fishing report 17.12.09
The monsoonal deluge has kicked off the wet with gusto, with a months rain average in three days from the tropical low that went past the Northern territory coast over last weekend. It’s a great shame as they were a cracker set of tides over the weekend, and gave no opportunity or option to get out because of the weather.
A few die hard fishos donned the rain coats and fished with some very good results. Not a good practice but they are very competent fishos and never ventured out any further than they had to. Barra snapper and jacks were caught around rocky headls and with waves chrashing onto the stones, turning the water into a foamy mess, but it seemed to bring fish the on. For myself, I had a very dry time of it, opting for the maintainence side of things’ doing the reels and reversing line back onto reels etc. Others that braved the wet had a ball around the rocks of East Point catching Queenfish and barra and a few rock cod. It was a nice result for the effort, the barra were around the 70cm mark hitting surface lures. These guys do not miss any opportunity to wet a line and in this case they had fun as well looking like drowned rats but happy ones to say the least , they were rewarded and you can’t knock them for that.
Before the low hit us on the Friday tides were coming into some superb neaps. Vernon’s and Lorna Shoals were good spots that produced great size coral trout as well as snapper up to 2.5kg and lots of tricky Snapper as they seem to haunt this area a fair bit. Further down off Dundee Beach, around Point Blaze there were some arm stretching and rod bending. Big golden Snapper up to 75cm and bigger hit the deck so one happy fishing group was telling me. It was fast and furious, soon as the bait or jig hit the bottom it was “ON’’ and certainly in plenty of good numbers and sizes, they had to stop fishing as they bagged out very quickly, changing fishing tactics, then catching a few jewfish it seemed that they (jewfish) were also very willing and ready to feed what ever was presented to them.
Its great when a fishing trip just goes to plan and everything clicks with a good swag of top quality table fish for the Christmas dinner just add prawns and you got your self a winner: a great Aussie Christmas BBQ lunch or dinner feed.
Where to go over the weekend? If we get a bit of clear weather, it should be good to hit the harbour on this great weekend tides, but please take note that there are still wind warnings in place so jump online to the www.bom.gov.au sight for a quick look and plan for what the day has in store. The word is that fishing in the many Harbour arms the large amounts of mullet that were around couple of weeks ago have dwindled down to small schools, and some areas hardly any. On the other hand large amounts of Archer Fish instead of the mulle, they seemed to be everywhere. It makes things hard when the bait is not there, but the fish will be still around, so casting 6 inch plastics and the larger lures, you might get a good re-action from fish that might want more then a small prawn. The whole harbour should fish well , don’t forget the vinegar as there have been some BoxJellyfish around so check your cast net for tentacles’ left behind from your previous cast, before you throw it over your shoulders. There is only one weekend left before Christmas come in and check us out , have a great and safe weekend from the team of Happy Micks.