Apart from the usual random afternoon storms, it’s looking fairly dry over Christmas and New Year, at least in terms of the absence of a monsoonal trough over the Top End.
Personally, I would prefer a Christmas/New Year washout and a thumping good wet season to follow.
Notwithstanding, I’m sure many of you would be looking forward to wetting a line over the holiday break.
So, for this final column of the year, this week I thought we’d just look at some fishing options.
On top of the dry conditions is the forecast for light winds over the festive break, so you can pretty well plan trips that will likely happen.
As it turns out, today – Boxing Day – marks the change from the end of the neap tides to the beginning of the spring tides, so all days from now on leading up to the end of the year are what we call “making springs”; ie the high tides are getting higher and the low tides are getting lower.
As I’ve explained before, making springs are usually good fishing tides because fishing is generally on the improve as currents increase and the food chain gets more active.
The downside is water clarity decreases with faster-flowing water.
Notwithstanding, on the barra front, the tides prior to and including New Year’s Day are great for both Darwin Harbour and Bynoe Harbour.
It’ll be the usual style of fishing: working flats around half-tide out as water flows out of the mangroves, switching to drains as the tide gets lower and turns to run in, and then hitting the flats again as the tide rises to the mangrove edges and floods.
It’s not rocket science once you get used to it; but it pays to have a bit of local knowledge up your sleeve.
That’s why I’ve advocated before that, if catching barra in Darwin Harbour is your objective, then concentrate on learning one particular area.
Our harbour is a huge waterway, and it has several significant arms that each have dozens, even hundreds of potential barra spots.
On that basis, you might concentrate on learning as much as you can about East Arm, fishing it on different tides and noting times and places that produced for you.
It’s a bit like going to the same supermarket all the time: you know where to grab what you want and make it happen quickly.
Through the first week of the New Year, the tides will slowly start to get smaller until they reach the dead neap tide on 9 January.
Looking forward, other barra locations kick in on the making neaps.
Big river mouths have been on the radar of late.
No one is telling where the fish are coming from, but it’s a fair bet that the mouth of the South Alligator, Wildman River mouth, Mary mouth and the Finniss are all candidates, not to mention the Daly River too which has been fishing well all year on neap tides.
Weather and tide conditions are also good for offshore fishing, both trolling and bottom bouncing.
Given the forecast for fair weather, a foray offshore early in the New Year could be a whole lot of fun.
There’ll almost surely be some billfish kicking around down Dundee way, and calm seas late in December generally fish well for Spanish mackerel at regular haunts offshore from Darwin.
If you’re looking for a feed of tasty reef fish, then dropping some weighted soft plastics on one of the artificial reefs – especially on the change of tide – should do the trick.
Yep, much as we probably would all like a very wet Christmas and New Year, that’s not at all likely to happen.
Best bet then is to go fishing, and please do it safely.
Merry Christmas to you all.
The only thing missing is a Sportsbet red tag on this Adelaide River barra caught by Greg Morianos on his recent visit to the Top End.
As Kimberley Fawcett discovered, Seven Spirit Bay Wilderness Lodge is the home of the giant trevally, aka GT.
