbour (this year anyway!).

Brad now is thinking about what he can fish for near home at Newcastle, but having now used a boat for his fishing he isn't interested in seeing fish just out of casting range every land based fishing trip.
I think he will just have to plan and work some overtime towards more fishing with his Dad up here in fishing paradise of Darwin, Northern Territory! - everything else, anywhere near the other capital cities in Australia just don't rate!

Next week it will just me on my pat Malone  - Monday and Tuesday are fishing days planned for fishing Darwin Harbour my last week of long service leave, and Sunday next weekend in Bynoe with its mid morning neap low tide with Canadian Pete.

Will put those fishing reports up as soon as they happen.
Off to tie some more silicone surf candies for the queenfish and trevally - used 40 while brad was here. maybe I should beef up my leaders (or cast less winds knots that weaken the leader!)