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This monster jewfish was caught in Darwin Harbour with Tour Tub Harbour Fishing Charters

Matt Flynn's Northern Territory
fishing report: February 1, 2004

Also available in the Darwin Sunday
newspaper, Sunday Territorian

Offshore fishing was excellent last week, but the big rivers were quiet.
There were loads of barramundi seen in the harbour, but only a few good ones were caught.
The harbour fish have been difficult because baitfish and prawns are massed along the foreshores.
Palmerston Game Fishing Club's South Alligator River competition last weekend was disappointing, with 100 boats landing only a few fish.
The biggest fish was caught in the first hour of the event, and after that it was quiet.
The Daly and Adelaide Rivers have also been quiet, but the Daly may fish well soon if it keeps falling.
The Mary River opened from its closed season below the barrage today.  
However the monsoon looks like it may be reforming for more rain next week.
Some tackle shop owners had returned from annual holidays last week, because January is usually the quietest month for trade in Darwin.

Happy Micks' Charlie Chambers said the harbour's Middle Arm fished well last Saturday.
"Kevin Eccles and I fished the creeks around the island there and landed 11 barra to 75cm,'' he said.
"We used shallow lures on the flats on the outgoing tide.
"We dropped about six fish too.
"There are still a lot of salmon in Middle Arm including some to a metre, and another customer recently caught a 106cm salmon in West Arm.
"The Town Hall Hole in Middle Arm has been fishing well, usually on the end of the neap tide cycle right on dark, but with a 13kg and 16kg jewfish caught recently.
"There were two 15kg jewfish caught at The Narrows at the Adelaide River mouth on Thursday at the turn of the tide."

Top End Fishing Supplies' Steve Compain went to Adelaide last week where he went on a fishing charter and caught 60 king george whiting between about eight people.
"They told us that was unusual off Glenelg, with most about 32cm in size which was good considering they sell for about $45kg,'' he said.
"Then I went to Gosford near Sydney and went on another charter and we caught six kingfish, each about 62cm.
"Looking back at it I think the quality of our charters in Darwin is way higher than the charters I went on.
"Up here our charter boat was catching goldies to 7kg at Lorna Shoal last week, and everyone walked off the boat with a couple of fish each.
"The golden snapper were caught mostly on the morning tide, with it going quiet later in the day.
"Last week on the bigger tides we were catching jewfish with five on one day and 10 on another.
"The South Alligator and Daly Rivers have been very quiet.
"But a 93cm was caught in the harbour on prawns, and I fished the next creek up from Hudson Creek in East Arm and could see big barramundi tailing on the incoming tide but they would not take any lure."

Fishing and Outdoor World's George Voukolos said jewfish and golden snapper had kept fishermen busy at Charles Point last week.
"The harbour arms have been fishing well too - there have been barramundi in Middle and West arm and Bynoe Harbour as well,'' he said.
"In fact, the local scene has been better than the rivers.
"They have even been getting a few snapper at the Six Mile Buoy."

Katherine Rod and Rifle's Warren de With has just returned from 10 days of fishing in Vanuatu.
"We went heavy game fishing with 60kg outfits chasing big blue marlin and yellowfin tuna,'' he said.
"The biggest blue marlin we got was only 100kg but we had a great time.
"We hooked another marlin but it spat the hook.
"We caught yellowfin tuna, dolphin fish and skipjack tuna and we did not even try for the monster wahoo and dogtooth tuna.
"It is a fantastic place - the depth of water 500m off the island is 480m. At 5km it is 1000m deep.
"It is also a laidback and hospitable place probably like Darwin was 50 years ago.
"Back in the NT, my reports are that the only river fishing well has been the Roper with one fish of 124cm and 24kg caught down near the mouth.
"Anglers who fished the Victoria River last weekend did poorly except for some who fished upstream near the rapids.
"There has still not been enough rain - hopefully next week we will get some more."

Leaders Creek Fishing Base's Chris Edwards said it had been quiet last weekend with a 67cm barra caught and some salmon.
"One bloke threw back several smaller barra,'' he said.
"Around the Vernon Islands there have been snapper, queenfish and trevally.
"One bloke hooked a big mackerel but lost it.
"The crabs are starting to run in the creek again now but some are not full.
"It should be a good weekend if the weather is kind."

Reidys Lures Jeff Reid said he fished the Daly River last Saturday and it was at 12m and he caught a 70cm fish.
The flow was pushing back up the creeks and there were really no places to fish.
There were small schools of rainbow fish pushing up into the creeks.
I heard yesterday that it was at 9m which means it is falling fast so I plan to go and have another look.

Shady Camp Boat Hire's Wayne Turner said the Mary River was about knee-deep at the barrage last week and the run-off was looking pretty good.
"There has been feeding activity in the saltwater that we have seen when doing the croc tours recently so it is looking good for the season opening,'' he said.
"We have new motors on the hire boats now and we are improving the service for our customers this year."

Woolianna on the Daly's Adrian Koenen said the river went down to 9.8m last week but was coming up again on Friday, having risen 100mm on the day.
"The Elizabeth Creek had started running but I have only seen one boat go out this week,'' he said.
"I think the Katherine catchment has had more rain which is lifting the Daly River.
"We were hoping for run-off in the next couple of days because below 9m you start getting run off, but we are expecting heavy rain next week."

Tackle Up's Joan Miller said customers had been fishing Cape Hotham in calm weather and catching big golden snapper.
She said Shane Flanigan of Bones Custom Built Rods landed a 106cm barra last Saturday morning in the Palmerston Game Fishing Club's South Alligator River competition.
He landed the fish in the first hour of the event but not much else was caught despite about 100 boats hitting the water.
Shane told the Sunday Territorian his team ended up with three fish all up and dropped three more.
"But the next biggest fish was only 54cm,'' he said.
"I got the big one on a Classic Barra 10+ in a pale bleeding mullet colour.
"We caught it about 2km upstream of Nourlangie Creek on a gutter.
"We found other gutters with plenty of bait but there were not many fish up there.
"There was heaps of water up the top so maybe the fish were still up on the floodplains."

Dundee Blue Water Charters Des Puddey fished Fog Bay last weekend but was hit by storms.
"It was flat calm except for the storms,'' he said
"There were mackerel everywhere which was surprising.
"They were around the 70cm to 1m mark with both spanish and spotted mackerel.
"The only fish we got were salmon at the jewfish reef at the front of Dundee Lodge.
"Last weekend on the Friday night someone caught a swag of big jewfish at jewie reef.
"Another party went out on Saturday and caught some nice fish, including a big cobia.
"There were also some full crabs taken from one of the creeks around the back last week."

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The spotlight will be taken off barramundi this year with the Northern Territory's first dedicated bream competition.
The Darwin event is the brainchild of Peter Jung, manager of A Mart in Darwin, who is organising the competition as a personal project in conjunction with Australian Bass Tournaments, which runs the popular bream events down south.
The Darwin competition will be the first to turn the Territory's pikey bream - traditionally an abundant and tasty eskie filler - into a prized sportfish.
"I used to fish the Australian Bass Tournaments down south,'' Peter said.
"I have been talking to ABT about the fact bream fishing here in the dry season is very good.
"I asked them that if I do the ground work, we could have an ABT bream event here, and it has now reached the stage where we are deciding the date in July and the exact format.
"It will be based on the southern ABT events with 100 per cent catch and release. It would be lure and fly only with no trolling.
"There would be a size limit and competitors would weigh their best five legal fish, which they would keep alive.
"Depending on the interest from sponsors there may be prizes for golden snapper or queenfish."
Peter expected most competitors would use 2kg Fireline with a 3kg leader, as they do down south.
"It will be good to have something to target in competition other than barramundi,'' he said.
"If we get 15 to 20 boats that would be a great start."
Potential sponsors and entrants should call Peter on 0410 662 927.

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