Darwin LAND-BASED FISHING: Part 1

All that said, there is still great fishing to be had within an hour or so of the Northern Territory’s seat of government (often much closer), and some of it is available to land lubbers without the luxury of a boat. The trick lies in picking your spots, your timing and your target species, then investing exactly the same level of effort you would back home… as well as being willing to accept that failure is always a possibility up there, too. Some days you catch fish, some days you don’t.

None of this is meant to put hopefuls off having a go. When it fires, Darwin’s land-based fishing can be nothing short of spectacular. Chrome-plated barramundi, high-flying queenfish, line-stripping trevally and turbo-charged milkfish… They all swim in healthy numbers in Darwin’s metro’ waters. The trick lies in identifying when and where they will pass within casting range of the shore, and then choosing the optimum combination of tackle and technique needed to entice these fish to bite.

Perhaps the hardest mental shift that anglers from down south need to make when visiting or re-locating to Darwin involves coming to terms with the massive tides experienced up there, and also the huge variation in tidal movement and current flow rates between the neaps and the springs. The first tool any angler — land-based or otherwise — needs in this part of the world is a tide chart or a print-out of tides from the internet. Fortunately, every tackle shop in Darwin offers free tide charts, and you can also download them from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) website at: www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/tides/MAPS/nt.shtml

Neap tides occur around the half moons (first and last quarter of the moon), when tidal variations can shrink to less than a metre between high and low water. From that point, the tides quickly build over the following week towards the springs, which occur around or just after the full and new moon phases. During the twice-monthly springs, tidal variation from high to low water can be as much as seven and a half metres or even more. Think about it for a moment… That’s a vertical rise and fall in water level of almost 25 feet on the old scale!

As you can probably imagine, seven metres-plus of vertical movement in the ocean’s surface over a period of just six or seven hours generates an enormous amount of tidal current. It also dramatically alters the entire look and feel of the coastline. Places that were high and dry a few hours earlier — or even a hundred metres and more from the water’s edge — can become viable fishing spots at the top of a seven metre high tide. Conversely, that great low tide spot you fished at lunch time could be two hundred metres offshore and covered by more than six metres of water by sunset!

Coming to grips with the Top End’s tides and learning to work with them rather than fight against them is the single biggest step you can make towards angling success up north; whether you’re boat-based or shore bound.

Of course, the $64 million question is; what are the best tides for fishing around Darwin?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any cut-and-dried answer to that perennial query. I know it sounds like a cop-out, but the truth is that different tides work for different locations and species. However, here are a few important factors to consider:

Firstly, small tidal movements (neaps) tend to result in much cleaner, clearer water, while bigger tidal variations (springs) dirty up  the water noticeably. If the springs are combined with strong winds, the water gets even milkier.

Secondly, on neaps, the productive bite periods (when the fish are on the chew) can tend to be longer but much less intense. Fish often seem lethargic, disinterested or shy on the smaller neap tides. By contrast, bite periods are short, sharp and frenetic on the springs. There’s an old saying in the Territory that goes “no run, no fun”, and it tends to hold true. Saltwater fish up that way have evolved to make use of large tidal movements, and many of them generally seem less active or interested in feeding when there’s little or no flow.

As a rule of thumb, days with less tidal movement tend to be better for chasing pelagic species such as trevally, queenfish, mackerel and tuna, which are more likely to come well inshore while the water is clearer. On the other hand, bigger variations in tides (and the accompanying dirtier water) seem to suit barra, mangrove jacks, golden snapper (fingermark), blue salmon, estuary cod and the like. I also favour the bigger tides when berleying with bread for mullet, garfish and milkfish, as they carry your berley further and faster. Furthermore, a tide change (either the top or bottom) at dawn or dusk is often a very good thing for land-based fishing.

As a final word on tides, I’m not a big fan of the absolute maximums of movement at either end of the scale (tiny neaps or huge springs), and I also have a general preference for the week of tides building from the neaps towards the springs, favouring it over the following week; when the springs slide down to neaps. But trust me… there are as many theories in the Top End on what makes a great fishing tide as there are anglers. Feel free to add your own!

PART TWO: In the next part we’ll start looking at some specific locations and techniques for land-based fishing around Darwin.