Happy Micks Fishing Report

A hooter of a tropical low bearing down from the north

Mike is in NZ and his rellies have been planning a three day trip up into the relative wilderness of the Coromandel Penninsular for some months. Last trip provided some big red snapper and lots of giant scollops.

However the Land of the Long Black Cloud is on top form, and as we write a tropical low is bearing down on the north island, with promised gales flooding and associated piscatorial enemies! 

Mike is pretty devasted as you can imagine; planning a wet weekend drinking DB beer, huddled around a log fire, and watching NZ fishing DVD’s and dreaming of giant scollops  .

Boring! However there is a dry fly fishing trip planned for next week so we think he will quickly recover!

Adam Sykir from Happy Micks with an early run off barra

This has been a great wet so far with consistent heavy falls over most of the Top End.

Many of the top end rivers are well and truly getting a good flush, with water levels rising and running onto flood plains, and  filling them with good levels of water.  l think  if we get a few fine days the run- off may begin in earnest, but there may be  far more wet days then dry in store  over the next couple of weeks.

Looks like March should be the time to really hit those big river systems, and look for the run off;  that is a food rich environment for small bait fish coming off the flood plain. Look for good colour change; thats the key, and work the edges of the dirty water and the clean water flowing from the creek or run off.

 .Howard River and Shoal Bay has been producing good number of barra, keen angler Adam (photo holding 66cm) caught a few good barra fishing with his uncle up one of the many creeks of the Shoal Bay Spot 6 system and the upper areas have been well worth a fish on both outgoing and incoming tides.  They landed fish in the high sixties and dropped a few  fish well above the 90cm mark using live bait and lures. We  have not heard of too many salmon getting caught in Shoal Bay, which is a bit surprising as they are usually there if the barra are there.  

      The harbour has still been on the job up in the estuaries,  with  barra and the salmon seen getting stuck into the jelly prawns,  and pretty much every thing else that swims.  With prawn very high on the menu it is something to see feeding barra at work. And also very frustrating try to catch fish when there is so much prime tucker around! A mate and I went out earlier this week. We managed one small barra around 50cm,  and had hits from half  dozen other  barra,  but they are that full and content its difficult to provoke a strike.

It makes it a challenge trying to make them to eat a lure of any description. We could see hundreds of prawns making their way along the sides,  some up to nearly two inches long,  so we matched the hatch with an immediate  re-action,   hooking cod and  travelly and even a very impressive flathead of about 50cm nailed the prawn lure. When it got into deeper water, barra become more interested,  but we still never stayed solidly hooked up. Another soft plastic that was working better then others was the Hollow Belly from Berkley range,  but l think we left a bit too early, the sun had come out and was shining bright and the tide had just about changed. Everything was getting really nervous,  mullet prawns and even the millions of glass fish spraying on the surface when the bigger things come close…  next time!

  In the harbour itself in  the deeper water there have been some nice catches of golden snapper and a few jewfish to boot,  getting caught in the deeper holes of Town Hal. The sides of the shipping channel have been the areas to target when wetting a bait or jigging. They are seeing clouds of bait on the sounders,  maybe clouds of prawns or sardines,  but when they go through the bite becomes full on.  l find February a good time of year to chase a few snapper in the saftey of the harbour,   so with the weather nice and calm at the moment  it might be ok on the changes of the bigger tides, but be safe and  “don’t go if you don’t know!”  

Further afield South Alligator has good water covering the flood plains,  and even being able to keep a boat up there at low tide. Its been hit and miss for some fishing folk,  but the people in the know have been getting into them,  up to twenty plus barra  a trip,  with most in the high 70cms to 80cm mark.

They are  fishing the small run offs up towards the sign. This  seems to be the area that most of the fish are coming from. Some are real swamp donkeys,  and others are very silver saltwater fish.  Plastics and smaller hard body lures are the downfall of many of these fish. Like l said match the hatch.

,Shady Camp is getting a good flush and the fish are starting to show up in the mouth of Sampan and Tommycutt. One  lot of fisho’s landing 15 barra,  biggest 86cms. They also lost one bigger fish,  but  said when the big girl jumped they could see the lure hooked on the top of its head. One morre leap  and it was game over, so they must be full of  food as they not hitting with intent,  just swiping at it. 

There’s some good water coming from coastal run offs.  Carmell Plain  being the pick,  casting big plastics and bombers with some pretty impressive catches coming off this run off. Once again look for colour change, with bigger tides be a bit careful once the tide starts run out. Don’t stay fishing these areas along the coast as Chamber bay is shallow and you dont want to be stuck high and dry waiting for the water to come back in..  

The Adelaide is primed and ready once the water starts dropping. Above Goat island there is heaps of water around. That’s the word among fishos so if we get a dry week things should be good for a fish. Watch these space!  Some fish have come from the Adelaide but they are few and far between, just because ofthe volume of water coming down the river. At the moment it’s full and heathly and running hard so it won’t be long before good colour changes start coming out all over the place.

 Its a waiting game now; be in the right place and when it happens it should be great. Daly River is at 13 something metres so nothing is happening down there but the fish are swimming around in the trees,  and getting more hungry by the day,  so another river that is a waiting game. When it drops it will be awesome!

l think the police are turning people back at the Woollianna turn off as the river is too high,  thats what l’ve  been hearing,  maybe a good thing if you before you go that way just to play it safe. 

Land basde has been good around Channel Island with some good light game fishing,  with some bigger then  normal sharks being caught. Big  bronze whalers  and reef sharks have been keeping the fellas tied up for half hour or more,  and queen fish and hoards of golden trevally chasing clouds of shrimp are very hard to catch. But the queenfish and GT’s have been taking high retrieved lures so they been happy with proceedings.

 It might be a fine weekend weather wise as l write this it is very sunny out side so keep an eye on the weather and be sun smart tight lines …

I’m not sure who wrote this but it’s worth a read. Don’t nessesarily agree with all of it but its a good read and not far from the mark!

A Boss Who Tells It Like It Is
 
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  (more…)

The contents of this website are copyright.  Permission is freely given to reproduce or publish all or in part, provided the source is acknowledged. Failure to do so may result in prosecution.

 The rain has certainly hit the right areas with river levels rising just about everywhere.

Reports that at the Shady Camp barrage on the Mary the water  was in the car park park,  with a wall of water that came through the Mary River Bridge lagoon. This came to within a  half metre under the bridge,  so the catchment areas upstream are getting the bulk of the rain.

The South Alligator is flowing well and fgetting  over the banks and onto the flood plains above Leichardts Creek. It’s a sea of water on the flood plains. My mate Jason went out on them and found a good metre of water. It makes  cruising around pretty easy. There were a few fish caught at the top of Nourlangie Creek. They were nice silver fish taken by casting back eddies, and tiny little run off’s that are coming in to the main river system. All we need now is a couple of healthy monsoons to give them a real kick and get them flooding well and truly. That will really get those barra moving around ..

Shady Camp is producing fish around the barrages, number one and two barrages have been the most productive, with fish up around 60cm to 80cm. White soft plastics seem to be the go, but all sorts of colours shapes and sizeswill work. There is such a huge range of plastic lures available now and still more coming onto the market on a regular basis.

l can remember years ago when there were only ever two plastics that we could buy. One was the Vibratail from Blue Fox and then a few years later Renosky shads. These new ones are getting more life like every time they bring out a new range, and they are very good products, and well marketed, but l feel that if you have a few Reidys, Squidgys, Tsunami, Gulps and D.O.A’s including prawn patterns range you can’t go to far wrong.

It is nice to try new things, but people tend to forget that they caught fish on all these plastics,  so stick too what you know   Big bombers and Barrabaits, big B52’s are doing the job at the mouth of Tommy Cutt and Sampan. The salmon are getting bigger so lets hope that the water is starting to flow down Tommy Cutt into Chambers Bay, and there have been big fish sighted rolling around on the edges of the drop off giving the mullet a hurry up….

Darwin habour has been good, but  l only heard of the harbour arms producing fish,  as the wind was terrible, making the trip across the harbour very uncomfortable. The upper Middle Arm and the Elizabeth River, where people tangled with barra salmon and snapper. They got wet for their troubles,  but were rewarded for their efforts. It  seemed that when it was raining the fish were biting really well.

We’ve heard nothing from the blue water which is  understandable, so my pick would be the Adelaide river for a look with a few barra feeding along the bank up near Beatrice Creek,  with good water colour coming from most creek run offs. Mike was up there on the weekend a said there was a lot of good coloured water but still no bait.  l think its a little bit early yet,  but you never know if you dont go!

Massive tides this week will push water up in some of the river right over the banks,  with a 8 metre tide on Wednesday so that should push some bigger fish the system , so tight lines,  be sun smart and watch the weather ………

The contents of this website are copyright.  Permission is freely given to reproduce or publish all or in part, provided the source is acknowledged. Failure to do so may result in prosecution.

The weather this week has been less then favourable for the boating fraternity. We have been lashed by winds  with winds that would blow a brown dog off the chain! So rough it made it even difficult to get cross the habour to fish the West Arm side of the harbour!

The rain  we are having now is certainly pushing all the rivers into flood, and with more activity forecast for the monsoon, this year’s run off fishing is starting to look pretty good.  Shady Camp and the river mouths opened last weekend, with  mixed reports. There were a few nice size Threadfin Salmon caught at the mouth of Sampan and a few barra as well. No really big  fish that we have heard of yet, but tides are on the improve and there is a lot more water to come down from the Mary above the bridge. This will help those wanting to get into Tommycutt as last weekend there was not enough water in the cutting. 

 Still on Shady Camp,  a few anglers got into some good barra off the barrage, nice fish in the 7kg to 9kg mark with some some bigger fish lost. It pays to remember that this is the home of some very big crocs,  so take note on where they are and let  others know if you see them hanging around. Barra fishing is great but it’s not worth losing your life over,  so stay sharp. Soft plastics were the big killer,  Reidys Rubbers, Squidgy Slick rigs,  Tsunami Prawns and D.O.A bait busters seem to be getting the barra, and there are  heaps of small barra around the 20cm 30cm mark hanging around the barrage,  so be kind to these future trophy fish,  give them time to recover, and release them healthy,  because they are too good a fish to just catch once.

The South Alligator was fishing well, with one lot bagging  twelve very nice fish up to 85cm. They dropped two bigger fish in the high ninties. There is good water  coming off the flood plains:  right time right place! Big Killalures,and 18cm Nilsmasters were the order of the day.

As l write this the Daly River was running at 11.60 metre. Thats a lot of very awesome water coming down the river,  so the barra will be in the trees with that much water going through. Can’t wait until it starts dropping …. should be awesome.

 Closer to home the Harbour Arms had some nice reports,  with some good barra and still numbers of Golden Snapper. We’ve seen  some nice barra. One was 93cm and others caught on live mullet  near Channel Island area. He wouldn’t disclose the exact location, that’s  barra fisherman for you!  That is a great fish for the harbour.

Darwin Harbour is certainly moving ahead in leaps and bounds, so  full credit to the NT Government Fisheries for that, but we are still getting some disappointed fishermen not happy about the amount of pro crabbers in Shoal Bay and Bynoe Harbour. Lets hope they address urgently!

Talking of crabs, some very nice muddies are  coming from the Elizaberth River. Some impressive sizes up to 27cm across and full as a boot,  so the rain has not dampened them too much.

With good tides this weekend that might be an option. Go chase crabs. Looking at the weather chart it is looking that the wind might hang around so be aware of the weather if you plain to head out on the water the arms will be a safe place to wet a line ..

 The Culverts have some serious amounts running through them with the levels still a bit high. They need to stay steady for a while to get barra moving up them, and a lot of them have lots of bait milling around the sides so hopefully it wont be far away. In saying that the further culverts have been firing up along the Arnhem highway and Adalaide river areas with some nice fish around the 60cm mark. Once again watch out for the snapping hand bags as they also move around when the water is up.