Perhaps the most interesting catch of the tournament was a sailfish caught on a lure trolled by Greg Rogers who fished with Wayne Baldwin.

Cobia and longtail tuna also figured in incidental catches.

Reef fishing is definitely on the cards this weekend.

Our fleet of bluewater charter boats have been doing exceptionally well of late.

I know that Arafura Bluewater Charters, for example, has been putting clients onto big jewfish and golden snapper consistently over the last several weeks.

There are plenty of other options that should still lead to a feed of fish.

For example, if there is one fish that can be predicted to appear in numbers around the middle of the Top End dry season, it is that tough, tenacious and definitely tasty pikey bream.

Each year, usually by the middle of June when air temperatures drop and estuarine waters follow suit, vast schools of our northern pikey bream gather along our coastal bays and up the saltwater creeks.

Both Darwin Harbour and Shoal Bay are as good a place as any to experience this annual bream run.

Although the run hasn’t gotten under way in earnest like it does most years, there are bream to be caught around Larrakeyah, up Pioneer Creek and at the Rock in Shoal Bay.

If you have a boat, catching them is quite easy.

At Larrakeyah, just anchor in any of the little bays from the point back towards the Naval Patrol Boat Base, and preferably late in the evening and at night.

It’s best to use a light line on a suitable rod and reel — 4 kg monofilament breaking strain is fine, and a thin braid line is perfect.

With braid, you’ll need a light mono leader.

Use just enough lead to get the rig to the bottom and bait up onto about a No 4 hook with small, whole prawns.

Often the bream are quite small and should be thrown back, but there are plenty of good ones as well.

The Rock can be fished on any tides for bream, but I rather fancy the neapish ones this coming weekend, and you can hire a boat to get there from Shoal Bay Boat Hire.

For lure fishermen, the best places to look for bream in numbers are around rock walls on a falling tide – particularly rocks in the middle of nowhere – around pontoons and basically in places where you’d expect to encounter small golden snapper.

The ideal tackle is a 1.8 to 2 metre threadline outfit with 3 to 4 kg braid line and a 6 kg fluorocarbon leader.

Best lures are 4 to 6 cm soft plastics (Squidgey Fish or Shads, Atomic Shads, Sliders and prawn imitations) and little swimming minnows like Classic 65s, Halco Scorpion 52s and Reidy’s Little Lucifers.

For anglers without a boat, there’s good fishing to be had from the Stokes Hill Wharf, and not only for bream.

For a couple of weeks now people have been catching queenfish and small GTs from the wharf and from the shore over near the big gas tanks.

If you don’t mind a feed of squid, then check out the wharf at night.

You catch squid on special jigs with lots of sharp prongs.

The tides are not bad for both barra and jew at Leeders Creek this weekend.

Of course, a great option would be to head inland for some freshwater barra fishing.

There are plenty of lagoons to choose from between here and Kakadu and within Kakadu itself.

Corroboree is still producing, as is Hardies, and Yellow Water at Cooinda is a terrific option for a weekend away.

The tides are also fine for the Daly River, but you’ll have to be ultra-cautious navigating those rockbars and sandbars.

The river is perilously low at the moment, but there are barra to be caught on lures. According to Steve Compain from Arafura Bluewater Charters, unstoppable mackerel have been hooked by clients out on Lorna Shoal.

In fact, an 80 cm mackerel was put out as a live bait and was walloped by a much bigger mack which tore off, eventually breaking the line.

Sailfish too have been turning up with the macks, some sighted swimming around the live baits set from anchored boats.

Also at Lorna, a huge ball of banana prawns came up bubbling at the surface.

Jewfish have been equally as thick, especially if the Dundee jew reef is any indication.

Prone to go off at this time of year, catching your bag limit of jew on this magical inshore reef is apparently not even a challenge.

Also on the bite are golden snapper – from those bigger offshore specimens down to handy plate-sized versions in the harbour arms and in the creeks of Bynoe Harbour.

One party fishing for goldies at Bynoe also caught a trophy 70 cm mangrove jack.

That didn’t surprise me as May/June each year is when the annual big jack migration takes place along the Darwin to Dundee foreshore.

Tapa Bay is one hotspot for that type of action.

Mangrove jack have also turned up in West Arm, again mixed in with small-to-medium goldies.

At the entrance to East Arm, not far from the boat ramp, giant trevally in the 60 cm class have been eagerly attacking lures both cast and trolled.

Not far away, the East Arm Port rockwall is producing queenfish on trolled minnows, with smaller queenies available off Cullen Bay.

By the way, even though queenfish are highly aggressive and competitive when attacking a lure, the most-consistent queenfish lure I’ve used over the years is the Killalure Flatz Rat in the Bluey colour – blue back, chromed underneath with a bit of red under the head.

I’ve seen it happen too many times for there to be any doubt about it; so much so that, if the queenfish are hitting some other type of lure, and you put a Flatz Rat Bluey in on another rod, it will get hit first every time.

Salmon, both threadfin and blue, are also about in reasonable numbers in the estuaries.

And the plot thickens: big and full mud crabs are so thick in places that anglers are catching them on bait.

Darwin Harbour Arms are one place where that is happening.

This weekend’s neap tides should see more of this action.

Places not mentioned above that you could also try include Leeders Creek for both barra and jew, and Lee Point for those big macks as well as longtail tuna, cobia and assorted pelagics.

Not to be outdone, the inland barra scene has going along nicely this dry season.

Good news is that magnificent Corrboree Billabong has been fishing extremely well for both barra and saratoga.

Catches of up to 30 barra in a day have been reported, mainly involving 60-65 cm fish.

Perhaps the best barra fishing of all has been at Four Mile Hole in Kakadu National Park.

Casting small, deep-diving minnows, like Flatz Rats and Reidy’s Goulburn Jacks, and Squidgy soft plastics, or trolling Classic 120s along the edges and around the weedbeds, could account for a cricket score catch of lagoon barra at this beautiful spot.

All up, this weekend simply beckons to wet a line.