July 2021 - Darwin and Tiwi

Dodging Covid Sharon and I lucked in to get ourselves to Barradise. It wasn't plain sailing at all.  Having to leave our mates from Fisherman's Parade behind due to their Sydney exposure was disappointing. We were lucky as we had been in Canberra and quickly changed our flights to fly direct from there, rather then return to the Oyster Shack and get locked down. Of course no summer clothes but hey......

We arrived to enjoy a few days of freedom enjoying the famous markets and warm weather laid back life style, before Darwin had to endure its first lock down since the initial out break. Lucky for us the lock down only lasted a week so our long planned sailing trip to the north side of the Tiwi Islands could go ahead, albeit a few days behind schedule.

The yacht trip was aboard Shaguar, my second voyage, but Sharon's first. We were hosted by our mate Jason, the skipper and marine ecologist, and joining us was his daughter Jasmin. Paul and little Mitchie joined us a day later, steaming across from Darwin in the Renegade. Fair effort as it is a 4.8m tiller steer tinnie. Needless to say we were relieved to see them arrive safe. 

This was never planned to be a hard core fishing trip, and travel times ensured we only had a few windows to get amongst em. We certainly caught enough to feed the yacht, and some, but not among the legendary numbers often associated with this part of remote Northern Australia.  Barra were hard to find, but we did bother a few. Where barra should have been we caught plenty of solid blue salmon, often in good numbers. The reef fishing was a bit hit n miss. Nothing in numbers but often 5 to 6 different reef  species coming from the same spot with not a one repeated. The highlight for me was having a few sessions of quality sight fishing, casting the famous 4" swimming mullet  rigged on a 1/6th 2/0 jig, this time however cast with  my new Diawa Steeze on a G-Loomis medium weight Forcelite. The water clarity was better then I had experienced before up there and allowed for a few exciting sessions.

The 80km crossing from Darwin across to the Tiwi's and back were a tad rough, but we still got a fast swimming lure out.  Across we got a great long tail tuna. and on the way back we got a nice spanish mack. It was too rough to launch the renegade to hunt pelagics, so a bit of a bonus to get these solid fish.  Paul, Mitchie and I also had the chance to get down to Bynoe for a day trip. Given it was middle dry season, we had a pretty good day. Barra bites were soft but we connected with a few, along with blue salmon and a few other species. Very enjoyable fishing my favourite "barra run" in Northern Australia.