The water in Shoal Bay is warming up early this year and the fish are starting to get a little more lively.
While the fish have been very fussy over the high tide I think the low tide fishing should be starting to fire up over the next few weeks. With water temps staring to push up to the 28 degree mark it wont be long.
we have been boating some nice Threadfin and a few quality Barra over the last couple of week and the Barra over the spring tides have been making themselves known buffing there way up and down the river. There have been some big fish around but have been hard to get them to take the baits. 
I will be pushing the low tide fishing from now on as this is generally the best way to go at this time of year.
Crabs have been steady without being outstanding.

The 2018 run off has been a cracker and is still firing. We are getting plenty of fish over the high tides. The fish are coming in a variety of sizes. You never know what size the next fish will be. They can be from tiny rats to a meter fish. 
There have been plenty of anglers taking advantage of the great fishing with all of them catching fish. One of Shoal Bays top anglers has landed ten fish over a meter this season. All the fis have been taken in the same spot.
Crabs have been a little slow but still getting a feed every trip

After a slow start to the wet season the rain finally came in January. The Darwin rural area which supplies Shoal Bay with its run off received 1.2 meters of rain. This is the most rain recorded in January since 1904 and we have been getting steady rain fall throughout Febuary as well.
On Saturday night the tides looked good to go and have a look around on the floodplains and the results were promising. There was plenty of water up there along with a good number of nice sized mullet. 
We fished a likely run off gutter and managed to boat four barra with the biggest being 93cm. As the tide pushed up we moved up onto the floodplain itself but found it quiet up on top. The fish were sitting below the run off feeding on the bait being washed into the river. There were plenty of fish boofing around us all night.
While we need one more monsoon to really top it up and keep the action going all looks good for a great run off season.

Although the build up fishing started with a lot of promise with some good early fish it hasnt really eventuated. The fishing has been a little tough with some very patchy fishing. Yesterday I fished with locals Goran and Linda from Fannie Bay and the barra came out to play.
We got a few live baits in Buffalo creek and headed over to our choosen hole to sit out the low tide. Fishing was slow early with only one 56cm fish until the tide dropped lower enough. We went for a walk around the sand bar and chased some more mullet and after gathering a bucket full of good sized mullet we settled in for some great fishing.
We boated another eleven barra over the next few hours. Eight out of the twelve fish we landed were between 73cm and 87cm so the quality of the fish was excellent. There were another five or six fish lost to a snag right in the middle of the hole. Keeping up with the bait became a task in itself with every bait hitting the water getting mauled by the hungry Barra. 
This has definitely been the best trip of the build up and cross fingers hopefully it will contintue

Low tide fishing in Shoal Bay over the last month has been looking good. With the water temp up the fish have been  on the chew early with some solid fish taken through August. Though the fish in August were a little tentative they could be enticed with a bit of patience.
Live bait has once again been the best option and the good news is that there has been plenty of bait about even on the bigger tides when it is usually hard to get.
The first few low tide trips for September have been good. The fish have been much more aggressive and the quality build up fish Shoal bay is renowned for have been on full display.
Yesterday I fished with Micheal from Brisbane and we landed five quality barra to 80cm. Today I fished with James and Kym from the Sunshine Coast and we landed four barra. Two of the fish which were caught only minutes apart went 88cm. Kym landed a 88cm fish that took a mullet off a float and then only minutes later husband James landed a 88cm fish on a mullet fished on the bottom. James also landed a nice 83cm Threadfin and lost a similar fis right at the bank.
All in all the typical low tide build up fishing in The bay is looking good for 2017.

Peter England from Tully landed this chrome plated 107cm Barra today in Joes Creek. The big girl took a 10 inch mullet fished on the bottom on the incoming tide.
The fishing over the last month has been excellent with plenty of barra coming from the flood plains over the high tides. Big schools of mullet are still coming off the plains on the bigger rides and the barra are there waiting for them.
The good news for the future is the amount of news season Barra about. In all the years I have fished the area I have never seen so many of the baby fish. Its not uncommon to get 5 or 6 young Barra in the cast net on every throw up on the flood plains.

Better late than never. The Little Howard finally hit full speed over the last set of spring tides. I had been for a walk up onto the flood plains and seen the masses of bait up there and new it would have to come out eventually. On the eight meter tide last Saturday  my wife Narelle and I went for a short fish up there and landed a couple of nice fish including a 102cm cracker. The bait had just started to find its way into the river. As the week went on and the tides started to recede the bait started pouring of the flood plains into the river and the Barra just went off. We were hooking onto 15 to 20 fish a day and every boat I spoke to were catching fish. The barra were spewing up masses of Scats when you caught them and were in great condition. As the tides moved into the neaps the fish went quiet, probably full from the feeding frenzy they had had earlier in the week.
Crabs are steady, while down on previous years there is still a good feed to be had

I always maintain the equinox is the start of the run off season and this year has been no exception. Although because of the lack of wet season this year the fishing has not been at its best we have still been getting into some good fishing. On the day off the equinox we bagged 6 barra including a nice 92cm fish and if it wasnt for the pesky bull sharks stealing all of our baits we would have done a lot better. Both high and low tide fishing have been producing and even the neap tides have been good. Fishing on the neaps on Thusday we bagged seven fish and lost a lot more and today on the neaps we bagged 4 fish including a 101cm thunper caught by Dean Robinson.
Crabs have been a little patchy with some days producing good numbers and some days being very tough. The good news now though is they are all pretty full

In what has been the quietest build up i have seen since doing tours in Shoal Bay there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel. The last few weeks has been very encouraging.
The big rain we had in December has got the run off creeks running clean. Usually this first big rain makes the creeks flow muddy but there was enough rain to make them  run clean. While it is still a bit early for these run off creeks to really perform on some of the best tides there has been a bit of action. On one session after the last springs we boated six barra and had a few others missed. A couple of the fish were swamp fish showing the flood plains have a bit of water up there. If we can get a bit more rain over the next month I think we will be in foe a reasonable run off season in Shoal Bay.
Low tide fishing has really picked up in the last couple of weeks with catches of five or more the norm. One trip last week we hooked up to over a dozen fish but inexperienced anglers meant a lot were lost.
Mud crabs are slowly starting to show up in better sizes and are getting fuller by the day