This young chap was happy with his jewfish, caught with Equinox Fishing Charters of Darwin Matt
Flynn's Northern Territory At the time of writing it looked like the monsoon was reforming over the Top End. Fishing and Outdoor World's Ronald Voukolos said the South Alligator River was fairly quiet last week. "There did not seem to be a lot of bait up there - it's still too early - some old-timers don't go fishing in the rivers until March,'' he said. "However I keep hearing reports that the top of the Adelaide River has been fishing OK, but I haven't been able to get details. "In the harbour some customers during the week caught snapper, a few jewfish, and lots of blue salmon. "The tides are perfect this weekend, especially today (Sunday) for barra in the harbour. "There was a fish kill at Shady Camp two weeks ago and the fishing has been sporadic since - the Shady Camp billabong needs a solid load of water to come down with the first rain, because whenever it does not run through quickly enough all the washed-in vegetation seems to rot and kill fish. "Hopefully the monsoon is coming back and it will rain hard for another few weeks." Top End Fishing Supplies' Mulga said the weather had not been good for offshore fishing most of last week, and it was still too early for consistent barra fishing. "Barra-wise the top of the Adelaide River was fishing quite well for a while - but you have to go the day they are biting - when the river is dropping - and a decent storm can change that. "The South Alligator River has had a lot of water - it was an inland sea last week. "But now is time for tackle servicing and maintenance - it is a good time to get rods and reels fixed and trailer lights working "There is a new police station at Humpty Doo so police will be checking trailer lights etc more often - I think they are going to blitz trailers going down the Arnhem Hwy this year. "It's time to change old fishing line and put on some modern braided line. Check trebles and split rings on lures too. "Once that's all done when the fishing is finally on you can just throw all the gear in the boat and go." Top End Fishing Supplies' owner Steve Compain went to Tasmania last week and fished the remote west coast on an abalone boat. "The first week was 9 degrees, raining, with 40 knot winds and was terrible - a cold horrible place,'' he said. "The second week when I went fishing it was the calmest they said they had seen - we went to catch stripies, which are also called trumpeter, about 20 miles out, and you could hardly get a fish in because the seals were worse than our sharks - they grabbed your fish and would even come to the surface and grab the fish in front of you,'' he said. "We caught a few stripies and fish they called snapper that looked more like morwong - but I was surprised how poor the fishing was for such a remote area. "Even the abalone divers said there was not much fish down there. "Off the beach they net mostly small sharks and flounder - when you look at what's there we are much better off here in the Northern Territory. "Tasmania has a beautiful rugged coast but aside from the trout fishing we have got it better. "The abalone is fetching huge price though - a fish box of abalone is worth about $2000." Katherine Rod and Rifle's Brad Whittaker said the Katherine River had not fired despite the river falling quickly. "It might be good for barra at the Low Level and Knotts Crossing this weekend,'' he said. "Roper Bar is .3m over the crossing and one customer caught 15 barra in one session last week. "The Roper River is usually best at the crossing at about .4m." Shoal Bay Boat Hire's Bob Morris said big jewfish were biting at The Rock last week. "We went there three nights in a row and got them every night,'' he said. "They were between 12kg and 15kg. We caught them on pilchards and mullet in the hole at the sea end of The Rock. "We got them an hour before high tide. We only ever get one or two each because it takes about 20 minutes to land one on the gear we use and they only bite for an hour. "Barra have been patchy - there are a few around but you have to work for them. "Locky hooked one of about 90cm at Spot 5 but it bricked him. "You want to be fishing out the front of the creeks now for barra as I think the water is a bit smelly and dirty up the creeks. "Once the big tides come in again it will clear the creeks up. "There are still plenty of crabs out the front and good prawns are showing up in the cast net now every time we go chasing bait." Got One's Kane Dysart said there were jewfish caught at The Narrows at the Adelaide River mouth on the last neap tides. "One boat caught four,'' he said. "The jewies seem to have come on the bite everywhere during the past week - the harbour wrecks have been producing, with the Shipping Containers and the Mauna Loa best. "Best jewfish bait has been tuna flesh or livebait - little live trevally or stripies are good. "On the barra scene the South Alligator River upstream near the sign has been good - one crew caught 21 barra with six between 60cm and 90cm - most were caught on Storm Shads in the rainbow colours. "A few were taken on Rapala Skitter Pops. "The Shady Camp freshwater produced 1.02m barra with one boat catching at least 20 at first light one morning - pink Snapback soft plastics seem to be the colour that works. "The Finniss River mouth fished well with one group who went out on quad bikes catching 20 barra at the mouth, all around 80cm, on live bait." Equinox Fishing Charters' John Jordan said the boat Tsar was out on Wednesday when the weather was flat and had a great day was had. "We caught a couple of jewfish of reasonable size but golden snapper were the order of the day and plenty of them. "Passengers took
enough for a feed and more than 20 fish were released,
including a coral trout. "Woods Inlet has been fishing particularly well up the top end - one customer caught eight keepers. "Shoal Bay's King Creek has been fishing well at the first rockbar with a couple of 90cm barra caught trolling. "Charlie Chambers fished the Adelaide River on Thursday and caught none - the South Alligator RIver still had too much water up top last week. "I have not heard too much bluewater news because of the weather." Meanwhile, the Daly River was dropping slowly from about 9m over the crossing last week but there were few reports of fish biting, and with the monsoon reforming the river was likely to rise again soon. Banyan Farm said few people were fishing the Daly last week. Trouble at Mandorah ramp
Mandorah boat ramp is unusable except above 6.5m tides, locals have warned. They also claim it is unsafe. The ramp, the newest in Darwin Harbour, is covered in sand. Attempts to shift the sand have been futile, as the next big tide dumps more sand on the ramp. The ramp has been cut through a rock ledge next to Mandorah wharf, and like all Darwin ramps, is subject to large tides of up to 7m movement. t is the only public boat ramp on Cox Peninsula, the large peninsula of land on the opposite side of the harbour from Darwin, with about 300 permanent residents at Mandorah. Mandorah local Phil Hall (not the NT's recreational fishing officer of the same name) says tourists regularly tow boats to Mandorah, then take one look at the boat ramp and leave. "Because of the poor design, sand continually covers the majority of the ramp to a depth of 2m plus,'' he said. "Since this ramp has been constructed vehicles are constantly being bogged with at least one late model vehicle submerged. "Our Town Clerk has advised that all funds allocated by the NT Government for maintenance of the ramp have been exhausted and has stated that the ramp will not be cleared until more funds have been made available. "But when cleared the ramp is unusable again after the next big high tide. Last fortnight a minimum of 6.5m of water was needed to launch. We have been unable to launch our boat in the past four months. "Locals
who have expensive boats are selling them in frustration
at their inability to get them into the water. "With the NT Government committing to completing the sealing of the road to Mandorah this year we would expect instances like this to increase." Locals claim the ramp is also subject to sideways wave action that makes boat launching dangerous. "There have been instances of people being pinned under their boats with the ramp's poor design being a major contributing factor,'' Mr Hall said. "Without attention from the government it is only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed on this ramp and we think that the Government in knowing this has a duty of care to prevent it from happening." (Editor's
note - the NT Government has since moved to have this
problem fixed by raising the height of the ramp) |
