Another Christmas and New Year have come and gone and, hopefully, you found some shiny new fishing tackle under the tree this holiday season.
Of course, the gift most of us want is the onset of monsoonal conditions to give us a bumper wet season.
While we have been experiencing some terrific showers and storms, the first monsoonal trough for the year has yet to develop.
Down Katherine way, the Katherine River has hardly risen, even though the Daly rose 2-3m and the barra came on the bite at Bamboo Creek.
Warren De With from Tackle World in Katherine said: “It’s been very quiet and very dry.
“There’ve been storms to the east but they seem to be heading north past Pine Creek and on to Darwin.
“We had a good start in December with rainfall up to 55mm, but it’s mainly dry now.
“I’m worried because the monsoon is not expected until the third or last week this month,” Warren said.
Out Kakadu way, there’s been enough rain for Cahill’s Crossing over the East Alligator to be closed, as well as Magela Creek on the Oenpelli Road.
However, we’ve yet to get the westerly winds and widespread rainfall associated with monsoonal conditions, albeit that there has been some patchy but heavy storm-related rainfall in some parts of the Top End.
There were some fierce, late-afternoon storms across Bynoe Habour just before New Year.
Over the last fortnight, the prognosis for the onset of the Wet has changed several times – it’s just one of those years.
The absence of cyclones so far is also baffling.
Of course, this particular weather scenario is not at all unusual.
Several times this century, the wet season was kick-started by a tropical low forming above us and shifting down over us.
That’s what we need to happen, and it may well do.
In the meantime, the forecast is for next week to be wetter than last week.
With the Wet proper still to arrive, conditions have been good for bluewater fishing.
Golden snapper have been biting well in isolated locations, especially down around the Peron Islands.
I’ve also had reports of smaller goldies from both the West Arm and Middle Arm.
Jewies are also still about, and are best targeted on the turn of the tide, particularly during spring tides when the current stops for a brief window of opportunity.
Both Leeder’s Creek and the hole below Middle Arm boat ramp have produced school jew since Christmas.
There are still a few macks and tuna about, so while you’re reef fishing it’s a good idea to put out a floating pilchard or livie on light game gear just in case.
Harbour barra anglers will be pleased to know that plenty of silver barra have been caught over the break in the usual haunts: the arms, Woods Inlet and Sadgroves Creek.
Roger Sinclair and his mate caught more than 20 barra in and around Sadgroves and Blessers Creeks, but only one made legal size.
Shoal Bay also continues to produce barra, and good ones at that.
King Creek has been mentioned to me a few times as one place where quality barra have been caught.
Whether you fish the harbour or Shoal Bay, under the right conditions, getting right up into the cover is a great sneaky technique when fishing from a smaller boat, and increases your window of opportunity to nail some barra as they push up with the tide chasing bait.
Fishing water as shallow as 20cm, you need to use a bit of stealth, so drifting, poling or an electric motor will maximise your chances of finding fish without spooking them.
As the tide starts to run out, keep an eye on your position, as you don’t want to get stuck – it can be a long wait for the tide to come back in.
Finally, there was some awesome big barra fishing down the Roper River over the last neap tides.
It seems there were many dozens of barra over a metre caught, and countless fish in the 90s.
Forward-facing sonar came into its own down the Roper, and a lot of young guns have certainly mastered it.
No doubt it will be on again down the Roper over the next week.
Shaun Stringer and mates got stuck into a whole lot of metre-plus barra on Bite Me lures during their recent trip to the Roper River.
Pikey bream may be small but, as Stuart Macdonald found, they will attack lures with gusto.
