There’s nothing soft about this fisho’s winning tactics

DARWIN doesn’t have Australia’s greatest tidal variations, but they are certainly up there.

Alex Julius column: As Nathan Wilson (left) and Peter Curtis discovered, when you head way offshore with Arafura Bluewater Charters, you’re likely to encounter some fabulous fish not normally caught inshore… including this brace of wahoo, the greyhounds of the sea.

DARWIN doesn’t have Australia’s greatest tidal variations, but they are certainly up there.

Take Sunday’s tides, for example. In Darwin Harbour the daylight low is exactly 3.0m higher than last Sunday’s low tide in the early afternoon.

I was actually on the harbour then, chasing a feed of barra with old mate Phil Hall.

Phil doesn’t just chase sailfish, which I’ve written about recently; he is also from the old school of barra anglers, and generally takes some convincing to change from one of his tried-and-proven techniques to modern, recently evolved barra fishing techniques.

Caitlyn Vanderkley and Eden Frazer. Picture: DARWIN BARRA & CRAB

For example, he’s not much of a fan of soft plastics in the harbour – reckoning the winding is just a bit too slow for his liking, thus far preferring to use hard-body lures.

Notwithstanding, you’ll see on this page a photo of a just-legal barra from last Sunday’s Darwin Harbour foray, although we did catch them to 65cm.

I just thought I’d run this image because, in this day and age when softies are so the flavour of the month, shallow-running hard bodies like this Classic Just Under still catch fish big time.

In fact, Phil uses nothing else and catches so many harbour barra on mainly green Just Unders, it’s amazing.

Original Classic Lures designer Rob Gaden designed this lure for Phil because he was sick and tired of Phil using Mann’s 1-minus and catching most of the fish.

It was a clever move and, as I said, this great barra angler uses nothing else when fishing for Darwin Harbour barra, regularly catching double-figure numbers with not a softie in sight.

I must say that, after a couple of Darwin Harbour barra trips with Phil this build-up, I’ve been somewhat converted.

On that first trip nearly a month ago, I fished both hard-bodies and soft plastics, but not the diminutive Classic Just Under … not straight up anyway.

The fishing was tough for all on board, but less so for Phil, who caught the only five barra for the day, and every one of them on the Classic Just Under which, as the name implies, swims only centimetres below the surface.

I said earlier Phil generally takes some convincing to change from one of his tried-and-proven techniques, which would explain why all he does is chuck the Just Under out, points the rod at the lure and simply retrieves steadily.

There’s no jerking this way or that, or pausing and burning, or high-sticking at rapid pace; he just winds it in steadily and those silver little harbour barra can’t seem to resist.

Like any good estuary barra angler would know, it’s still all about timing; about being at a spot just when the barra are moving through and looking for a feed.

After 30 years of fishing Darwin Harbour’s arms, Phil has that pretty well wired.

But try and get him to swap from his beloved Classic Just Under, and you’ll get a look from him that blatantly says: “What the hell for?”

As of last Friday, it was totally legal for people to fish downstream from the Shady Camp barrage.

Bonnie Keogh and her partner Russell Hanton decided to give it a go land-based from the barrage on Friday night, but their experience was not exactly what they had expected.

“I guess it’s an unpleasant surprise rocking up to Shady Camp barrage at 8pm and finding more cars and people than there would be on Mitchell St,” Bonnie told me.

“At least 25 people lined up across the barrage with head lamps going everywhere, not the quiet night’s fishing we had in mind. I suppose it wasn’t all bad being pushed away from the barrage; we fished from the upstream-side boat ramp and caught four small barra, while the light-filled barrage didn’t see a single fish caught!

“Good tides and a big moon had us all in high hopes, until we saw the casts of thousands, literally!” Bonnie said.

Oh well, it seems everyone had the same idea at the same time.

At least now they can fish both sides of the barrage from October to January inclusive, and head downstream by boat to fish the tidal stretches of the Mary as well.