Top End Guides

[Jock_Scott]

Hi folks
As a newish member this message may be out of order. I hope not but if it is please would someone delete it.

I have recently had 3 days saltwater fly fishing in Darwin with my 2 lads - I travelled over from Scotland. My initial difficulty was finding a decent guide to take us out. I'm sure you can appreciate how chancey this is from X thousand Kms away. I had heard that overall the Ozzy guides were very professional and I wouldn't be too far wrong whoever I chose.

As I said we ended up having a ball with an extremely hard working guide I traced over the internet (I know a good guide who is busting a gut to help you as I used to do the job over here). Therefore I would just like to say if any of you are headed that way try "Match the Hatch" - Grant Hatcher. We fished out of Crabclaw Village and had a ball. I had picked the wrong tides and couldn't change the dates we were in Darwin so we didn't catch bucketfulls of fish. Even so it was worth every penny (sorry dollar).

Do many of you use guides if you fish away from home territory or do you just have a stab? Guides are only used in the UK for salmon fishing, particularly Scotland.

I was interested in the question of which 3 flies would you choose. We mainly stuck to clousers (white, white/chartreuse) and surf candies (Popovics style).

[SNELLY]

Jock, Great to hear you had a good time in Darwin. Grant is certainly one of the better guides in that area


SNELLY

[Fisheasy]

With a lot of the saltwater fishing in Australia clousers will pretty much pick up any fish you want. Just a matter of changing colours, hook size and weight to suit the fish you're catching. Barra, tuna, trevally, flathead, cobia, mackerel, mangrove jacks.
Will also use surf candies for mackerel and tuna.
Deceivers in varying sizes.
Before venturing north (top end of Oz), I tie about 40 clousers and usually stick with white, white/grey, white/ chartruese as well as white/yellow.
I think if I was venturing overseas I'd seek out the services of a guide however it would depend on where we were fishing, boat availability (hire), time and whether we've fished similar circumstances in Australia.