Just got back from a six day adventure up in the NT. In one word. . . awsome, in two words. . . f@rkin awsome. I stayed with a friends dad who is working on a mine up there. The fishing was so good i think i might even write a proper report.
Day 1. hop off the plane at 1:30 drive down to base camp, unpack, go for a quick hunt with the bows. Later that night we go out for a spotlight spotted a mob of pigs that included a massive tusker but they were off into the buffalo grass before i could get the rifle to my shoulder.
Day 2. Get up at gentlemans hours (about 8) gear up and head off the the skinny water river. First cast 20cm sooty, followed be another slightly larger specimen and a few swipes by a decent barra. kept moving and ended up with another half dozen sooties and three or four rat barra. The action was comparatively slow according to matt so we desided to move down the road to Tony's another less fished spot. We covered about 2 k's of the river catching a variety of barra between 30-45cm sotties from 25-35cm and heaps of rat tarpon. Matt scored a solid archer fish around the 30cm mark. One praticular bend was holding some really solid barra we had 3 fish around the 70-80cm mark smoke us in quick succussion, all in heavily timbered holes in water small enough the most places you could spit onto the other bank. awsome. We finished off the day by heading to another spot that held better quality barra, i landed one fish around the 70cm mark while matt had 3 fish either spit him out or bust him off. That night we went for another spotlight again finding the pigs in the same spot but too far into the buffalo grass to get a clear shot.
Day 3. We decided to go far a bow hunt. early start and we went for a bit of a drive to our hunting grounds, not much activity but i still managed to shaft a fairly solid boar, the only one we saw that day. headed back for lunch and then gave Tony's another fish picking up many more sooties tarpon and barra including a few better fish around the 50-55 mark. Ran out of small poppers.
Day 4. fished tony's again but we were running out of unfished water so the action was starting to slow (only caught about 30 fish that morning). Tried another spot off the main road, after cutting a fair way in for no result we reached some water with that hadn't been fishing for a long time, big sooty meka, heaps of fish over the 35 mark. We didn't brake the 40cm mark the whole trip biggest i caught went 39cm.
Day 5. Fished another spot downstream of Tony's place, lots of big sooties but the bank cover was too thick to get a cast in for most of it. We had a charter booked that afternoon at a big billabong on a cattle station. cleaned up on rat barra between 30-40cm (cracked a century in barra in fish caught) aswell a a single 67cm fish. Finished the day off with a couple of beers with the station owner.
Day 6. Very tired, slept in packed went home.
All this fishing occurred in heavily crock infested waters with some of the places known to have salties over the 4m mark lurking the banks. We encountered at least 6 while walking the banks in the skinny water and about 10 in the big billabong so don't be fooled guys when your up that way if there is water there is probably crocks there aswell. We also had to contend with brown snakes on a regular basis so not for the light hearted. The whole place is alive, with fauna everywhere and the most mongrel plant species you've ever come across with some evolutionary feature designed to either trip you, slice you or impale you with thorns or tiny itchy hairs. trees without these attributes harbour green tree ants which fall down into your hair and neck when you are in a really vunerable possition. On a plus note the the ants taste like sour apple warheads, quite tangy. Spiders were not a problem. Most of them lived down burrows, probably to avoid the snakes. The heat was relentless, i had my camel back on the whole time and would have been drinking about 5 litres a day.
Ok to the serious side of it, tackle. I used a 2004 daiwa saltist gekabin spooled with 8lb flamell pe with 20lb leader on a samarai SO12 4'8" for all of the skinny water work. You would not want to fish lighter line and leader for three reasons, one of them is barra as their moth plates will rub through anything lighter two quickly. the second reason is you get run in alot and even from the small fish the extra abraison resistance is worth while and finally you often had to lift fish up the bank using the line due to the risk of crocks and the terrain. I Also fish a heavier 20lb spin out fit for the larger fish. Anyone thinking of giving this a go you need just a regular 4-8lb spin stick less than 6 foot with a small spin reel with 8-10lb mainline. Lures, Matty managed to go for the entire trip fishing only surface lures, which ment by day two he was into my collection as he had already run out as he arrived a few days before me. 45mm river 2 sea bubble pops, 70mm rovers, koolabung fizzers 50mm ecogear poppers honestly anything that is small and swims ok. similarly with small harbodies though i did find a better hook up rate on long narrow shallow runners like ecogear mk72's and rapala original floaters.
Anyway as i've said many times already simply awsome trip, between me and matt we would have caught a conservative 300 fish. Heres the photo's, enjoy.
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Originally Posted by Little grey men
