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A happy King Kontis Fishing Tours customer with a Darwin Harbour jewfish

Matt Flynn's Northern Territory
fishing report: December 19, 2004

Also available in the Darwin Sunday
newspaper, Sunday Territorian

Fishermen are reporting more salmon than they can remember in Darwin Harbour. Since the harbour netting closure of the late 90s salmon stocks appear to have grown steadily.

Middle and West Arms are alive with threadfin and blue salmon.

The fish are visible feeding in the shallows, but they are hard to catch.

Only livebait or a small fly can trick the fish into biting - salmon traditionally feed on the swarms of small prawns in the estuaries at this time.

Prawn imitation flies are probably the best chance for fooling a fish, but expect to have your fly gear stretched because some of the threadfin seen working the flats and gutters have been big.  

Fishing and Outdoor World's Ronald Voukolos said fishing guide Mark West reported seeing more salmon than he'd ever seen in West Arm on Tuesday.

"But he could not get them to bite - they did get four barra and some goldies though,'' he said.

"You definitely see more threadfin salmon in the harbour now than you used to and I think it is because they closed the harbour to netting - the threadfin seem to be   vulnerable to netting.

"It's a shame the fish do not bite more consistently though - they swim through the schools of jelly prawns with their mouths and this makes them hard to catch.

"Elsewhere there have been goldies in the Larrakeyah channel, including fish to 3.5kg caught on the last set of neap tides - they were caught on squid and fresh sardines.

"There have been big jewfish caught in Bynoe and Darwin Harbours.

"One customer went up the Charlotte and Annie Rivers in Bynoe Harbour and caught a dozen jacks to 1kg, which is excellent.

"There have been some big fish hooked off the foreshores too - one bloke fishing off the wharf hooked a couple of unstoppables at high tide and another customer fishing the mouth of Rapid Creek got a couple of small queenfish and trevally before being spooled by something huge."
 
Top End Fishing Supplies' Mulga said the Daly River crossing was working well.

"The barra have been going off on rubber lures and purple is the go, fishing at the top of the tide - there is no water over the crossing yet and the fishing is perfect at  night, but you have to watch the crocs,'' he said.

"The same goes for the East Alligator River crossing - the top of the big tide is the go for monster barra that move up the river at this time but you have to be really careful   of crocodiles.

"I reckon these coming neap tides will be the last good chance for jewfish on the wrecks before Xmas - there have been big ones reported on the Meigs wreck, and on the Town   Hall in Middle Arm.

"The flats of Bynoe Harbour will be good on these neap tides for barra and salmon if the wind stays down.

"Darwin and Bynoe Harbour are thick with salmon right now but they are not taking lures - fly fishermen should get their fly gear out now because there are so many salmon about.

"The mouth of the Adelaide River should also fish well on these neaps. You have to move around and find the barra though."
 
Katherine Rod and Rifle's Warren de With said Katherine had some heavy rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the river has only came up a little.

"The water is still clean and the fishing should be good,''   he said.

"Once the dirty water starts coming through you get a run of cherabin in the river.

"The fishing has been fairly quiet overall because of the   big tides last week - they are still catching good fish in   the Roper River freshwater.

"I went to Corroboree Billabong last Saturday and caught nothing - no saratoga or anything - there was a bit of   colour in the water, especially around the boat ramp.

"I reckon the fish will now be at the seaward ends of the  illabongs waiting to get out when the wet season flooding starts.

"There have been some good size fish reported in private billabongs on pastoral stations."  

Equinox Fishing Charters' John Jordan said his boat had only been out a couple of times in the past fortnight because it had been rough.

"There have been some average-sized golden snapper, parrot fish and cod near Loee Patches,'' he said.

"The fishing hasn't been outstanding out wide and I think   it is to do with the recent weather - we had a very good   dry season but it is quieter now.

"There were some jewfish caught during the big tides, so it isn't too bad."   Shoal Bay Boat Hire's Sarah Watkins said there had been a lot of salmon and barra taken from Hope Inlet last week.

"King Creek is still producing some fish around 70cm to 80cm.

"The salmon holes in the Little Howard River have been working well.

"There has been a lot of big buck and jennies crabs caught.

"Walking across from the boat ramp on the sandbanks at low tide have been good for barra.

"We lost a tree and doors on the sheds in the storm on   Wednesday night."   Leaders Creek Fishing Base's Chris Edwards said they got 18mm of rain on Wednesday night, which should get the barra   biting.

"The fishing was pretty poor over the big tides,'' he said.

"We were on the creek last Wednesday on the smaller tides and we caught a 10kg jewfish on a lure.

"We fished with bait in the same spot and caught another jewfish - the spot is the ledge along the second bend in from the mouth.

"Another boat on Thursday caught some good salmon near the creek mouth and another two blokes caught a big mangrove jack.

"Chris Errity caught two good barra and two jewfish last Tuesday on lures just after the neap tides - one barra was 89cm and one was 80cm - he also fishes near the second bend from the mouth.

"The rain does seem to bring the barra on in the creek.

"One crew got four crabs the other day - they had to work hard for them, but they were good sized crabs."  

Got One's Craig Grosvenor said wind had limited the fishing during the week.

"Russell Hanton from BH Marine fished the Daly River on the last neap tides and caught 50 fish over two days with 10 over 60cm,'' he said.

"Most fish were caught casting to snags in the green water above Browns Creek - soft plastics fished deep among the snags were most successful.

"Shoal Bay fished well for some last week - those who were keen enough to get locked in on the low tide reported good numbers of threadfin salmon and the odd decent barra, with one barra of 105cm reported from Hope Inlet.

"The harbour fished well for snapper to 3kg caught in good numbers on the upper rockbars on fresh local squid and   sardines.

"There have been reports of marlin from the Bathurst Trench, and a sailfish was hooked at North Gutter."

Happy Micks' Charlie Chambers confirmed that the harbour was full of salmon.

"The salmon are in numbers but are hard to catch because of the huge quantity of prawns around,'' he said.

"The harbour has fished rather well over the past few weeks  - although the barra haven’t been monsters anglers have been picking up several legal barra on most trips.

"There is a new prawn imitation lure out that I think would work well on salmon - it is only small but is weighted which makes it possible to cast with your baitcaster.  

"Queenfish are thick in the harbour. Some anglers are chasing them all day, picking up 20 or 30 for the day.

"Some anglers are targeting them with a fly - queenfish go off on fly.

"I remember the first queenfish I hooked on fly. My fly reel fell to bits. There were pieces all over the bottom of the boat. In the end I handlined the fish into the boat.

"The harbour is a safe bet now - most spots are close enough to the ramp in case a big storm hits or the winds pick up severely - most ramps are accessible on most tides and the new ramp at Frances Bay is almost an all-tide ramp.

"Prawns are running well - perfect for a Christmas day feed. All you need to do is arm yourself with a good castnet and look for prawns feeding at the mouth of   gutters."

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