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ARNHEMLAND BARRAMUNDI NATURE LODGE

I haven’t heard of any real monsters coming out of the harbour, but there is a solid run of medium-sized barra going on, and best of all it’s right on our doorstep.

One of Ronald’s customers made the trip to North Gutter with a sail in his sights.

He trolled a spread of meticulously-prepared baits for three hours without raising a bill, so headed to the Fenton Patches to save his trip with a few reef fish.

There were plenty of goldies on the bite, but Murphy’s Law was obviously in effect because what should grab one of them on the way up but a nicely lit-up sail!

It hung around the boat for awhile, but disappeared before a bait could be rigged to feed it.

Speaking of golden snapper, Territory Marine’s Steve Blair took time off from his opening day preparations to slip out to South Gutter with some USA customers and had a blinder of a day.

They caught several snapper but two of them were well over 10 kg each.

Anglers making the run to Melville found schools of willing trickies, goldies and a few nice jewfish.

Dixie from the Shoal Bay Boat Ramp reports that the barra are really on the chew both in Shoal Bay itself and up the Howard River.

Former Darwin barra fishing guide, Dave Ashfield, is back in town. He fished with Scott Eccles and bagged out on big barra last weekend, with the smallest being an impressive 80 cm and the biggest just under a metre.

Despite the lack of freshwater running into the small creeks and tributaries of Shoal Bay, barra are queuing up in anticipation of the coming rain, with locations such as the Little Howard being well worth a go this weekend.

Live bait and lures are both working well, with some big fish in the 90 cm range even falling to dead baits.

Local angler Chris Errity made the short run out to the Vernons and encountered big queenies, broadbarred mackerel, and a few longtail tuna.

He couldn’t resist a crack at a Leeders Creek barra on the way back and, despite the dirty water, hooked one nice fish.

Peter Zeroni fished Leeders as well, and trolled up a lovely 13 kg jewie on a Classic 120, working the Chris Errity Golden Kilometre.

Craig Grosvenor from Got One has been out and about, with a Monday jaunt to Shady Billabong accompanied by Shimano rep Brett Wilson.

While releasing a 60 cm barra, they noticed that it was regurgitating freshwater prawns.

Brett didn’t need any further clues to reach for the Squidgy Stealth Prawn, and the action immediately hotted up, with multiple strikes from medium-sized barra as he jigged the prawn across a rockbar.

On the bluewater scene, Craig reports that North Gutter and Fenton Patches 'Bus Stop' were alive with decent GT's to 5kg, with schools of tuna to 90cm also making for a good days fishing.

Correction:

In the column 2 weeks ago the Gove Billfish Competition mentioned was incorrectly referred to as being staged by the Nhulunbuy Regional Sportsfishing Club. The competition was in fact staged by the Gove Game Fishing Club. The Nhulunbuy Regional Sportsfishing Club held their own event, the Gove Game Classic, immediately afterwards. Despite testing weather conditions, 10 sailfish and 3 black marlin were tagged and released, with a total of 120 fish of various species tagged.