Its day eight and the last day of fishing here in the north of Australia of my long awaited Yellow Dog Hosted trip. We plan for these trips for months and months and in the case of this one, almost two years. Then in a blink of an eye they’re over. But this one has been really good – the fishing, the Wildcard, the guides and staff and my guests whom are all friends, have been an absolute blast to share this adventure with.
On this final day I fished with Neuman and guide Chris. We enjoyed bright sun and wind. Good light was helpful in finding fish on the flats and wind allowed us to get close to them. But before we fished the flats, we shook things up. I asked Chris about barramundi and he said, “You want to try for barramundi? I have a spot”. He handed us each a pink and white streamer and off we went.
The location was really close to where we slept on the Wildcard last night. Not far away a tidal river enters the bay. At low tide it keeps enough water to hold bait and as the sea rises for hightide, in come the predators to hunt the bait, barramundi included. 8 AM was the start of the rising tide and literally on Neuman’s third cast, he caught his first barramundi.
It was one set of mangroves against a deep channel with an incoming rush of water that had all the action. In fact, if you could thread the needle and get your fly way back in this one particular crevice, you’d entice out a barramundi almost every time. I had one follow me all the way to my rod tip before he finally committed. The way it went down very much reminded me of fly fishing for snook.
Neuman and I hooked five barramundi and landed three. I had a sizeable one on for a couple minutes. This guy jumped about six times and put on quite the display. But another similarity they have with snook is a soft mouth. The longer you have them on the bigger the hook hole gets and eventually during a jump they shake it out. But man, what a start to the last day!
Eventually our mangroves stopped producing. The tide was coming in so fast that mangroves everywhere were now flooded and I’m sure it dispersed the barramundi making them much harder to find. But in our search, we found plenty of other fish including a few untouchable blue bastards, queenfish and this new character. Neuman landed our one and only gray bastard of the trip. A smaller bastard species but one with an attractive copperish sheen.
The high tide, as they always do, kept filling the backwaters for several hours. Before we knew it the morning slipped away and we never made it to the flats. Neuman and I racked up a ton of fish, Neuman in particular. In addition to his barramundi and gray bastard, he had numerous queenfish, blue tuskfish, brassy and gold dot trevally and this miniature blacktip reef shark. Mikes first shark on fly.
We poked around the flats after lunch but the water was very high and like a few days ago, kind of cloudy. We got some deep shots at the occasional blue bastard but sometimes they never saw our fly because it took too long for it to sink or we were casting to a rock because it was just plain too hard to see. Chris suggested a couple ideas to end on and he pointed to one.
Off in the distance there was a rocky shoreline where Chris said there are blackspotted tuskfish we could try for and then after that we could hit one final sand flat where we could attempt to end the trip with a blue bastard. The only main species Neuman hadn’t caught was the tuskie and I loved the idea of ending with a blue bastard. I joked and said, “Let’s go get Neuman his tuskie and I’ll top us off with a big bastard. Then we’ll soak it all in with one last beer on the flats”.
It was nearly 4 pm and the sun was getting low. It wasn’t easy to see anymore. But this doesn’t mean Chris can’t find fish. I watched as he and Neuman went to work on the tuskies. The boys had no problem finding them as they were thick!
Neuman got at least five shots in a matter of ten minutes. He spooked a couple, hooked and lost another and then finally connected good. It was the usual rodeo with a coral dweller. The fish nearly pulled the rod from Mike trying to break him in the coral but he persevered. After a wicked two minute tug o war, Chris delivered the net and Mike completed the “trip grand slam” of a permit, blue bastard, barramundi and now his blackspot tuskfish. That’s to go along with his long list of other fantastic species he caught this week.
That was an unbelievable catch. Neuman’s grin was from ear to ear. He looked at me and cut his fly off and reeled his line and leader on the reel. His trip was over and he reached for the cooler and popped a beer. Time for me and Chris to find that blue bastard.
Well, the fish gods were around, Chris spotted a blue bastard within minutes. It was a tough one to see. Not only was the sun barely shining on the flat but the first clouds of the day decided to block out what little light we had. But once I finally picked it out, and mind you, Chris clarified he wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t a rock, I made my cast five feet in front of what I thought was its head. My shrimp fly sank to bottom and when it hit, the gray/blue smudge proved it wasn’t a rock. It zipped over and tailed on my fly and in one swift strip set it was “bastard on”!
Wouldn’t you know, it was a huge bastard. Though I hooked him about 80 feet from any rocks, that wasn’t going to discourage this fish from trying to reach them. Holly crap did this fish pull hard!
My Bauer drag was set to the max. I always test things and I could barely pull line off. This fish nearly jerked my 9-weight from me then he almost got my rod tip too low. I raised it just enough hoping my Winston wouldn’t shatter and my leader wouldn’t break. Then, somehow the bastard managed to pull line off my reel. He wasn’t running fast but he went steady for at least 75 of that 80 feet. It was close but I stopped him and then reeled like the dickens.
I had one more problem. One we hadn’t really noticed until I was heaving the fish back to the boat. There was a small cropping of reef between us and the bastard. I knew if he spotted it he’d go for it. My thought was keep reeling, keep the fish in panic mode and hope he wouldn’t have time to plan his own strategy. My plan worked and soon the disoriented bastard was in our net. Whew!
Indeed this was a good one. He may not have been as big as my blue bastard four days ago but this was a beast. And man was I stoked. Neuman got his tuskie on his final cast, and I got one last blue bastard on my last. It was my turn to cut my fly off and reel in.
Like Neuman and friends do at the end of a lovely Lake Superior Chequamegon Bay weekend at home, before heading back to the Wildcard, we enjoyed a beer together. Chris probably isn’t supposed to have one but Neuman and I are bad influences. Plus, Chris earned it. Hopefully guides Peter and Tiger were drinking beers with the others as well.
Almost everyone returned to the boat at the same time. Peter’s boat had a treat. They caught a mud crab which is a huge crab and this particular one made for scrumptious appetizer before dinner up on the deck.
The Wildcard is heading all the way back to Nhulunbuy tonight and we’re making a crossing as I write. That means the boat is rocking and its time to shut the computer. We just finished one last delicious dinner and now its that sad time to break down the tackle. I’ll close the book on this trip tomorrow. But good news, tomorrows entry won’t be the last from Australia, this Australian adventure continues on for me!