John DiFrancesco with a 27kg Spanish mackerel caught on fly off the coast of Maningrida, Arnhemland.
The Abel #4 screamed in protest as near on 300mtrs of braid followed the Tropic Express fly line and headed off into the distance as John tried to keep his fingers clear of the knuckle busting direct drive fly reel. The #10 Loomis Cross Current was well and truly loaded and the scene was set for one hell of a battle.
I watched on closely as the backing on the reel got dangerously low. Read more…
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. Read more…
It was with great anticipation that a mate of mine Anthony, a primary school teacher who suffers one of the cruellest cases of Fishalitis I have been witness to in many a year, and I launched “Cud-jingaa” my 5m GS Marine Hydracraft from the community Barge landing of Maningrida. Our destination was to be a large rocky bommie known as “Mumbo” that is 8klms from the barge landing. Mambo is roughly 1klm long and no more than 50 mtrs across, however only 60 mtrs is exposed at low tide. Around this rock I have caught a variety of fish with the most common being trevally, queen fish, mackerel, sharks (bronze whalers) and a few coral trout. Read more…
The road down is quite good although getting chewed up rapidly. Launching involves a fair bit of drowning your vehicle particularly for those with heavier boats but not too bad by Shady standards.
We spent the day up around the top end, not even venturing as far as the S-bends.
After a while hanging around the 2nd barrage right up the top we only found a few rats and some big tarpon despite it looking incredibly fishy.
Luckily we were able to find some hungry barra in a number of locations by looking for colour changes where the water was flowing strongly off the floodplain. We fished mostly along the stretch down from the old boat, along the left hand side going downstream.
The very gusty conditions (combined with our lack of skill!) made fly fishing difficult so we were fishing on the dark side for a fair bit of the day. Read more…
Recent footage from Arnhemland.
