starlofishing

CATCH A TIGER!

Posted on May 16, 2013 by StarloFishing

I’m getting very, VERY excited about our big tigerfish safari to Africa in late September/early October. On top of news that the river levels are at their best in almost 30 years, we just heard that one of the fishing guides we’ll be using landed (and released) a 29 pound (about 14kg) specimen yesterday! That’s about the size of the one in this pic from walltoyou.com

If you’re interested in joining us on this trip-of-a-lifetime, you only have until 21st May to get in at the never-to-be-repeated early bird price! For more info and details on pricing, go to: www.hunttigerfishwithstarlo.com

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Categories: Angling Adventures | Tags: adventure, africa, Fish, Fishing, Guides and Charters, Harvey Gap State Park, Outdoors, Recreation, safari, Starlo, StarloFishing, Steve Starling, Tiger, Tiger Woods, tigerfish, zambesi | Leave a comment

TO CATCH A TIGER!

Posted on February 10, 2013 by StarloFishing

Would Your Fishing Improve If You Could Pick Starlo’s Brain Over Dinner?

These days, smart anglers consider themselves lucky to have access to Starlo’s encyclopedic knowledge through one-off questions on Facebook. Their more conservative or shy counterparts settle for taking what they can from his many articles, books and DVD segments. Regardless of how Starlo brings benefit to anglers’ efforts, the benefits are undeniable.

Imagine the value of actually fishing with the dude!

And imagine what the post-mortems over beers at the end of the day would reveal! Jo Starling, keen angler and wife of the big fella, reckons her fishing ability has skyrocketed since meeting Starlo.

“Steve’s knowledge and skill is immense. My fishing prowess has gone through the roof since I’ve been fishing by his side and it’s led me to some pretty awesome catches and memories. But perhaps the most important thing that I’ve learned is that you can have all the talent in the world, but it amounts to nothing without knowledge,” she says. “I don’t think there’s enough time left in my remaining decades to absorb a quarter of what that man knows!”

Here’s your chance to book that dinner seat with Starlo!

We’ve thrown down a gauntlet to Starlo: Can he pull an elusive tigerfish out of the mighty Zambezi River? Many are hooked, few make it to the boat. We want to know if he’s good enough. So, we’ve pitched an unparalleled fishing safari at the optimum time of year and he’s taken the bait!

Here’s the best bit… there are ten other spots available! This means that YOU could join what will undoubtedly be Starlo’s most memorable fishing trip and enjoy post-mortems and beers on not just one night, but many!

The 14 day itinerary includes chasing tigerfish—with possible by-catch of vundu (enormous Zambezi catfish), nembwe (hard fighting, good eating tilapia) and many other species—along with wild elephants, hippos, lions, helicopter jaunts over the spectacular Victoria Falls and elephant rides along the majestic river, to name just a few highlights.

Starlo doesn’t know much about catching tigerfish!

It’s true! For all the fishing Starlo’s done, he’s never targeted tigerfish! Perhaps that’s what keeps them high on his hit list…

“There are a handful of truly iconic freshwater sportfish scattered across the globe. They include Australia’s mighty barramundi, the South American dorado, India’s mahseer, the Atlantic salmon of the northern hemisphere… and the fearsome African tigerfish. Now there’s a fish I definitely want to tick off my personal bucket list!”

~ Steve Starling

And so it is… we’re off to Africa! Starlo’s mandate is for the ‘trip of a lifetime’. That’s not hard in Africa, but throw in the challenge the fish-world’s most notorious houdini and this is a lay-down misére!

This trip provides the closest thing to a level playing field that you’ll ever see.

“The thing I love most about fishing is a new challenge: a species I’ve never targeted before and a place I’ve never visited. Catching tigerfish on the Zambezi ticks all of those boxes!”

~ Steve Starling

Starlo has spent over 40 years traveling the globe in pursuit of angling adrenalin, so it may come as a surprise that there are still a few species on his bucket list left to catch.

The intriguing thing about his quest to tick off the tigerfish is their tendency to be the “one that got away”.

“I’ve heard it said that you’re lucky to stay connected to one in four of the tigerfish that strike your line—their mouths are so bone-hard and their fighting style so explosive and erratic that they’re really hard to keep on a hook… Now that’s the sort of challenge I enjoy!”

~ Steve Starling

Is this the best fishing yarn yet to be told?

Can you imagine the mileage you’ll get out of your stories about when you were there to witness that fight? What about the kudos you’ll get if yours is actually bigger?

The best part is, Starlo’s a good sport and a damn good photographer—so you’ll have the evidence to back it up, if you do manage to peg him back!

And of course, there’s always the lessons learned if you don’t. This opportunity to fish alongside one of Australia’s most revered anglers is rare indeed. The benefit to your personal fishing skills can’t be estimated… it will be what you make of it. Suffice to say, it’s not an opportunity that is likely to come around again in the near future, if ever again.

But Starlo doesn’t think the challenge is tough enough…

Most anglers who’ve heard about the ferocity of the tigerfish’s fight would consider that challenge enough… let alone their physical resistence to actually getting hooked! But not Starlo. Never one to rest on reputation, he’s decided that he’s going to take this opportunity to really put himself—and his beloved Squidgy soft plastics—to the test.

“In some parts of the lower Zambezi where the water isn’t so clear, tigerfish are mostly targeted using bait. Lures are regarded as being far less effective. I’d love a dollar for every time I’ve heard that line… and then kicked butt using soft plastics! I can’t wait to try our Squidgies on these amazing fish. I’d imagine this trip might be the first time anyone has ever thrown a Squidgy into the mighty Zambezi River! That’s real pioneering stuff, and it makes me tingle all over just thinking about it…”

~ Steve Starling

Will Squidgies kick-butt on tigerfish?

You could wait to read about it like everyone else, or you could be part of the challenge. Will you choose bait or lure?

Ten irresistible reasons why you should be one of the ten anglers to join Starlo and his family on this trip.

Tick one of the world’s most challenging fish off your angling bucket list, even if it wasn’t on that list before today!
Be there when Starlo pits all his years of knowledge and experience against this new foe.
You can learn like a sponge by simply watching Starlo in action… imagine the value of fishing along side him as well, and then mulling over the day with a beer!
Experience one of the world’ most astounding wildlife destinations at the same time as enjoying a totally wild fishing trip!
Hone your tigerfishing skills with the insight and help of experienced African guides.
Explore African wilderness with the confidence and security of being with a full-time host with many years of experience to help you safely through all transits, borders and check-ins.
Gazump every bar-room fishing yarn forever more.
Travel as part of a group for added security.
Enjoy the significant benefits of group discounts.

10. Potentially end up featuring in one of Starlo’s magazine articles!

What will you get for your $6999?

Aside from all the benefits already described, the size of the group enables substantial savings! In fact, to arrange this trip for yourself, you could expect to pay close to $9000.

However, think a little outside of the tackle box… with the Aussie dollar where it is, we get so much more bang for our buck outside of Oz. A four day fishing trip to chase our mighty barra, for example, will cost you $4-5K! Worth every penny too, it’s true, but this is FOURTEEN days, in AFRICA, with STARLO, chasing TIGERFISH! Not to mention riding elephants, spying lions, dodging hippos and soaking up the relaxed vibe of the place.

When you think about it, $6999 is outstanding value!

“It’s a bit of a cliché that there’s more to fishing than catching fish, but when you’re waking up to the sounds of an African dawn before casting your line into the mysterious green waters of the Zambezi, watched by hippos and elephants, I’d imagine there’s a lot of truth to the cliché!”

~ Steve Starling

Be quick… seats are strictly limited on this exclusive tour. First in is best dressed. To find out more, go to our expression of interest form or the Q&A forum. It’s obligation free until you commit, but if you’re keen… don’t wait too long! Click here!

Categories: Angling Adventures | Tags: adventure, africa, angling, Atlantic salmon, Facebook, Fish, Outdoors, safari, sportfishing, Squidgies, Starlo, Steve Starling, tigerfish, tigerfishing, trip, Victoria Falls, Zambezi, Zambia | 8 Comments

MULLOWAY MANIA: Part 2

Posted on December 17, 2012 by StarloFishing

Here’s the second part of my detailed look at mulloway, big flathead, lures and the tides…

Jewfish or mulloway are incredibly charismatic fish!

In the first part of this in-depth look at the influence of tidal movements on mulloway behaviour in our south-eastern estuaries, I explained how those cyclic forces impact on day-time lure fishing results for jewies. I also offered the theory that it was possible to narrow down the peak times for daytime jewie luring in many estuaries to just a handful of hours each month. Here’s a brief re-cap of what I had to say in Part 1:

Daytime jewfish on soft plastics… it doesn’t get much better!

To begin with, I’m a firm believer that mulloway are significant “front-edge” tidal feeders, much as saltwater barramundi are further north. In other words, both species tend to ride a tide change or tidal front up and down our coastal rivers, or to at least to feed more actively as these fronts pass a given point where the fish may be holding. I also believe that the bigger the tidal variation, the more intense and concentrated this front-edge action is likely to be (remembering that I’m talking here about southern QLD, NSW and Victoria, where maximum tidal ranges are likely to be less than 2 m). I therefore theorised that the best tides for daytime jewie luring in this part of the world are those that see a tidal range of 1.4 metres or more; for example, when there’s a 0.3 m low running up to, say, a 1.7 or 1.8 metre high. My personal observations have repeatedly backed this hypothesis up.

You can even catch them in the middle of a bright, sunny day, if you get everything right!

Tidal variations of that size (spring tides) tend to occur from a day or so before and up to three days after the full and new moons, depending on the time of year (more on that subject soon).

I went on to offer the opinion that it’s possible to further narrow the peak bite period by focusing on the actual tide turns or changes, and the subsequent tidal fronts (run-in or run-out). On both the full and the new moon days, there will typically be a low tide in the early hours of the morning (between midnight and 4 AM) and a high tide mid-morning, followed by another low in the late afternoon, at least in south eastern Australia. However, tidal lags further upstream in estuary systems can skew these times considerably (as well as providing great opportunities to “chase” a tidal front up or down the system in a reasonably fast boat, and to leapfrog ahead of the front for multiple bites at the cherry, as explained below).

Exciting, nervous moments!

To sum up what I detailed in Part 1: if you fish for jewies in this large chunk of the country (from Fraser Island, QLD to the Glenelg River on the VIC/SA border), especially during daylight hours and while using lures, I believe you should be concentrating your efforts on the tops and bottoms of those daytime tide turns from the day before the full or new moon until three days after each of those lunar phases. Finally, in my personal experience, and on the estuaries I mainly fish, the new moon tends to slightly out-perform the full moon. So, for me, the absolute peak bite activity tends to occur on the second and third days after the new moon, around the turn of the mid-morning high tide.

As you can see, this information really helps to define and narrow down the optimum periods for catching daytime mulloway on hardware in estuaries along our heavily-populated south eastern seaboard. But of course, it’s never quite that simple…

Hold your horses!

As I warned in Part 1, before you get too excited by these revelations, it’s also worth pointing out that recreational fishing remains a fairly inexact science, at best, and that exceptions to these so-called “rules” abound!

Flooding rains, very cold water, a lack of bait (particularly small fish and prawns) , excessive boat traffic or commercial netting and trawling effort can all throw a spanner in the works and really upset the jewie cart. Remember, if they aren’t there, you won’t catch them, no matter how hard or how smart you fish.

Big flathead love exactly the same lures as jewies!

There are also a bunch of tide-related subtleties and other little nuances that I didn’t have the time or space to go into in any depth in Part 1, but which I’m about to reveal now… are you ready?

Night and day

Unless you’re a particularly dedicated student of the tide tables, there are probably a few twists you haven’t noticed about the cycle of ebb and flow in our south eastern estuary systems. One of these phenomena is the way in which diurnal (day/night) tidal variations fluctuate throughout the year on a regular and fairly predictable basis. Let me explain:

From about September onwards (in most years), the biggest high tides (and also the biggest tidal ranges between low and high tide) that occur around each full and new moon phase (the spring tides) take place during the daytime, usually before mid-day. In other words, the highest tides of the month tend to occur in the mornings, within a day or two of the full and new moon.

Another schoolie on a Squidgy.

Around March most years, an interesting change begins to manifest itself in that established spring/summer tidal pattern. If you have a look at the published tide charts for NSW, for example, you’ll typically see that the large tidal movements around the new moon in mid-March are almost equal between daytime and night tides. However, by the time the Easter full moon and April roll around, it’s the night tides and nocturnal tidal variations that are biggest. This pattern then establishes itself right through winter, with the highest high tides and lowest lows occurring during the hours of darkness. This reversed diurnal pattern doesn’t usually flip back to big daytime tides until late September or early October. I have a strong hunch that this is a big part of the reason why daytime jewie luring in the south east of Australia is at its very best from October to March… Have a think about it.

Supporting cast

Another phenomena I’ve noted over the years is a pick-up in dusky flathead activity levels at those times when the tides and other conditions are less than ideal for catching mulloway on lures during the day. In particular, big flatties are more likely to feature more strongly in your catches on the days of smaller tidal movement, around the first and last quarters of the moon, particularly on the bottom of the run-out tide (the last two hours of the ebb tide is typically best), and also on the first incoming flush of the newly-making tide. If you’re encountering a lot of big flathead (especially fish over 65 or 70 cm) I believe your chances of jewie success are somewhat diminished. However, there are definitely exceptions to this one, as well!

Catching big flathead is a fantastic bonus when targeting daytime jewies, although the big crocs often tend to come out and play at stages of the tidal cycle less suited to regular mulloway success.

In addition, be aware that mulloway are frequently encountered in very close proximity to aggregations of both tailor and estuary perch. Whether all three species favour the same water conditions and food sources (highly likely), or because chopper tailor and perch are fair fodder for jewies (just as likely!), this pattern emerges far too often to be ignored by mulloway maniacs. Keep an eyed peeled for it, and an ear to the ground for reports of EP and tailor action.

Softly, softly

The other big clue I can give you regarding the capture of jewfish on lures during daylight hours is that these are relatively cautious and easily-spooked customers. There are exceptions of course (particularly in perennially busy city waterways), but as a rule of thumb, mulloway don’t like noise, fuss, boat traffic, rattling anchor chains or even (I strongly suspect) the pinging of multiple depth sounder transducers painting graphic pictures of their submarine habitat. If you can avoid or minimise all of these things, I firmly believe that you will catch more mulloway on hardware as a result. This has certainly been my experience. Even minimising the use of an electric motor and taking advantage of wind drifts seems to improve my chances of success.

Your first jewie on a lure is always a proud, photo-worthy moment, even if it’s not a big fish.

I love nothing better than arriving at my chosen jewie fishing spot to find no other boats in the vicinity, a couple of pelicans hunting uninterrupted, and squadrons of unruffled cormorants and herons perched in the riverside trees. If I encounter this highly desirable situation, I’ll instantly slip into stealth mode myself; cutting the outboard a couple of hundred metres short of where I intend to start fishing and using the wind, tidal flow or possibly my electric motor (operating at low revs) to creep slowly into the zone. If I know the underwater terrain reasonably well, I’ll even flick my depth sounder off on final approach. The jury is still out on the efficacy of this last precaution but, in tough fisheries, I’d rather be safe than sorry.

They love vibes, too!

Consistently catching mulloway on hard or soft lures during the daytime in our hard-fished south eastern estuaries is definitely one of the toughest games in town. That also makes it one of the most rewarding. As a rule, those rewards only fall to switched-on anglers who are willing to walk that extra mile in terms of effort, thought, study and innovation… Are you up to the challenge?

SOME SNEAKY TRICKS

When targeting jewies on lures during daylight hours, concentrate on tide turns and new tidal fronts accompanying the larger tidal differences (1.4 m and more) around the full and new moons.
Be aware of the cyclic patterns that see these larger tidal movements flip from daytime to night in late autumn and winter. At those times, other strategies such as after-dark luring and live-baiting for jewies may become more productive.
On the smaller tidal differences and quarters of the moon, target big flathead instead of mulloway. Over-size duskies can become the peak predator at these times, often feeding best on the last of the run-out ride.
Watch for symbiotic and sympathetic relationships between different fish species. In particular, look for mulloway alongside and in close proximity to schools of tailor and estuary perch.
Employ subterfuge, finesse and cunning whenever you are hunting mulloway, especially on lures and during daylight hours. Minimise boat noise, hull slap and other signals that telegraph your presence to these highly-aware and cautious fish.
Even smaller jewies are a prize, especially on plastics. This one took a White Lightning coloured Squidgy Shad that had its tail dipped in red Spike-It dye.

CHASING TIDES

You need to think well outside the published tide charts when looking for the patterns I’ve described in the first two parts of this. Tides are typically given for a fixed point in each state (for example, Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour for NSW). Significant variations will be experienced up and down the coast and, even more noticeably, within river systems. Usually, the further up a river you travel, the more the tide change will lag behind that experienced at the river mouth. Just to confuse the issue further, the bigger the tidal variation (difference between high and low water), the greater that lag is likely to be.

The good news is that once you work all this out (mostly by personal observation of what actually happens on the water), the more you’ll be able to use it to your advantage.

One of the neatest ways of doing this is by chasing a tide front up and down a river. If you have a reasonably quick boat and don’t spend too much time at each spot, it is perfectly feasible to fish the same tide change at six or seven locations within the same estuary on the same day! Gun tropical barra fishers and guides have been performing this trick for years and it’s high time southern jewie specialists caught up.

To give a practical example, you could spend 25 minutes casting to a set of bridge pylons near the river mouth on slack water and through the first flush of the making tide, then run a few kilometres upstream to a rock bar or corner hole and catch exactly that same first flush of the new tide half an hour later. Keep your wits about you and you could follow the tide change for several hours, then turn around and do the same thing in reverse on the run-out.

So, has this series of blogs got you thinking? Good! That was my aim.

The northern mulloway or black jewfish shares many traits with its southern cousins, but also displays some different habits.

Categories: Mulloway Mania | Tags: angling, clyde river, dusky flathead, Earth, estuary perch, Fishing, flathead, flatties, Fraser Island, Glenelg River, jewfish, jewies, lunar, moon, mulloway, National Weather Service, New moon, New South Wales, schoolies, soapes, soapies, soft plastics, Solar System, sportfishing, spring tide, Squidgies, Squidgy, tailor, tidal variations, Tide, tides, vibes | 12 Comments

Venture North to Coubourg Peninsula!

Posted on September 25, 2012 by StarloFishing

In mid-September, 2012, my wife Jo and I were lucky enough to sample the extraordinary fishing on offer around the remote Cobourg Peninsula, north east of Darwin, as guests of a wonderful operation called Venture North Australia.

The awesome view from Venture North’s camp!

Owned and run by affable brothers Aaron and Hugh Gange, Venture North has historically been an eco-tourism, wildlife and cultural-experience guiding operation offering a little casual fishing on the side (usually aimed at catching dinner). However, earlier in 2012, all that changed with their purchase of a Darwin-built, 7-metre CustomWorks Eliminator plate alloy sportfishing boat powered by a 225 HP Yamaha four-stroke. To say the boys have made a decision to take the fishing side of their business a lot more seriously would be something of an understatement!

Venture North’s awesome fishing rig…

Interestingly, my good lady Jo was partly instrumental in this significant upgrading of Venture North’s fishing focus. While looking at the Gange brothers’ website in her role as a marketing consultant, Jo noticed quite a few photos of big fish. She asked why they didn’t place more prominence on this aspect of their operation, and her comments obviously got the guys thinking! Less than a year later they’d bitten the bullet, bought the big boat and significantly ramped up the angling side of the business.

As something of a thank-you to Jo for her advice, Aaron and Hugh invited her up to Cobourg for a few days, and mentioned that she might as well bring her old man along, as apparently he didn’t mind a spot of fishing, either!

Back to Cobourg

As our light plane banked in over the broad, sparkling expanse of Cobourg’s Port Essington, I reflected that it had been at least 25 years since my last visit to this fantastic part of the world… Far too long!

Cobourg Peninsula is the northern-most part of Australia’s Northern Territory. Sparsely populated and with an extensive coastline, it offers superb fishing opportunities!

Peering down from the plane, it didn’t seem like very much had changed, and that certainly proved to be the case once we were on the ground. A big part of the reason for this is the fact that Cobourg Peninsula and its waterways are contained within the vast Garig Ganuk Barlu National Park.

Sunset over Port Essington.

This extensive region is carefully managed to preserve its abundant natural and historical treasures, with only 20 non-resident tourist vehicles permitted within the park’s boundaries at any time. Add a sprinkling of traditional owners, some rangers and other park staff, and the likes of Aaron, Hugh and their camp workers and you’re left with a very sparsely populated area that’s rich in natural wonders. Long may it remain so.

Gone fishin’

We’d come to Cobourg to fish, of course, and after a delicious lunch that proved to be just a taste of the wonderful things to come on the culinary front (more about that later!), Hugh helped us load our gear into the big, open runabout and we were off, speeding smoothly across the lightly wind-ruffled waters of Port Essington towards a date with some serious line-stretching adversaries.

Gettin’ stretched, Cobourg Style!

We’d already explained to Hugh that we weren’t too fussed about chasing barra on this trip, despite the fact that Venture North’s clients had been catching some beautiful, chrome-plated salties ranging well into the upper 80 centimetre range during recent weeks. Jo and I had been doing heaps of barra fishing over the preceding couple of months, and our digital photo files were bulging at the seams with great images of the mighty ’mundi. Now we wanted to chase some variety, and were particularly keen to engage in some of our favourite pursuits: jigging and casting soft plastics, metal jigs and poppers over the Top End’s offshore reefs, gravel patches and bommies.

Hugh was more than happy to accommodate, and what followed was three and a half days of the sort of non-stop, white-knuckled, rod-bending angling action that provides a lifetime of happy memories.

Mixed bags

I won’t bore you with the fish-by-fish, blow-by-blow details of the fishing we enjoyed during our stay, except to say that it was right up there with the best of its sort I’ve experienced in this part of Australia, and that Cobourg’s fish stocks seem to have, if anything, improved in the quarter century since my last visit!

Popper munchin’ trevally abound.

We caught four species of trevally, a couple of types of mackerel, some stunning queenfish and a whole host of reefies, consisting of both common and not-so-common varieties.

A standout for me was the sheer abundance of coral trout in these rich, shallow waters. The inshore seas of the western Top End are not especially renowned for either the number nor the size of their coral trout, but Cobourg surprised and delighted on both fronts. I’m not talking about the metre-long, sabre-toothed thugs of the outer Great Barrier Reef here, but certainly more than enough small to middling coastal trout to keep our rods bent and our smiles broad. In one short, sharp session I counted 15 trout swung over the rail, with just two of the better ones kept for the table and the rest carefully returned to the water. And, as we were jigging our Squidgies in depths of just 8 to 11 metres at the time, those released fish raced off straight back to their jagged coral lairs little the worse for the brief encounter.

Even Hugh commented on the fact that our jigged Squidgy Shads (mostly in the proven White Lightning and Phosphorus colours) caught a far higher ratio of coral trout than he’d ever expect to see taken on bait. This is a phenomenon I’ve encountered many, many times before, from WA’s Abrolhos Islands to the outer reefs off Queensland and the sea mounts of Vanuatu. Coral trout love soft plastics!

Cobourg’s coral trout just LOVE soft plastics… especially Squidgies!

The other big bonus when bouncing rubber on the reefs is the relative lack of tiddlers, sharks and other unwanted “by-catch” typically encountered. It’s all about quality over quantity when you jig plastics in these areas, and that suits us just fine.

Another surprise was the regularity of mackerel encounters on our yo-yoed Squidgies. Naturally, some of these resulted in near-instant snip-offs, but more than a few of these razor gang members ended up pinned cleanly in the jaw hinge and were landed after exciting tussles. Adding a short length of single strand wire to our rigs certainly reduced the lure losses, but also cut back on reef fish catches. In the end we stuck with the bareback approach of a mono-only leader and accepted the occasional bite-off in return for a higher rate of overall action.

Mackies on placcies were a common occurrence.

Poppers and metals produced their fair share of fish, too, but those versatile softies were definitely the standout performers. It was also extremely useful to be able to cast exactly the same lure into less than a metre of water up on the shallow sand flats as you were dropping onto a reef in 15 metres.

Flat out

Did I mention flats? There are plenty of these in and around Cobourg, and the major one extending south west across the broad expanse of Barrow Bay, beyond the long finger of Record Point, is a real stand-out.

Golden trevally turned up everywhere, but especially on the shallow flats.

We saw enough golden trevally, big queenfish, milkfish and other skinny water speedsters here (including one tantalizing glimpse of a large permit or snub-nosed dart) to unhesitatingly declare this a world-class flats’ fishery, with the potential to lure discerning international fly fishers. Some of the clearest water you’re ever likely to see in the western Top End for at least two weeks of every month (neap tides building to springs) simply adds the icing to this extraordinarily attractive sight fishing cake.

File the names Barrow Bay and Record Point away in your memory banks. I’m predicting that you’ll hear a lot more about them in coming years.

… and the food!

No overview of Venture North’s Cobourg operation would be complete without at least a passing mention of the calibre of the camp itself and the culinary delights offered to its lucky guests on a daily basis.

The setting of this comfortable, safari-tented camp is second to none, with gob-smacking views from the low, ochre cliffs out across Berkeley Bay and over Port Essington toward the distant ruins of Victoria Settlement.

Did we mention the food?

Sitting at the cliff-top sunset bar with an icy drink in hand at day’s end, watching the tangerine orb of the sun sinking quickly through a last layer of low haze over distant Turtle Point is a wonderful enough experience in itself, but being presented with a stunning platter or hors d’oeuvres, fresh sashimi and hand-made sushi rolls to compliment the moment makes it totally unforgettable.

I can honestly say I’ve never enjoyed finer food at any fishing establishment I’ve visited during my four decades in this game, and that includes some of the ultra-expensive, five-star resorts that pride themselves on such things, and make a big song and dance about them in their glossy brochures and websites. By contrast, Venture North is quite understated regarding this side of its operation, which only serves to heighten the level of amazement when you’re served up with gastronomic delights such as plum-infused roast duck, whole coral trout wrapped in paperbark, home-made steak and mushroom pies, beer-battered golden snapper or quite simply the world’s best-ever lamb shanks… dished up straight from a cast iron camp oven nestled in the glowing coals of the fire pit!

This golden snapper (fingermark) came home for dinner…

Hugh and his lovely mum, Heather, did the cooking during our stay and I swear that if they ever tire of the tour guiding business, there’s a lucrative career in the restaurant trade waiting for them, and most likely a finalist’s berth in “My Kitchen Rules”… And no, I’m not exaggerating! The food really is that good.

If you’re looking for that dream “bucket list” trip to a genuinely wild and fish-filled stretch of Top End water with all the hard stuff taken care of for you, I would unhesitatingly recommend Venture North’sCobourg Peninsula operation as being second to none.

High flying monster queenfish action!

From a hard-core fishing perspective, the guys are especially focusing on the “shoulder” seasons in April/May and October/November, which tend to offer the best mix of angling action, but windows exist at other times of year, too. Find out more by visiting their website at www.venturenorth.com.au or give their Darwin booking office a call on (08) 8927 5500 … and be sure to tell them that Starlo and Jo sent you!

Jo’s new ‘PB’ queenfish nudged the old-fashioned 20 pound mark.

Categories: Angling Adventures | Tags: Aaron, angling, Australia, Australian Institute of Marine Science, catch and release, Coral trout, Coubourg Peninsula, Darwin, Fish, Fishing, flats fishing, golden trevally, Great Barrier Reef, jigging, Lures, Newcastle University, permit, poppers, Port Essington, queenfish, sashimi, Spanish mackerel, sportfishing, Squidgies, Squidgy, sushi, top end, trevally, Ultraviolet, Venture North, Victoria Settlement | 4 Comments

So, You Want To Be A Fishing Writer?

Posted on August 15, 2012 by StarloFishing

Reblogged from starlofishing:

I submitted my first fishing article to a magazine while I was in my final year of high school. That was way back in 1975. With major exams coming up, I soon forgot about the piece when I hadn't heard from the editor after a few weeks. So, you can probably imagine my absolute surprise and delight when, a month or two later, I received an acceptance letter telling me that the story would be published early in the new year and that I'd receive a cheque for $50 shortly after the magazine hit the shelves!

MULLOWAY MANIA: Part 1

Posted on August 15, 2012 by StarloFishing

Reblogged from starlofishing:

In direct response to a huge demand for more nitty-gritty info' about targeting mulloway (jewfish) on soft plastics, I have kicked off this blog category specifically aimed at all you jewie nuts and budding jewie nuts out there! This new series of blogs is adapted from a series of magazine articles I wrote a few years ago. I really hope you enjoy it and learn plenty from reading it!

MULLOWAY MANIA: Part 1

Posted on August 15, 2012 by StarloFishing

In direct response to a huge demand for more nitty-gritty info’ about targeting mulloway (jewfish) on soft plastics, I have kicked off this blog category specifically aimed at all you jewie nuts and budding jewie nuts out there! This new series of blogs is adapted from a series of magazine articles I wrote a few years ago. I really hope you enjoy it and learn plenty from reading it!

The first prize: a beautiful big daytime estuary jewfish taken on a Squidgy Shad soft plastic and relatively light spin gear… it really doesn’t get much better than this!

In the filtered half-light of pre-dawn, the school of mulloway slip westward through a series of inter-connected sandy gutters, pushing slowly inshore toward the river mouth; smelling, tasting and feeling the last eddying vestiges of a big run-out tide. Several fish in the school have full bellies already, last night’s squid and tailor digesting in their distended stomachs. These successful hunters dawdle near the back of the flowing procession. At the front edge, a lean, hungry vanguard push forward, eager to satisfy the gnawing emptiness inside.

The mulloway’s highly-evolved and extremely sensitive lateral line makes it especially sensitive to vibrations, obstructions to water flow and other “sonic signatures” in the aquatic environment. These fish are wary, masterful low-light hunters.

Bridge pylons loom suddenly from the gloom, already painted on 50 sets of lateral lines via subtle disturbance to the slackening tidal push. A cloud of juvenile luderick, tailor and bream dash in panic behind the weed-festooned supports, but several are not quick enough. Jewfish backbones crack audibly in the milky water as predators swing hard left and right, jaws lunging and snapping, fins flaring. Dislodges scales twinkle in the dancing light shafts. Several mulloway peel off and carve fast figure-eights around the other pylons, seeking more targets, but the residents are fleeing fast. Small terrified fish bulge through the surface layer in panic and a pair of watchful pelicans swoop from the bridge railing, careening onto the green water, giant bills dipping and clacking angrily. Death strikes from above and below. Within minutes the pylons are deserted of life, save for the heads of tiny brown leatherjackets, peering sheepishly from the kelp fronds like a cast of forgotten extras in a “Finding Nemo” sequel.

Upstream of the bridge, the school slide over sandy ridges into a deeply scoured depression. There’s now no discernible tidal movement at all. The jewfish swim in a loose circle, rotating anti-clockwise in the hole, moving just fast enough to push water through their mouths and out over their gills, pewter flanks occasionally brushing their neighbours, belly fins flicking swirls of sand from the bottom.

The author with an average school jew taken on a tweaked-up Squidgy.

Like the first puff of a southerly change through an open bedroom window, the pre-pulse of a new tide pours over the sandy lip, into the staging hole. It tastes of the ocean… Cooler, saltier, more oxygen-rich than the brackish river water. Several of the hungrier mulloway reflexively snap their jaws open and shut in giant, exaggerated yawns and the swimming speed of the entire school picks up a gear. Two more complete circuits, then a larger fish pushes urgently to the head of the queue. Instead of wheeling left and swinging into another turn, the big jewie suddenly lifts up and over the edge of the hole, belly just clearing some rocks. The others follow, a quicksilver stream of scales, fins and jaws heading inexorably upriver.

They are moving faster now, on the very front edge of the new tidal push, fanning out and forming into smaller squadrons. Brains dimly but surely imprinted with the memory of successful hunts lead them unerringly to specific nooks, with the accuracy of GPS units. A gap between boulders where an octopus once found itself caught in the open. A rusting shopping trolley sometimes festooned with baby tarwhine. A current break where mullet hang lazily in mid-water, as if sleeping briefly on the slack water.

For the next six hours and more the attacking force will leapfrog each other up the big river, holding for a minute or two here, half an hour there. Some will peel off into feeder creeks, pushing so far inland that startled bass dart behind their snags as the heavyweight hunters pass. A few may stay in the upper estuary for days or even weeks, until the next set of spring tides, but the majority will mass up again in some distant staging hole on the top of the flood, then turn and begin their downstream campaign of pillage and death on the run-out. And so the cycle goes… On and on, as it has for millions of years.

The real world

The picture I’ve just painted may or may not be an accurate rendition of exactly what happens on an east coast estuary anywhere between Bundaberg and Barwon Heads on most big tides of the year. Without either a detailed sonic tagging and tracking program or becoming a mulloway myself for a day, I’ll probably never know for sure! But it certainly feels right to me, and tallies closely with my practical observations in the real world.

Even smaller jewies are a prize, especially on plastics. This one took a White Lightning coloured Squidgy Shad that had its tail dipped in red Spike-It dye.

The more I fish for mulloway on lures—perhaps the most challenging and addictive target on offer in our southern estuaries—the more I see parallels between these great fish and the saltwater barramundi of the north.

Physical similarities aside (and there are many), I firmly believe that these two unrelated hunters have evolved to fill similar niches in their home rivers, and that they share an uncannily similar hunting style.

My theory is that both species are much more mobile and versatile than many anglers realise. There are good reasons why they are best caught in specific locations on specific stages of each 28-day tidal cycle. Yes, obviously, it’s because they are in those places at those times (and feeding). But the corollary of that theory is that they are somewhere else and doing something different at other times… If I could only work out where and what, I’d be a much better jewie fisher than I am!

Meanwhile, let me tell you a little about what I do know:

Time and tide

Some of the things we know for sure and certain about mulloway (and saltwater barra) is that they are active nocturnal feeders with an armory of sensory equipment ideally suited to feeding in very low light and/or dirty water (these include specially adapted eyes, lateral lines and smell/taste receptors). For a long time, I suspect that this knowledge actually clouded our view of how and where jewies can be caught. That’s because, while they’re masters when it comes to poor visibility hunting, this information certainly doesn’t mean they onlyfeed at those times. That discovery is very good news for people like myself, who prefer to catch their jewies (and barra!) in daylight hours, on cast-and-retrieved lures.

“Change of light” periods at dawn and dusk are prime times to hunt jewies… but you can catch these fish at ANY time if you get the equation right!

The big news is that jewies will take lures even in the middle of bright days, and that they don’t necessarily require the protection of great depth, dirty water nor milky wave aeration to do so. Myself and others have proven this many times, regularly experiencing our best lure casting sessions for mulloway between the hours of 8 and 11 AM, and again between 4 and 7PM in the evening. Furthermore, our best results have often come when fishing in relatively clean water with a depth of somewhere between three and 10 metres; most commonly within a spit or so of the magic six metre contour. To take this to its extreme conclusion, I have had a 9 kg mulloway eat a hard-bodied lure in plain sight two rod lengths from the boat in two metres (yes two) of clear water at sunset, with enough light to easily sit and read this magazine. If that surprises you, then join the club… it shocked me, too!

Once you break the mindset of mulloway being cryptic creatures of the dark and gloomy netherworld, new horizons open up. But that doesn’t make these fish a push-over. Far from it… Knowing you can readily catch them in the daytime just makes it harder to accept those many times when it simply doesn’t happen. That’s when you start searching back over past results, looking for patterns. The good news is, those patterns exist!

What I am about to tell you has taken me a couple of decades to learn, so do me the courtesy of concentrating:

Magic moments

I am now firmly of the belief that mulloway are regular front-edge tidal feeders in many of our south eastern estuaries, just as I believe saltwater barra are in the north. In other words, they ride the tide change up and down our coastal rivers, and those fish on that front edge are feeders, not lookers. Even more critically, the bigger (spring) tides appear to exaggerate and concentrate this phenomenon, at least with mulloway.

Quiz a bunch of reasonably successful south eastern jewie fishers on which tides and what related moon phases are most productive and you’ll get a fairly even split between top and bottom tiders and full and new mooners. I’m starting to think that those precise details are less important, and may actually be location specific, anyway. (In other words, some spots fish better on the bottom of the tide or the full moon and others on the top of the tide and the new moon.)

What is more critical is that the tidal range should ideally be around 1.4 metres or more. In other words, there needs to be a decent variation between high and low water; say a 0.4 low running up to a 1.8 high. (Remember that I’m speaking here primarily about NSW and southern Queensland estuaries, with maximum tidal ranges of less than two metres.)

In this part of the world, that tidal variation requirement instantly directs us to the day of the full and new moon, perhaps the day prior, and a day or two (three at most) following each of those lunar events. Suddenly, we have narrowed our optimum jewie luring windows down to just eight or nine days of each lunar month.

We can further narrow this by focussing on the tide changes and subsequent tidal fronts. On both the full and the new moon days, there will typically be a low tide in the early hours of the morning (between midnight and 4 AM) and a nice big high tide mid-morning. This will be followed by another low mid afternoon. Each day after the new and full moon, these times will be roughly an hour later. (Carefully read the Fact Box entitled “Chasing Tides”.)

In my book, you need to be concentrating your lure fishing efforts on the tops and bottoms of those daytime tide turns for the day of the full or new moon and three days thereafter. In my experience, the second and third days after each moon are the absolute pick and, personally, I much prefer the new moon period to the full. So, suddenly, I’ve given myself a two day optimum window each month; the second and third day after the new moon.

You’ll catch a fair few really big dusky flathead when targeting jewies, too… Not a bad “by-catch”!

We can take this pruning process one step further by defining the magic moment as extending from one hour before each daytime tide turn until one hour after… four hours on each of two days… Just eight hours per month. Are you starting to see a pattern forming?

Exceptions aplenty

Before you get too carried away and start thinking you can put a firm appointment in your diary for a date with Mr Mulloway on a Wednesday morning in three months time, let me stress that there are a thousand nuances that can skew this schedule. Massive rains, a flush of ridiculously cold water, a lack of bait in the system, too much boat traffic, a concerted netting campaign by the local pros… Any of these things and more can throw a spanner in the works.

Mulloway fodder…

Just as surely, I’ve caught jewies on lures (and baits) halfway through the tide on the first and last quarters of the moon. As a result, I certainly don’t confine my jewie luring to just eight hours a month! But, if I had to put money on the outcome (or book in a film crew to be there and catch the action), you already know which eight hours I’d choose; the daytime tide changes on the second and third day after the new moon.

Okay… I’ve already told you too much! Now get out there and suss’ the rest for yourself. Happy hunting… and remember to put a few back!

NEXT TIME: Some amazing tips and little-known facts you may never have heard about estuary mulloway fishing!

POSTSCRIPT: In response to a query from a blog reader, I’ve included this additional “Fact Box” or sidebar from the original magazine feature:

CHASING TIDES

You need to think well outside the published tide charts when looking for the patterns I’ve described in this feature. Tides are typically given for a fixed point in each state (for example, Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour for NSW). Significant variations will be experienced up and down the coast and, even more noticeably, within river systems. Usually, the further up a river you travel, the more the tide change will lag behind that experienced at the river mouth. Just to confuse the issue further, the bigger the tidal variation (difference between high and low water) the greater that lag is likely to be.

The good news is that once you work all this out (mostly by personal observation of what actually happens on the water), the more you’ll be able to use it to your advantage.

Got you thinking? Good! That was my aim.

Categories: Mulloway Mania | Tags: angling, Argyrosomus japonicus, bait, Bundaberg, estuary, estuary fishing, Fish, Fishing, Fishing lure, light tackle, lure, lure fishing, Lures, Outdoors, Recreation, river, Shopping, soft plastic, sportfishing, Squidgies, Squidgy, tackle, Tide, tides | 18 Comments

Darwin’s Unique Barra and Bream Comp’

Posted on July 22, 2012 by StarloFishing

Saturday, 21st July, 2012 saw the staging of the second annual Barra, Bass and Bream Digest Harbourmasters’ Invitational on the waters of Darwin Harbour. In stark contrast to last year’s event, a cool, windy dawn greeted the 41 keen competitors who made up 21 teams taking part in this year’s BBBDHI, and the stiff sou’ easter continued to build throughout the morning, peaking at close to 30 knots before subsiding a little in the early afternoon.

Matt Wheeler of team “Indisposed” with the day’s best barra at 68cm. Matt and his partner, Callum Priddle, finished second overall, just a point behind the winners.

The aim of this unique one-day tournament is straightforward enough: go out and catch as many barra and bream as you possibly can on cast-and-retrieved lures or flies (trolling, bait fishing and berleying are not allowed). However, where it gets really interesting — and very different to any other Top End fishing competition — is in the final scoring process. Only the combined lengths of the longest barra and the longest bream taken by each team actually count towards their final points’ tally. And, critically, one species doesn’t rate without the other. In other words, you could theoretically land a metre-long barramundi (a monster by Darwin Harbour standards), yet still score zero points, simply because you’d failed to catch and record a bream!

This chunky 31cm pikey bream was just enough to get “The Bald & The Beautiful” (Steve Harvey and Shane Godden) over the winner’s line. Combined with a 59cm barra, it gave them a score of 90 points, a mere one point ahead of second place!

Unique concept

My wife (and fellow writer/presenter) Jo and I devised this unusual event in an effort to effectively force Top End anglers into thinking a little more seriously about the vast schools of bream that frequent our waters, especially during the cooler months of the Dry Season.

In the past, most Top End fishos have been quite dismissive about bream and bream fishing. Yet, with my southern background and years of competing on the bream tournament circuit, I know just how challenging these little buggers can be to catch! I wanted a way of sharing that challenge with Territorians. This competition was the best way Jo and I could think of to make them take their local bream stocks a bit more seriously. It seems to have worked, too! We were also fortunate enough to secure the backing of Alex Julius and his fishing media empire. Alex’s Barra, Bass and Bream Digestmagazine fittingly became the tournament’s official naming rights sponsor from day one.

Starlo with “Arthur Bream”… a dirty big barracuda decided it needed the back half of this vital fish more than Steve did!

This year, the competition also had a new and fascinating research aspect, thanks to a request received just a few days prior to the event from Dr Mark Grubert, Senior Fisheries Scientist at NT Fisheries.

Most Darwin anglers have always assumed that only one species of true bream occurred in our waters: the ubiquitous pikey, known to science as Acanthopagrus berda. However, it now appears that there may be as many as four different varieties present here, including a very “new” species that was first described scientifically as recently as 2010.

Some of the day’s bream, kept for DNA analysis by the boffins.

The fisheries boffins are all very excited at the prospect of finding out if this new fish, known as the Pacific sea bream (A. pacificus), occurs in Darwin Harbour and, if so, how common it is. With this in mind, competitors were asked to bring in a few bream for DNA testing, and 10 specimens were duly delivered to Mark at the completion of the event. I’ll be sure to let you know the results of that DNA testing in a future issue!

The cream rises

The rough, windy conditions and relatively cool water this year certainly provided plenty of challenges for BBBDHI competitors but, as usual, the cream rose to the top. A total of 26 barra and 23 bream were recorded during the seven and a half hours of fishing, with just eight teams managing to complete the all-important “daily double” by securing both species. In the end, point scores were extremely close, with only a centimetre (one point) separating first and second place.

The eventual winners were team “The Bald and the Beautiful”, consisting of Shayne Godden and Steve Harvey, with an impressive 90 points. Just one point behind them were team “Indisposed”, made up of Matt Wheeler and Callum Priddle, and four points further astern lay the “Unsincubbles”: Glenn Hubble and Roger Sinclair. Last year’s victors, Phil Newton and Luke Adams of the “Deadly Mullets”, finished fourth this time on 81 points.

Biggest barra measured during the event was a lovely 68cm salty landed by the second-placed team “Indisposed”, while the biggest bream was a very respectable 32cm specimen recorded by team “Barrathon”: Andrew Pollard and Keith Watson. The award for most-meritorious capture went to the field’s only land-based angler, Hiro Nakamura of the one-man “Team Hiro!”, who attracted quite a crowd of lunch-time onlookers while landing a lovely 62cm barra from busy Fisherman’s Wharf, right in the heart of down-town Darwin!

Shayne Godden from “The Bald & The Beautiful” with a typical Darwin Harbour barra. By combining this 59cm fish with a 31cm bream, they guys picked up over $900 in cash and got their name on the perpetual trophy for the event.

Size matters!

One really interesting aspect of this year’s BBBDHI was the critical importance of the actual size of the bream caught. Previously, most competitors had regarded the capture of a bream (any bream!) as simply the “conversion process” needed to validate their more important barra score. However, as this year’s results proved beyond any shred of doubt, bream ain’t bream, and size does matter! So, while the second-placed team scored that beautiful, chrome-silver saltwater barra of 68cm (the longest of the day), they were only able to combine it with a modest 21cm bream for their total tally of 89 points. In contrast, the winning team’s barra measured just 59cm yet, in conjunction with a handsome 31cm bream, this was enough to elevate them to the top of the winner’s podium! Definitely food for thought…

Steve Harvey, seen here with a non-scoring golden trevally, was half of the winning team, “The Bald & The Beautiful”.

We suspect that next year, BBBDHI entrants will be placing a lot more emphasis on not only catching a bream, but also attempting to make it a good one! We also expect that the field will continue to grow in size as more and more Top End anglers learn of this unique fishing challenge and rise to the lure. Meanwhile, if you’d like to see the great YouTube clip of this year’s event, produced by my good lady, Jo, using footage and photos supplied by the entrants, simply go on-line and search for BBBDHI 2012 or click HERE. And, if you’re keen to get involved next year, jump onto the competition’s dedicated page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Harbourmasters and register your interest right now!

Oh, and in case you still find it hard to take those pesky little bream seriously, consider this fact: Winners Godden and Harvey walked away with a cash purse of $925, in addition to the beautiful perpetual plaque… Not a bad return for a day’s fishing on the Harbour!

Categories: Angling Adventures | Tags: barra, barracuda, barramundi, Barrathon, bream, competition, Darwin, Darwin Harbour, Darwin Northern Territory, DNA, Fishing, harbourmaster, Hiro Nakamura, Luke Adams, sea bream, Steve Harvey, tournament, trevally, YouTube | Leave a comment

BACK TO BASICS: Spooling Up Part 1

Posted on June 29, 2012 by StarloFishing

Welcome to the first instalment of my “Back To Basics” series of blogs. These blogs are derived from my ongoing series of columns in the Australian Fishing Monthly group of magazines (QLD Fishing Monthly, NSW Fishing Monthly and VIC Fishing Monthly). Publication of these blogs will lag several months behind their first appearance in those great magazines so, if you want to jump ahead at any stage, just grab the latest copy! However, the appearance of these columns as blogs also recognises the fact that many people live outside the areas covered by those publications, or may wish to catch up with previous columns that they missed in print.

Having your reel correctly spooled with line will greatly enhance casting performance and reduce tangles.

As the category name of this blog series implies, it’s all about the fundamental building blocks of our sport, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s intended purely for beginners… far from it! Lots of experienced anglers could definitely benefit from re-visiting some of these basics, and I’d like to think that even the guns of the sport may pick up a gem or two from reading these columns.

In coming blogs within the “Back To Basics” category, we’ll tackle subjects like filling and top-shotting your reels with line, selecting and adding leaders, setting your drag, hooking, fighting and landing fish, handling the catch, improving your casting, putting baits on the hook properly, “working” and tuning lures, organising and maintaining your gear and a whole bunch more. However, if there’s something you’d specifically like to see covered, please leave a comment here under the blog and tell me. You can also reach me through my StarloFishing page on Facebook.

Your blogger with a lovely snapper on a Lucanus Jig.

This time, I want to kick off with an aspect of tackle preparation that’s glossed over in many how-to books and DVDs, but which is critical to successful, trouble-free fishing: spooling up your reel with line.

Spooling up is an easy enough process, but if you get it wrong, your fishing life is likely to become a misery of tangled or buried lines, slipping line loads and lost fish. These potential hassles are only compounded when using modern, gel-spun polyethylene or ‘PE’ super lines and braids.

The process of spooling up any reel is made much easier by first fitting that reel to a rod. If you’re doing the job inside (while watching the cricket on telly, for example!), it’s fine to use just the lower half of a two-piece rod.

Spinning reels cast much better when correctly spooled.

Take the spool of line you’ve bought to put on the reel and find the end of the line. It may be covered with a piece of tape, knotted back over itself or trapped in a slit on the edge of the plastic spool. If the end of the line is kinked, damaged or covered with sticky goo, cut half a metre or so off the line.

Next, take the end of the line and pass it down through the runners of the rod. You don’t have to go all the way from the tip if you don’t want to. In fact, you can just pass the line through the stripper guide (the largest runner, closest to the reel).

The next step — attaching the line firmly to the core of the reel’s spool — varies a bit depending on the type or style of reel you’re using. If it’s one of the very popular spinning or threadline reels (also known as “eggbeaters” or “coffee grinders”), you’ll need to open the reel’s bail arm first, then tie the line to the spool core before closing the arm over the line. I stress: moving the bail arm into the open position before tying on the line is vital!

With a baitcaster or plug reel that has a level-wind mechanism, you’ll need to pass the end of the line through the little ceramic or metal line carrier on the level-wind device before tying it to the spool. This can be fiddley on smaller baitcasters, but it’s important to get it right. Similarly, if you own a spincast, closed-face or “bull’s bum” reel, you’ll need to unscrew the conical spool cover, pass the line through the hole in this cover, tie it to the spool core and then re-fit the cover.

Sidecast, fly and overhead reels without line guides or frames are easier: simply attach the line directly to the reel’s spool core.

Drag performance is also enhanced by having a well-filled spool.

Before tying the all-important knot that will secure the end of the line to the reel, take the line and wrap it tightly at least three times around the spool core. Four to six times is much better with slippery, braided super lines (and no, you don’t really need to add any nylon backing first if spooling up with braid, despite the claims that many people make about this).

There are a number of knots you can use to secure the line to your reel, but a six-wrap Uni Knot is ideal, and don’t be afraid to leave several centimetres of tag end to resist slipping. (You’ll find plenty of instructions for tying this connection if you simply Google “uni knot” on the internet. But here’s a very good one.)

It’s critically important to tie a really tight, secure knot when attaching the end of the line to your reel. Not only will this help to prevent the line load slipping or spinning on the spool, it may also save you from losing a big fish, a lot of line… or even your whole rod and reel! Let me explain:

A really big, strong fish can potentially rip all of the line from your spool, despite the resistance imposed by the reel’s drag. This is called “getting spooled” or being “clean spooled”. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen all that often, despite colourful yarns you may hear to the contrary, but it canhappen. Chances are, if a fish is big enough to empty your reel, it’s also big enough to snap the line. However, if the line holds, that knot at the spool core may prove to be critical!

Success!

Similarly, the knot you use to tie the line to your reel also becomes important if you drop your outfit overboard while the reel is in free spool or the bail arm is open. If you’re lucky enough to be able to grab the line at such a calamitous moment — or someone else hooks it out of the water for you — you’re going to have to pull all the line off the submerged reel into a big pile and then haul the rod and reel up from the depths. Once again, that connection between line and spool is extremely important at this point! So, make it a good one.

Next time: Winding on the line load.

Categories: Back To Basics | Tags: baitcaster, basics, braid, braided line, drag, DVD, Facebook, Fish, Fishing, Fishing reel, Fishing rod, fly fishing, gel-spun polyethylene, line, line load, Magazine, Outdoors, PE, spinning reel, spool, Starlo, StarloFishing, Steve Starling, Uni Knot | 4 Comments

The Queenfish From Hell!

Posted on June 20, 2012 by StarloFishing

In mid-June, 2012, I was lucky enough to capture (on fly!) what may well be one of the largest queenfish ever taken in Australian waters. Here’s the story of how it happened…

My stunning 1.3 metre, 16 kilo queenfish on fly from Darwin Harbour. Without question a “fish of a lifetime”!

For keen anglers like myself, the Dry Season is certainly a fantastic time to be living up here in Australia’s Top End, especially when one intense low pressure system after another sweeps across the southern half of the continent, and the incessant trade winds ease a little north of the Tropic of Capricorn. It’s an old rule of thumb that crook weather down south means happy days up top!

A spell of exactly such magical Top End weather around the middle of June this year saw my wife Jo and I venturing offshore in our 4.5 metre trailer boat to chase the abundant Spanish and broad-bar mackerel, longtail tuna and other pelagics that were pounding bait schools not far from Lee Point, in Darwin’s northern beach suburbs.

Jo fights a hard-slugging longtail tuna off Lee Point on a classic Dry Season day.

The fishing grapevine had been buzzing for a few days with news of everything from queenies to giant herring smashing bait in this area, and Jo and I had been chafing at the bit to get amongst them, but found ourselves repeatedly frustrated by work and family commitments. When we were finally able to get away, it was obvious we’d only just caught the tail end of the hot bite, but we still had plenty of fun on the macks and tuna, coming home with a lovely meal or two of fresh fish for our troubles.

Fly rod shot

Two days later, I headed out again, this time on my own, and with the 9-weight fly rod rigged in the hope of tangling with a few line-peeling pelagics. However, as soon as I rounded East Point and left the Harbour behind, it was obvious that conditions had changed. The sou’ easter was back; chopping up the sea and robbing it of that emerald clarity it had offered the previous week. Surface activity and bird life was also noticeably lacking.

I persisted, and ended up spending a couple of hours anchored on our mackerel marks off Lee Point, feeding a steady stream of small fish off-cuts into the swirling tide as berley. Again and again I worked my big streamer fly, rigged on a short length of single-strand wire, through the trail. Despite trying all manner of retrieves, I failed to draw so much as a bump. Disappointed and a little battered by the short, steep chop, I eventually admitted defeat, wound up my fly line, hauled up the pick and turned the bow for home.

Jo with a lovely longtail from Lee Point, two days prior to the queenie encounter.

Back inside the Harbour and away from the nagging sou’ easter, I was able to open up the Yammy and speed toward the boat ramp at Dinah Beach, However, as I drew level with Parliament House, it seemed to me that the breeze had eased and the broad expanse of Darwin Harbour twinkled green and relatively calm under the early afternoon sun, with Sunday boat traffic carving in all directions across its placid surface. Damn it! It was too nice a day to go home early… surely I could give it another hour or so?

Prospecting the harbour

On a whim, I swung the CrossXcountry’s bow south and arced out across the wide mouth of East Arm, toward the long gas loading jetty on Wickham Point, eyes peeled for bird life and any sign of surface activity. However, apart from an array of pleasure and work boats in all sizes and colours, there was little else to see.

Giving the boating exclusion zone around the gas loader a wide berth, I continued into Middle Arm, still hoping to spy a patch of feeding longtail tuna, but the placid waters remained unruffled by anything other than the afternoon’s dying sou’ easter, a wind that would all-to-soon be replaced by a stiff sea breeze from the north.

I really should have gone home, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. Dead ahead, the northern shore of Channel Island beckoned, sparkling in the Dry Season sun. This had occasionally been a happy hunting ground for me in the past, producing everything from bream to barra. Maybe, just maybe, I could still salvage a fish from this blank day…

One last cast…

A rising tide had already inundated the flats and flooded well back between the trunks of the mangrove forest. It was a bit of a “nothing” state of the tide, and I figured my chances of success were fairly slim. Still, I cut the motor and deployed the bow-mounted Minn Kota electric. With fishing, you just never know…

Snipping the big streamer and its short wire bite tippet from my leader, I tied on a nondescript little green and white Clouser fly built on a relatively fine gauge No. 1 hook. I figured my best chances were probably a small trevally or a little queenie that I could take home and turn into numus (pickled fish), which is a bit of a favourite in our household.

Struggling to hoist the four feet, four inch long queenie from hell for a happy snap back a Dinah Beach boat ramp.

Slowly, I drifted west, across the top of the island and past the rocky point separating the mangrove studded flats from a delightful white sand beach. My fly remained untouched as I repeatedly cast it up into the rocky shallows and stripped it back.

How many times have you said, “just one more cast, then I’ll go in”? If you’re a serious angler, you’ve probably lost count! So it was for me that lazy Sunday afternoon on Darwin Harbour. I was really only going through the motions by now, and I knew that I could easily keep doing this for hours, but there were jobs waiting to be done at home. Six more casts, I told myself. Six more, then no more…

On about the fourth of those last six casts, I detected a large surface swirl on the left edge of my peripheral vision. Probably a big diamond scale mullet or even a milkfish spooking away from the boat, I thought. Still…

I quickly stripped in the little fly and fired it out in the general direction of the swirl, along a vague current break where the three metre rocky shallows dropped away into a deeper channel. Because I was still running a fast sinking line after my earlier offshore foray, I only gave the fly a few seconds to settle before beginning the retrieve.

Fifth or sixth strip, the fly line suddenly jerked tight in my hand with a powerful urgency and my 9-weight Loomis fly rod loaded up. “Sweet!” I thought, “I might have actually scored a reasonable golden trevally by the feel of this!”

My unseen opponent gave a couple of strong, angry head shakes, then powered off purposefully to the north west, out into open water. With just a few metres of fly line left between my stripping hand and the reel, I quickly reached that point where I needed to decide whether I should try to get the fish “back on the reel” or continue to fight it by hand. Another surge on the line made the decision for me, and now I was on the reel. I reckon it was at about this point that the devil I’d hooked actually realized it was in some sort of trouble…

Oh my god!

Suddenly, my rod lunged down and fly line began to literally melt off the spool, almost immediately punctuated by the staccato rat-a-tat-tat of the knot joining it to the backing shooting up and out through the snake guides and disappearing into the Harbour. The sound of braided backing under load wailing at high speed over snake guides is pure music to any fly fisher’s ears, and I was in heaven. Maybe this was a lovely big queenfish!

Exactly as that thought flashed into my mind, the world turned on its head. Sixty metres out into the Harbour, the green water suddenly split open and spewed out the most impossibly enormous queenfish I had even seen, heard of, or even dared to dream about. The beast was so bulky, only three quarters of its length cleared the water, but the patch of foam it left on re-entry was larger than the casting deck of my boat. All I could think (and mutter out loud to myself) were three words: “Oh… my… god!”

Check those bear-trap jaws… and the frayed, twisted leader with no shock tippet!

I knew I was in serious trouble. Little fly, fine hook, no shock tippet, 9-weight fly outfit, on my own, and hooked up to the queenfish from hell: an animal that now seemed to be completely intent on leaving the Harbour and travelling to Timor by the most direct possible route!

As backing continued to hemorrhage from the gyrating Felty fly reel at an alarming rate, I kicked the speed dial on the Minn Kota foot control up to 10 with my toe and stomped on the power button, setting off in pursuit. I urgently needed to stem the dramatic loss of line!

Surprisingly, the fish now slowed and then performed another of its three-quarter-length lunging jumps, but I was horrified at how far away it was this time. Cranking as fast as I could, I continued powering towards the fish with the electric, narrowing the gap between us. “At least it’s out in open water!” I muttered under my breath. I should have known better…

Back into to the bad stuff

Without warning all pressure came off the line and my rod straightened. No! Surely it couldn’t be gone already? Hoping against hope, I continued cranking backing onto the half empty reel like a man possessed. As I did, I noticed that the angle of the limp backing trailing into the water was coming back around to the south east, past me and in towards the island. Yes! He was still on!

As I finally caught up with the fish, the rod pulled down again and I found myself losing line just as fast as before. However, to my complete horror, that backing was now tracing a hot pink line straight at the flooded mangrove forest to the east of the beach and rocks where I’d hooked the fish… No!

Rather than following the fish, I continued angling the boat further and further out into the open water of the harbour, sacrificing line in return for increased pulling pressure. But still the monster queenie maintained its path for the mangroves. I swallowed hard and began easing more palm pressure onto the whirring spool, praying that the tiny hook and unprotected leader would hold.

Remarkably, the fish curved and began to track along the front of the mangroves, perhaps 10 metres my side of their outer trunks, then traversed the shallow, rocky stuff in front of the point. It jumped twice more at this stage, and I had trouble getting my head around the huge disparity in distance between the airborne fish and the point where the backing now entered the water. The queenie was clearly dragging a huge belly of fly line behind it, but at least it was now curving back out into open water again.

Mental battle

Terrified of another close encounter with the rocks and mangroves, I stayed well out from shore and began pumping and winding the fish to me rather than chasing it. I’d killed the electric and was simply drifting on the calm swirl of the making tide, quietly working to re-fill the reel.

As the tail of the fly line inched up out of the water, I knew I was far from home and hosed. I accepted that the odds were still stacked heavily against me, and that I’d most likely lose this incredible fish. The part of that realization that saddened me most was the knowledge that no one would ever believe just how big a queenfish I’d actually encountered. Why should they? I was still having trouble believing it myself!

At this point, a major mental battle was raging in my head. Half my brain was telling me to ease the pressure right off to protect the leader and hook, and to “gentle” the queenie with soft, soft hands in the hope of eventually nursing it to the boat, even if it took an hour or more. The other half of that same brain was logically arguing that extending the fight simply increased the chances of something going wrong… or a shark finding the tiring fish!

Incredibly that little hook, although partially straightened and twisted, hung in there! Check out the tiny sliver of meat it’s holding by… You can get lucky!

In the end, logic won and I kept the pressure right up, pulling as if I had a good fish on the line, rather than an exceptional one. Within 10 minutes, I glimpsed deep colour, but the dimensions of that “colour” almost made me waver in my resolve to keep pulling hard. The queenfish looked like a silver barn door pulsing in the depths!

Centimetre by centimetre, I kept putting fly line back onto the reel as the queenie stubbornly circled the boat, still giving an occasional angry head shake and short, powerful lunge for freedom. Finally, I began to steal glances at my big, barra-size Enviro-Net, clipped to the front of the console. It suddenly looked ridiculously small and inadequate for the task at hand. How the hell was I going to do this on my own?

End game

The final act of this epic encounter was almost an anti-climax. A few more pumps and the huge fish simply rolled belly-up beside the hull, the yellowish colour flushing its flanks telling of lactic acid overload and total exhaustion. With a small pang of regret, I picked up the hand gaff instead of the net, pinned the fish under the gills and began to slide it in over the gunwale. It was only at this point that its true dimensions hit me. The photos hereabouts really don’t do it justice, as they fail to capture the lateral thickness through the body, or the bear-trap nature of that massive head and jaw structure.

As it lay on the carpeted foredeck, the expiring queenfish could barely manage one heavy thump of its over-sized tail before a shudder ran through its body that seemed to strangely mimic the frequency of the tremors now wracking my own hands and knees. A mix of emotions flooded my senses, including both sadness and elation. But the strongest feeling was definitely one of sheer relief… I’d done it!

From the very first glimpse of that mega queenie in the first minute of the half hour encounter, I knew I was connected to the fish of a lifetime, and now I could barely control the shaking of my limbs. I can count on one hand the captures I’ve made that have had such a profound impact on my senses.

For the record

For the statistically-minded, the leviathan measured 114 cm from nose to tail fork, 130 cm to the tail tips, and had a girth of around 70 cm. It weighed a staggering 16 kg (35.3 pounds) on certified scales a few hours later. The biggest queenfish currently on the world fly rod record charts is a whisker under 10 kg and was caught in Mozambique. Because I was fishing alone and not using pre-test leader material, the granting of a record for my fish seems fairly unlikely, but I’ll go through the formalities of submitting a claim.

Official records and the like aside, I know the fishing gods truly smiled on me that sunny Sunday in Darwin Harbour, and allowed me to pull off a genuine catch of a lifetime. It certainly makes up for a whole heap of “ones that got away” over the years!

Categories: Angling Adventures | Tags: Artificial fly, backing, Channel Island, Clouser, Darwin, Darwin Harbour, Dinah Beach, Dry Season, Felty, Fishing, Fishing rod, fly fishing, G. Loomis, June, Lee Point, mackerel, Outdoors, queenfish, queenie, Recreation, skinny, tuna, world record | 34 Comments

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