Happy Micks Fishing Report

 The Harbour

The weather has become more predicable. With most of the storms happening in the afternoon and the days being humid and hot , it will not be long until the wet season kicks in to gear. Most fisho’s are not venturing to far from home, staying close and fishing the Harbour  with good results. The Harbour has been producing good fishing for most species, from barramundi to snapper and even a few mud crabs. Once again there has been no real big stand outs in the harbour arms, all of them seem to be fishing as well as each other. The in land water ways are on last drinks as they have been getting good rain inland slowing down the fishing. Piont Stuart had two and half inches of rain on Tuesday night and several showers most afternoons as well.

Inland

Corroborree has been producing  smaller fish with the odd big one still getting landed. The rain has played a big part on number of barra caught. If it rained the night before it makes it hard to fishing the next day. It has been raining most afternoon in the area so it will get harder as the rain becomes more frequent. The only thing on the barramundi’s mind is to get the hell out of dodge, as the water rises some of them will make their way to the coast. As they are all healthy fat fish from a good season they will not be looking for a feed as much with the oxygen levels dropping making it uncomfortable for them.

The Daly

The bigger rivers like the Daly river seems to be fishing well, unlike the Billabongs the Daly river still has flow of water moving the river up and down on the tides, so the barramundi this time of year are active. This has been the case down this neck of the woods with some fishing folk getting great rewards for their travels to the Daly river.  Browns Creek and around the corner at the mouth of Charlie’s has been producing some great action as the tide pushes up the river. Plastics and big bombers are the good choices as the mullet are getting hammered right up close to the bank on the early  morning tides and later afternoon tides. Fish around the 70cm mark and a few 90cm barra  have been caught by reports. Live bait has also been doing ok when things are slow. 

“You cant beat bait”

With the boat trailers that filled most of the boat ramp like Dinah Beach and east arm was anything to go  by, it was busy in the Harbour arms this week. With good tides chasing Barramundi and Threadfin salmon in the many  estuaries and jew fish and golden snapper wider.  The jelly prawn invasion that starts around this time of year is underway. Fishing becomes frustrating when you can see and hear fish boofing salmon and barramundi crashing through clouds of jelly prawns but wont touch a lure. Also with large schools of mullet that are in the Harbour its a endless supply of food for all fish. Such a healthy system at the moment in the Harbour with so much bait fish around ,Queenfish and Travelly  are pretty common at the moment in the last of the out going tide and the first of the incoming tides around east arm. As a matter of fact most of the Harbour arms  have been the seen of schools of Queenies and trevally carving  up  bait and smashing jelly prawns up along the bank as the tide moves back in. Some of these fish are around the 55cm mark but bigger Queen fish and Trevally have been caught around larrakeyah and Cullen bay and along  Emery Point.   Shoal bay has been fishing Ok but l think a lot of fishos are keeping quite on how well they are actually going. Have heard of a few meter fish coming from the area. They are saying the weekend in Shoal bay was crazy with twenty to thirty  boats around the rock and surrounding system.  I was told thousand upon thousands of pop-eye mullet and glass-fish and jelly prawns were active in  Shoal bay and Howard river system. One fisho that was fishing right up near Scrubby Creek in the Howard told me when the tide moved back in the place turned into a bloody bath with bait schools getting sprayed in the air from fish going through shallow water to get a feed. It was a great sight to watch he said. They landed three nice  barra around 80cm plus mark and lost three more as the tide moved in amongst the abundant schools of bait. What they did do was down size thier lures to the smaller gold bombers when they did this the end result worked well for them. They had allot more stikes and hook ups and landed barra as well..

Blue Water

In the blue water and outer Darwin Harbour has been producing some great fishing over the past few weeks. Lorna Shoal and wide of Charles Point has been producing some good snapper on the changes of tide. The jiggers have been getting more stretched out with the many big  Trevally taking them before anything else has a chance, the first couple are fun but they do start hurting you after four or five if they are the  bigger models. They put up one hell of a fight. The Vernon’s  has been having its fair share of big Trevally on the chew up to 20kg as l was told this week. The happy fisho told me that was the biggest one they landed and lost ones bigger on knife jigs fishing the sides of the big drop offs. The bigger fish rubbed them off on the reef.  Six Mile Buoy has been producing the odd Jew fish on the bigger tides. Some of the wrecks in the Harbour on the change of tide has also turned up some good jewies and goldies on the smaller tides.

Where to go this weekend

 With the weather on the change, and the Harbour fishing so well, there is no need for travel to get a nice feed of fish this weekend. With excellent barra tides over the weekend the low tides a couple hours after lunch should be a great tide for working  some of the awesome estuary systems around the Harbour. Casting or trolling along the gutters that get left when the tide receides  and the first push of the tide  can be very productive. Leaders Creek  at the mouth might be the dark horse for one of those big female barra with good morning high tides for a couple of hours fishing along the few creeks towards Shoal bay might be worth a troll,remember if you are lucky enough to catch a metre plus barra take some photo’s handle them right and release them. take lots of water and sun screen check out the weather reports before heading out and stay safe,from the team from happy micks have a great weekend……..

The Weather

The storms are starting to rock up around the place so don’t forget to check the weather report on our site before you head out for a fish. Nobody likes a wet ride home. It’s good to see the North Easterlies dropping off a bit and letting the blue water fan-tics get some fishing time in before the big storms start to rock up.

The Harbour

The habour arms are still producing some good goldies for those who put in the time on the change of tides. They seem to be feeding on the rock bars as the first of the run-in pushes the bait up the creeks. Prawns and squid work well, but fresh mullet caught in a cast net and filleted for bait beats squid hands down. Pikey Bream are always a chance when fishing these rock bars.  Vast schools of baby jelly prawns can be found at large creek mouths on the low tide. Plenty of blue salmon and tarpon are feeding on the schools. Tempting these fish can be a problem when there is alot of bait around. Small clear soft plastics are the way to go. Saltwater flys have the goods as well and the larger tarpon are a real challenge on the lighter grade fly rods.The odd barra is being caught on the flats that form on the lows, fishing bombers in the large gutters that form at some of the larger creeks in Elizabeth and Woods Inlet.

Landbased In The Habour

Some good queenies and Giant Trevally have been caught off Mandorah wharf and Elizabeth bridge casting slicers into the gaps of the pylons and letting them hit bottom before jigging them back to the surface. It takes a bit of skill and hard yakka to stop the larger queenies and Gt’s from busting you off as soon as you hook them. But the trick in the short stroke them with heavy drag on. Some goldies can be caught from Channel Island bridge and Elizabeth Bridge with the best time being a high tide at night.

Vernon Islands

Small schools of Mackerel and Giant trevally can still be found working bait near the Vernon islands and Gunn Point. Try to drift close enough to punch a small metal plug into the school and hang on. They aren’t big fish but lots of fun.Follow the birds and they will lead you to the feeding fish. The late afternoon seems to be the time the schools switch on and start to feed. Goldies and jewiescan be caught in the deeper channels on the change of tides. Night fishing is the way to go to target these fish. Some large Gaint Trevallies can be caught cast poppers over Smithand Harris reefs as the tide pumps out and the small bait fish congerate on these shallow reefs. Small to medium poppers and stick baits work great but for a bit of fun tried throwing a couple squid.

Crabbing

The crabs have slowed down a bite of late but some boats are still pulling the odd large buck out of shoal bay and some of the smaller feeder creeks in Pioneer creek and the Blackmore river. Chicken for bait seems to be all the rage, but the humble catfish still makes great crab bait. From all the team at Happy Micks tight lines and have a good week on the water.

Well I’ve been away down south for the past week so this weeks report will only consist of what i have heard in the two days i have been back.

Darwin Harbour

The Harbour has fished well over the last week. The weather has been kind and their is no sight yet of rain. There has been several reports coming from both East Arm and West Arm. A group was fishing East Arm over the weekend and produced a mixed bag of fish and a hand-full of crabs to boot. They said they landed 4 barra over 60cm and 2 barra over 70cm. They said all of the barra were caught on bombers and the biggest 76cm was caught on a green bomber. They also managed 4 mud crabs in set pots on the incoming tide on chicken carcass. They said there wasn’t allot of boats were they were fishing but when they got back to the ramp most boats they talked to seemed to all have fish. 

 Another customer has also down well in Darwin Harbour using poppers around a rocky headland on the outgoing tide. He said he picked up 20 fish for the morning session. Most of the were plate sized golden trevally. He also managed 4 large queenfish all around the metre mark. He said they were smashing bait schools on the surface all morning. He said the bait schools were draining out of the mangrove flats and making their way down past the rocky head land. He said once the bait reached the headland the water erupted for more than a minute. Not allot of bait got past for the first few hours he said. Not a good day for a bait fish on that flat he said.

Six mile buoy has been producing mixed bags of reef fish. There have been some nice Goldies coming from the area on the neap tides and the odd jewie coming from the area on the larger tides. There was a good sized mack well over 40lb caught there last week on a floated unweighted sandmah. The lucky angler said the bait was just floating with the tide when the reel screamed out. He said it was the biggest mack he had caught from the harbour and one other smaller mack was caught using the same methods a couple a minutes after the first. He said there was allot of bait around that particular area which convinced him to anchor and fish. He said they landed a mixed bag of reef fish but no goldies.

Dundee

I spoke to a couple of guys who were heading back to Dundee this weekend. They had had a great trip there last week. He said when he got back to the boat ramp and spoke to a few other fisherman they didn’t share in his good trip. He said one guy caught a few barra from the Finness and another crew got stuck into the Macks off Roach reef. The guys i was talking to topped that with 15 Trickies 5 good sized Macks and they bagged out on Golden Snapper. He said the catch of the trip was a 4kg goldie which they jigged up close to Point Blaze. He said a close second was a 30 odd pound mack caught floating out a live garfish which they caught in their draw string. He said the weather was good but it got a little hot for his liking. He said they come across the biggest school of Dolphins he had ever seen. He said there must of been 20 or 30 in the group. He said they hung around the boat for a good half hour. they released a moonfish that didn’t survive. He said the dolphins got a hold of it and were throwing it to each other. He said he has never witnessed anything like it in his 20 years on the water. He said it was quite moving.

This weekend

Coming into the neaps this week offshore hotspots should get a hiding with good conditions predicted. With the wind down for most of the day it would make it accessible for the smaller craft who wouldn’t normally risk the trip. Ive been told the wind has been great up until the sea breeze around 4:00pm. Taking this into consideration i recommend areas such as South Gutter and Fenton Patches. They areas fish well this time of year for goldies and have already produced some great fishing over the past few sets of tides. The harbour should be good for barra around the harbour arms. Fish the outgoing tides as the water drops out from the mangroves. Crabs should be on the move so don’t forget your pots. From all the team from Happy Micks tight lines and good fishing!