I have a confession to make and it doesn’t have anything to do with breaking any laws. Well, at least none that I am aware of anyway.
You see, it has been over two months since I have had my boat anywhere near the water. I blame the three W’s. Work. Weather. Websites.
Since early January this year, my work, the weather and the websites I run have pretty well kept me on dry land. Don’t get me wrong. I have still been fishing. Things aren’t that bad, but on the occasions I have fished they have either been in other people’s boats or they have been land-based, due to time constraints.
I finally had a ‘break in the weather’ in early March. The weekend started off with an absolute corker of a Saturday when the water glassed-out and it was one of those rare days in Maningrida when the boat ramp actually had more than two cars parked up with empty boat trailers. In fact, I think nearly every boat in the area was out on the water. Mine wasn’t! I had set the day aside for work on the websites and had my plans for Sunday. As it turned out, everybody on the water had a great Saturday and many fish were landed. To make matters worse, the whole day stayed calm and the usual ‘afternoon blow’ never happened.
Sunday morning saw me up early to mow the lawn. The tide I wanted to fish wasn’t until early afternoon so I wanted to get a few more ‘brownie’ points before I headed out on the water. Just imagine how happy I was to be mowing the lawn with no breeze in the humid conditions that are often associated with this time of year. To add to this, just imagine how happy I was when the wind finally started to pick up an hour before I was due to hit the water! Hey, I didn’t care, as this had been a long time coming.
Given it had been some time since the ‘green machine’ had hit the water, I got her all set up and even made sure the motor ran prior to hooking the trailer up to the cruiser. Wouldn’t you know it but the faithful Mariner kicked over on the first pull. Seven years old and still going as strong as the first day – surely this had to be a good sign.
With the fly gear packed into the boat and a quick check of all the safety gear, I was ready to hit the water. I pulled up to a mates (Troy) place on the way and picked him up. The plan was for Troy and I to go and hit the longtail tuna on fly. You see, Troy was one of the lucky anglers out on the water on Saturday and he had been amongst the longtail with his wife and kids. The longtail tuna are only here for a short time and I was keen to get a fly in front of them and wait for the blistering runs. I had rigged up my TFO #7 in anticipation and had the Tropic Express line loaded and ready the night before.
For me, part of the enjoyment is actually getting everything ready and thinking how the day will unfold prior to even hitting the water. There I was, sitting in the ‘fishing room’ on Saturday night, with a cold beer, rigging up and imagining myself firing a modest cast into a school of boiling longtails. I opted for the Tropic Express line as it has a fast sinking tip section, backed up by an intermediate running line. This would allow me to get the fly out quickly and then get the fly down fast enough to allow me to strip the fly quickly while still keeping it in the water column. In my opinion, a floating line is not the best for this situation as the fly tends to be pulled up as you strip the line. I wanted to make sure the fly stayed well in the water and be put in front of as many longtails as possible.
This black tip reef shark is the largest one the author has landed to date on the #7 weight outfit. Note the lip grippers – they certainly came in handy for this shot.
I also packed a ‘backup’ rod and reel as I didn’t want to have my day on the water ruined by an accident. I also think this is some sort of superstition (All anglers have them – just look at the ‘bananas’) as I have never broken a rod on the water and I think that is due to the fact that I always have a back up with me.
Anyway, we got to the ramp and the water didn’t look too kind. After owning the boat for over seven years, I know its limitations and rough water in a little 4.1 is not what I call fun. Rather than take a ‘careful’ option and change plans to fish the estuary, I threw caution to the wind (pardon the pun) and belted out against the wind and swell. This was not the way I had planned things out last night while sitting in the ‘fishing room’.
About half an hour into the bashing I sighted two birds diving into the water and changed course to zone in on the action. To this day, I don’t know how the birds just disappeared but they did. Obviously the longtails had their fun on Saturday.
A change of plan was needed and I motored over to a nearby island to fish for the resident giant trevally. On the way in, we spotted a barely submerged bommie and decided to deploy the electric motor and go in under stealth mode. We spent the next four hours under power only from the electric. The water was no deeper than 3 metres and the fast sinking lines were not ideal but we made do. Hiding inside the lee of the island, we were out of the wind and had some moderately calm water to fish in. It wasn’t hard to locate the fish as there was surface activity in every direction as the queenfish and trevally continued to smash bait on the incoming tide.
Approaching a rocky outcrop, I placed a cast up against the edge and slowly stripped the Clouser fly back to the boat. It was one of those times when the mind goes into neutral (seems to happen a lot more as I get older) when all of a sudden I felt a weight on the line. I struck the fish and had a moderate weight on the line as I came up tight to what I called an average fish. This all changed as I applied some pressure! All of a sudden, the ‘average’ fish hit the afterburners and headed straight back to the rocks. I increased pressure on the lever drag anti-reverse reel and then had to palm the underside of the reel to try and turn this thing. In no time, the pressure went slack and I wound the line back in to find the 60lb leader had been severely roughed up on the rocks. Yep, I had just been ‘humbled’ by a giant trevally – again! Troy had a chuckle on my behalf as I tied on a new leader and picked another Clouser fly to get back into the action.
About half an hour later the tables turned when pretty much the same thing happened to Troy as he hooked up to another good fish that humbled him against the rocks as well. Now it was my turn to laugh!
Spotting a school of queenfish working the surface further ahead, we quietly moved towards them with the electric. Troy shot a cast towards the queenfish and came up tight as soon as the fly hit the water. Seeing this, I fired my cast off in the same direction and was hit hard by something of significant size. At first I thought it was another big trevally and I made sure I was a little more prepared for this one. I applied some pressure and the surface of the water was broken by something dark in colour. At first I thought it looked like a cobia as it tore off on a blistering run. A few minutes later and I had started to gain a little line and it wasn’t long before we found out that what I hooked was a black tip reef shark. I have sight-cast to these things for many years and caught many smaller sharks but not one like this. It was a good fish on my #7weight and I was surprised to see that it hadn’t bitten through the new 60lb leader that I had to replace from the previous giant trevally. Against Troy’s opinion, I decided to bring the shark aboard for a quick photo prior to releasing it again.
The author takes a good look at the Clouser fly hooked in the corner of the jaw of this saltwater barra. Note the anti-reverse fly reel used. This is one of the author’s personal favourites and this particular reel is well over ten years old - to think of the stories it could tell.
We were fishing an area with the headland facing towards the west. Given the location, I made a comment to Troy that this would be an ideal place for barra as the afternoon sun would warm the rocks and therefore heat the water nearby. We passed this off, as I hadn’t heard of barra being caught around the island we were fishing. Not long after, a school of queenfish sprayed water near us and I shot the flyline out and then quickly ripped it off the water and laid it down again. Repeating this three or four times before finally presenting the fly is a great tactic for turning the queenfish on and putting them in a frenzy. I wasn’t surprised to come up tight to a fish. What did surprise me though was when the fish jumped. Yeah it was silver but it wasn’t a queenfish. It took a moment to register as the saltwater barra leapt again. The fish wasn’t overly large, but given the environment I had caught it in I wanted to make sure this fish would end up in the landing net. I played it out and manoeuvred the boat with the electric to make sure I stayed well enough away from the rocks and after a short tussle, Troy had the barra in the net and the ‘high fives’ were given.
Not long after, we were heading back to the ramp as the sun started to set. Who would have thought that my afternoon out on the water chasing longtail tuna would have ended up like this? I guess you just have to be prepared for whatever happens.
