Shoal Bay Sportfishing Tours
Darwin barra fishing tours & mud crab tours
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May 01st, 2017

1/5/2017

 

Metery On First day of the dry season

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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.

Looking Good For Run Off

15/3/2017

 
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Finally some good news to report, the last couple of years have been tough for Barra fishing in the territory caused by consecutive poor wet seasons. The good news this season is that we have had a cracker of a wet season and the flood planes at the top of The Little Howard River are full of Mullet and Scats.
I have always maintained that the start of the run off fishing starts after the Autumn Equiniox which is the 20th of March. This week I have been out over the spring tides having a look at whats going on up on the flood planes and it all looks good for a great run off fishing season. We have been averaging for or five fish a trip over the high tide so that in its self is a good sign to get these numbers so early in the season.
Last night I went for a walk over the flood plane to one of the billabongs and was pleased to see millions of mullet and scats of all sizes packed into the billabong. This means that the next set of spring tides after the Equinox the bait will start to poor into the main river and the Barra will start there run off feeding frenzy.. If we are lucky enough to get one more monsoon before the end of the wet then the fish should be on the chew until the end of may
Tight Lines And good luck

Little Howard Fires Up On Big Tides

19/4/2016

 
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Nando Russo with his 106cm Barra
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Tony Russo with a nice 90cm fish

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

barra Steady since the equinox

2/4/2016

 
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Dean Robinsons !01cm Barra
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Micheal Ronaldson with a nice low tide 90cm Barra
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92 cm equinox barra
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84cm barra pulled from the heavy timber

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

barra finally on the bite

25/2/2016

 
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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

September 07th, 2015

7/9/2015

 

Million Dollar Barra

Catch a Million Dollar Fish

How does winning a million dollars just by throwing a line in sound?  On the 1 October 2015, 76 prize barramundi will be secretly tagged and released into the waters around the Top End.

This is your chance to win big - REALLY BIG!  75 of these beauties will have $10,000 prize money up for grabs and one will have the big million bucks.

We're getting into the action too and have put together a great deal with Darwin's premier barra and mud crab fishing company, Shoal Bay Sport Fishing Tours.  When you stay with us for a minimum of 3 nights, AND book a fishing tour, we'll offer you a 10% discount on any accommodation or site as well as on the fishing tour itself.

Contact us today to book both your accommodation and tour then start preparing to hook one of the prize barramundi.  The competition, and our deal, starts on 1 October 2015 and goes right until 29 February 2016 inclusive.

Don't wait too long - there's a million bucks waiting to be caught!

Temperatures A Rising Barra Are Biting

30/8/2015

 
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84 cm low tides fish
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Very uncommon 92cm QLD Groper caught in the Little Howard
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83cm Hope Inlet Barra
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Solid Blue Nose Salmon have been coommon

After what has been a long hard dry season finally some good news. Water temps have been slowly rising over the past week and a half and the barra are liking it. With a constant temp of over 25 degrees and even hitting as high as 28 in places the fish are finally staring to get active.
Late last week fishing the low tide in the Little Howard saw us bag couple of nice barra and over the neap tides this week fishing the high tide we managed six fish on Monday and two on Wednesday and losing another five. Friday saw us back in the Little Howard fishing the low and bagging four quality fish.
Really big Blue Salmon have also been common among the catch.
Crabs Have been patchy and got very hard over the neaps but have picked up again as the tides have increased.

Another Metery in the Gloom

21/6/2015

 
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Louise Schwarze With Her 101cm Barra

To say the fishing has been hard is a understatement. While we have been catching a few fish there have been quite a few days where we havnt managed a bite. There have been a few Blue Salmon about but the Barra have been elusive. One notable catch this week was a 101cm fish by Louise Schwarze from Victoria. Louise commented she would have been happy catching the bait as I tossed out the 15 inch mullet which accounted for the big girl. Louises farther Dennis at lost a couple of fish earlier in the day but this was the only barra we landed for the day.
Crabs are still about but are starting to show signs of slowing as they usually do at this time of year.

Kev Bags Metery In Tough Times

7/6/2015

 
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Kevin Wheelahan with his 107cm low tide barra
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Plenty of Mud Crabs in the Bay at the Moment

With a early start to the cold weather this year the fishing has been tough. Early in May we lost five degrees of water temp in a week and this has made the fishing hard going. There have has  been some improvement in the past week with a few fish starting to show up again. Low tide fishing has produced a couple of big fish with a 94cm fish landed on Wednesday and Kevin Wheelahan landing a great 127cm fish on Friday. High tide fishing has picked up a little with Saturday proving a good morning when we hooked up on five fish up the little Howard.
While the fishing has been tough mud crabs have been the opposite. Catches of twenty plus crabs being common. Most crabs are full and plenty of bucks among them

Big Metery Tops Great Easter

7/4/2015

 
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Vince with his 112cm girl
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Getting Ready With The Net
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On The Mat
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In The Boat

Easter is always a good time to fish shoal Bay and this year was no exception. the big tides turned it on at high and low tide. I fished the low tides on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for some good results. Thursday we landed eight barra and a couple of nice Threadfin, Friday we landed Ten barra includung a 97cm and a 95cm  fish along with some bigger Threadfin. Saturday things were a little frustrating with the barra boofing in front of us all day but not taking anything we offered them until client Mark Russo pulled out a green B52 from his box and proceeded to hook five fish in a short period but busting of the biggest fish and right on the tide change we bagged a 83cm fish on live bait giving us five for the day. Sunday and Monday saw a change of tactics to fishing the high tide on the flood plains in the evening. Sunday saw us boat six barra and loosing eight more in some tight water and it also saw Vince Vescio land the fish of the weekend and of a life time. Right on dusk he hooked and landed a massive 112cm girl on a live mullet fished in the middle of the river. It put on a massive fight getting completely airborne on several occasions. Sunday we fished the flood plain again for eight fish and many more lost.
Crabs started well but as the weekend went on it got harder to find the but the quality was excellent.
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