Paul Zorn caught this big Manton Dam barra fishing with Reidys Lures' Jeff Reid
Mark Arnold with a barra from the Wildman River Four-Mile Hole Matt
Flynn's Northern Territory Barramundi fishing continues to improve from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Darwin foreshores. A small fish kill has been reported at Corroboree Billabong, suggesting the inland billabongs have heated up to discomfort levels, but good fish are still being caught. The fishing has been excellent wide of Fog Bay for red emperor and big mackerel. Good reports are coming from the coastal foreshores too, with big silver barra hammering lures as only saltwater barra can. Got One's Craig Grosvenor says the East Alligator River upstream has been producing numbers of fish by sight casting along the sandbars, using soft plastics. "There has been numerous fish in the 70cm range, and in the day time'' he said. "Hardies Lagoon is finally producing some good fish to 90cm - most results are on soft plastics such as Storms in the pearl three-inch and the Psunami three-inch in chartreusse, fishing before 9am. "Saltwater Arm on the Adelaide River produced barra close to The Narrows during the change of the low tide last week casting to gutters, with fish landed to 75cm ... larger fish were sighted but not landed. "Corroboree Billabong has been slow lately with low oxygen levels suspected as a minor fish kill was reported last week, including some big fish. "At Dundee Beach there have been awesome reports with mackerel and tuna during the neap tides on chrome slices and floating pilchards. "Jewies to 20kg have been landed on both squid baits and rigged squid lures. "There are plenty of goldies of up to 6kg toward the Peron Ialands with tricky sapper and blue salmon also. "Our staffer Kane Dystart caught 98cm, 95cm and 90cm barra at Shoal Bay on 6-inch Nilsmaster Barra Baits at The Rock during both the day and and night last Monday. "There have been other reports of Shoal Bay barra to 75cm on Halco Skin Deeps in colour 70. "Mud crabs were prolific in Shoal Bay last week but were mainly jennies. "Darwin Harbour has queenfish everywhere but they are mostly small with some larger fish hanging down deep. "The average size of harbour barra seems to be getting bigger with fish to 80cm landed trolling Sadgroves Creek on the incoming tide last week. "Queenfish were caught on fly along the Larrakeyah rock walls and jewfish to 12kg were reported on the Mauno Loa and other harbour wrecks." Fishing and Outdoor World's Matt West there were some good fish caught off the foreshores last week by a Japanese tourists who comes to Darwin each year to fish. "This Japanese tourist comes here twice a year to fish and he caught a 90cm and a 79cm off the Fannie Bay rocks last week,'' Matt said. "He gets up at 4am and also fishes in the late afternoons. He fishes high and low tide. "He uses only Japanese lures that he brings from Japan, including some good suspending lures. "He's done a bit of fishing at Cairns too but he says he prefers Darwin. "He shows us that there are good fish to be caught along the city foreshores if you are willing to put in the time to learn how to catch them. "The inland billabongs are still firing, particularly Four Mile Hole. "There are quite a few saratoga being caught in Corroboree Billabong after a quiet patch. "Down the Daly River fishing guide Preston Higgins has been getting some barra casting soft plastics around the snags. "He then goes out of the river mouth and gets jewfish around near the Peron Islands - it provides a great day of mixed fishing. "Equinox Fishing Charters has been getting some good goldies and jewfish by travelling wide to Loee Patches." Katherine Rod and Rifle's Warren de With fished the islands off Borrolooola last week and found astounding barramundi fishing. "We caught 20 barra over 80cm in just one session and had multiple double hookups and we were hooking up and losing them too and it was all just great fun,'' he said. "The fishing was red hot - it was as good as any wet season fishing I've had. "Most of the action was off a headland and also at the mouth of the McArthur - the river seems to be showing the rewards of being closed to commercial barramundi fishing. "The biggest barra we got was 96cm and the smallest was 76cm. "The lure type did not matter as long as we used the right depth of lure which was about a 15+. "You had to vary your length of line out to get the correct trolling depth and then raise and lower the rod ... and this would change whether you were trolling with or against the current. "You could see the fish on the sounder but they were not biting right through the tide - if you found the fish on the sounder you just waited until the tide was right - the fish seemed to bite at certain times, most of the time it was half tide to the bottom of the tide. "There are barra off many of the headlands there and they are consistently bigger than the fish in the river, but you have to pick the right headland near a bay with muddy water for correct barra habitat. "We also found the same-size fish in some areas - one lot were all around the 89cm mark. "It was bloody good fun - the fish were very fit and looked spectacular being chrome-silver saltwater barra. "We lost three or four to sharks and the fish had to be released in good condition to survive. "We also caught mangrove jacks, snapper, trevally, coral trout, salmon, mackerel on lures and the weather was perfect, being 10C cooler out on the water than it is here in Katherine. "There were a lot of people at Borroloola, with 30 boat trailers in the car park which I think is unusual in October - there were a lot of interstate fishermen enjoying the spectacular fishing." Dundee Blue Water Charters' Des Puddey said there were lots of red emperor last week on the wide grounds. "The inter-service competition saw a lot of red emperor and mackerel landed,'' he said. "We caught ours down towards the Perons in beautiful weather conditions. "We got one big red in and it was chopped in half by a shark but it was the biggest red I have seen off Dundee - it would hav gone close to 10kg. "We get the reds over rubble rather than reef and we anchor for them. "There have been some really big mackerel caught - they seem to be everywhere around reef and shoal areas." Shoal Bay Boat Hire's Bob Morris said a 112cm, 18kg barra was caught last Monday afternoon on livebait at the Howard River rockbar. "One crew got an 87cm, 90cm and a 92cm on lures but they wouldn't tell me what type of lure,'' he said. "The Little Howard River has been fishing well on high tide using livebait. "There have also been threadfin to 90cm caught as well on bait and lures. "There are plenty of crabs about but they are not big - there are a lots of jennies .... I think they should increase the minimum crab size limit a centimetre - Qld and WA have a 15cm size limit ... it would only take a year for the crabs to get to that size and they would breed more before they are caught." Top End Fishing Supplies' Chris Pache said barra were biting well in East Arm with Hudson and Myrmiden Creeks producing. "We got a 70cm barra out of Hudson and a mate caught a 65cm and 62cm barra there - there have also been loads of salmon in nearby Myrmiden Creek - we were there on Tuesday and there were 80cm salmon feeding but they would not touch lures,'' he said. "Offshore, the goldies being caught now by the charter boats are very big, up around 7kg. "Another boat cleaned up on red emperor, coral trout and jewfish too off Fog Bay last week. "There are a lot of crabs in the harbour at the moment, but there many jennies among them. "And a customer caught a 1.04m and a 90cm barra at Manton Dam one morning last week.'' |
