FISHING
NEWS FROM NORTH AUSTRALIA
With Alex Julius - 11 January 2007
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We’re getting more widespread rain now, but it hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of anglers or fish.
Darwin Harbour is continuing to fish well for a variety of species, particularly queenies and trevally.
Barra devotees are also pulling a few fish, with good reports from Middle Arm in particular.
Fishing the turn of the low tide and an hour either side is the most productive, with fish falling to shallow-running lures trolled slowly along the edges of mud banks, and livebaits fished around creek mouths.
Don’t be afraid to use big livebaits, as some solid barra and threadfin salmon have been taken on very large mullet baits fished on a simple running sinker rig.
As the tide runs in, schools of hungry queenies and trevally are moving with it.
Trolling rockwalls and drop-offs is a great way to locate these schools. For land-based fishos, try casting lures or floating out lightly weighted pilchard baits from East Point or around the Larrakeyah foreshore.
Michael Walsh from Guru’s Top End Fishing Safaris has been putting his clients onto some excellent fish, including a lovely cobia trolled up near the Cullen Bay rockwall on a Reidy’s Judge in gold.
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Tom Panic caught this whopper queenfish at the mouth of the Liverpool River whilst staying at the Matt West from Fishing and Outdoor World has also had reports of barra caught around the high tide by anglers fishing harbour rockbars.
One of his customers fished Shoal Bay and landed a beautiful 115cm barra from King Creek.
Craig Grosvenor from Got One also reports some excellent fishing from Shoal Bay , with anglers livebaiting The Rock cleaning up on barra, big threadies and blue salmon.
He also reports good barra catches from the mouth of the Adelaide, particularly the Wilshire Creeks. Killalure or Classic lures in the purple dazzler colour have been attracting plenty of strikes.
Offshore, Arafura Bluewater Charters has been getting good catches of golden snapper, jewies and assorted reef fish.
A couple of crews fished the Vernons, and reported excellent fishing for macks and big queenfish.
Drifting over reefy structure and jigging small metal slices is the most productive approach, and amongst the smaller macks there are some beauties up to 15 kg in weight.
AFANT Junior Fishing Clinics & Halco Competition.
The Nhulunbuy Regional Sports Fishing Club will be conducting junior fishing clinics this weekend, sponsored by the Amateur Fishing Association of the Northern Territory (AFANT), and supported by NT Fisheries, Halco Lures and the Nhulunbuy Regional Sports Fishing Club.
The clinics and fishing competition are open to any junior in the East Arnhem region. Lunch is included and the clinics on Saturday 13 th will be followed by the Halco Junior Fishing Competition on Sunday the 14th of January.
The family presentation BBQ will be held at the Yacht Club on Sunday afternoon following the competition weigh in session. Great fishing tackle give-aways and prizes are up for grabs for all entrants.
Each junior will receive 6 months Membership of the Nhulunbuy Regional Sports Fishing Club, NT Gamefishing Association, Game Fishing Association of Australia (GFAA), and AFANT, along with entry to the AFANT Fishing Clinics, giveaways, lucky prize draws, Saturday sausage sizzle lunch, Fishing Competition Entry and Sunday Presentation BBQ.
Halco is supporting the Sunday fishing competition and each junior will receive a top quality Halco lure.
Those who attend the clinics are asked to bring along their tackle box, and each junior is encouraged to also come along with their own rod and reel, so club members can re-spool their fishing reels with 6 or 8 kg fishing line for free.
All juniors will also be entered into the GFAA National Fishing Tournament currently running until the end of June 2007.
This is the first of several clinics that are planned for 2007.
Entry forms are available from Travelworld Office (8987 1111) or any NRSFC committee member. Call David (8987 1727), Steve (8987 2939) or Peter (8987 8333) for more details.
Alex Julius Fishing Media
PO Box 571, Howard Springs NT Australia 0835
International phone: (618) 89832167
International fax: (618) 89831914
Fax (from within Australia): (08) 89831914
E-mail: AJFM@hotspot.com.au