FISHING
NEWS FROM NORTH AUSTRALIA
With Alex Julius - 1 February 2007
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If you were a betting person, you’d probably put some money on the minimum number of anglers who were lined up on the barrage for a cast into the tidal waters of Shady Camp at midnight last night.
That’s right, if you didn’t know, the closed season on the tidal section of the Mary River finished at the stroke of twelve.
From now until right through the weekend, the big tides are optimum for hooking into some quality barra off the barrage.
Freshwater is flowing over the barrage and then downstream, and the big tides may well transport both mullet and the predators up the river, following the scent of freshwater all the way from the mouth and up to the barrage.
It’s timely now to go over the special management rules that apply to fishing from the barrage.
For starters, within 100 metres of the barrage, bait is not allowed and only lures or flies with one single hook may be used.
There is every reason to expect that some big barra will be hooked off the barrage on the tidal side, and there are plenty of good reasons to let those big ones go.
If you catch a big one, get a photo, weigh it in a net if you wish but it’s not advisable to hold a big heavy female barra by the mouth without some sort of additional lower-body support.
Visit our incredible fishing destination:
ARNHEMLAND BARRAMUNDI NATURE LODGE
WA’s Lance Farrow bagged this 90 cm barra trolling past a school of feeding blue salmon at ARNHEMLAND BARRAMUNDI NATURE LODGE |
David Gooch battled gamely to extract this 81 cm barra from a dense snag pile.
AFANT President, Warren de With, issued a warning to anglers fishing the barrage at this time of year: “The opening of Shady Camp after the closed season is always a big attraction to local anglers and we want everyone to be very careful, particularly those who will fish from the barrage.
“Last year we received a number of reports and complaints of people doing the wrong thing at Shady Camp early in the season — fishing below the barrage with illegal multi-hook lures, keeping undersize fish, taking more than the two fish per person limit and so on.
“AFANT doesn’t believe that there is any justification for a recreational fishing closed season in this area or on the lower Daly River but, while it continues, we will always see plenty of fishers there for the opening and we want them to fish according to the regulations and, above all, to be safe,” Mr de With said.
Further inland, the Katherine River reached just under 5 metres this week at the Katherine Bridge, which is the highest level so far this year.
It is unusual at this stage of the wet season for the Katherine River to be so low.
The Roper is also rising, and is now too high and dirty for fishing at the Roper Bar.
Switched-on locals pulled some nice fish from the Roper Bar in the window of opportunity that existed when the river started rising last week.
The Victoria River is still at a fairly low level, and is probably the pick of the bunch if you’re looking to wet a line in the Katherine area.
What we need is a big dump of rain in the Katherine catchment area, which will then flow on to the Daly.
The Daly is continuing to fish well, due to isolated local rain getting the creeks flowing while the river level remains low.
This is creating a situation similar to run-off conditions, and barra are gathering around creek mouths to take advantage of an easy feed.
Shane Compain from Top End Fishing Supplies fished the Daly earlier this week, and caught 15 barra, including one of just over a metre and several over 80 cm.
He used mostly pre-rigged 4” Storm shads in the pearl white colour, while other successful anglers have used softies such as Squidgy Slick Rigs or Tsunamis in similar smaller sizes.
The water is a bit dirty, so white and pearlescent colour schemes seem to provide the best visibility.
Peter McKelvie from Aurora Kakadu Resort reports that the South Alligator has seen a fair bit of fishing activity recently, with some nice fish caught.
Like elsewhere in the NT, the river level is still low at the South, but there is a bit of run-off to be found up near the top.
Fishing late in the afternoon has been the most productive approach, with plenty of smaller barra keeping the interest level up between legal fish.
“We need a bit more rain to really top-up the floodplains,” said Peter.
Boats making the run to the mouth of the South have been rewarded with jewies, snapper and a few barra.
On the offshore scene, windy and rough conditions have kept a lot of boats in the shed.
Arafura Bluewater Charters have been heading out whenever conditions allow, and their clients have been catching good golden snapper, as well as jewfish and the usual mixed bag of reefies.
Good-sized jewies up to 14 kg have also been caught from Darwin Harbour wrecks, and inshore marks around Charles Point.
Alex Julius Fishing Media
PO Box 571, Howard Springs NT Australia 0835
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E-mail: AJFM@hotspot.com.au