Ronan's Report

Matt, Andy, Edo, Jackie, Paul and I all hit for Corroboree Billabong for the weekend.. A long weekend for Matt, Paul and me. Fishing was good in general but there was lots of time the fish did not seem to be feeding. This was generally in the heat of the day which made it even tougher.. The heat and humidity here in the Northern Territory means you need to drink just about all the time to avoid dehydration and headaches. For me the worst thing about the heat and humidity while camping was trying to sleep at night! I only slept the first night because i had sufficient alcohol in my system to make sure of it!! The next 2 nights i just lay there, sweating, being bitten by the odd mozzie and trying to count sheep… Even Paul had trouble sleeping one night. He could usually sleep on a roller coaster! Anyway.. enough of the hardship!

The target species for the mission were Barramundi and Saratoga.The first day we had some Barra’s but nothing great. Paul finished the day with a big toga  from deep in the lilly pads. Tarpon were everywhere and gave us entertainment when nothing else would. The second day I went out while Paul caught up on some sleep. I had 6 species. Tarpon, Long Tom, Sooty Grunter, Power Tail (cat fish!), Barramundi and Saratoga. I lost a Barra that would have made 80cms but it was a fantastic session anyway.

Paul and i fished about 4 hours into darkness one night, Paul added an Archer fish to his species count. We moved alot of fish but they all missed the fly including one giant which attacked my fly 3 times. Listening to the crocs exploding into a feeding frenzy put a shiver down my spine a few times! Magnificent animals they are..

Jacky had her first Barra on Fly! 61cms, a fantastic fat fish. Andy and Edo had some great fishing on the first day with Barra to 85cm and a few good ‘toga’s.

It was a great trip…

Ronan.. Stuntman ci

Amazing fishing here in Darwin! There about 35 species here which can be targeted on fly and we have had about 15 so far. Some big fish too, my first (and only so far) Barramundi was 75cms long and we have had Queenfish up to 87cm. I hooked a Giant Trevally today which ran an entire flyline and a heap of backing into the mangroves, the drag was near locked up. Simply unbelievable strength! I lost the fish but I was lucky to get the fly line back!! Paul was hooked up at the same time.. His got off too so were both looking forward to our next battle with a GT. Thanks to Graeme P. Williams for keeping us on the fish!

This morning (very early, my brain was not in gear) i wiped Paul’s memory card thinking it was mine so a lot of this footage (for SLTV) got lost!! I guess its always a risk when 2 camera’s are identical.. Annoying?  no.. Heart breaking! It’s impossible to repeat a moment in fishing. We’ll just have to catch more, so thats not a bad thing!

Luck was on my side for the past 10 days.. or at least thats what Paul, Sean and Matt thought. They were right.  Good things just happened for me recently and it all started after getting lucky one night in Queenstown.. A fantastic trip to fjordland followed, I had many fish up to 7lbs. After fjordland 4 of us piled into matts little Ford Laser and headed north in search of big fish. I won the rock scissors paper competition so i decided to drive. With all the worldly possessions of 4 lads in the car the drivers seat was the most comfortable place to be!! (except for Sean’s unavoidable farts fueled by chilly and beans which we ate every night) I won just about all the rock scissors paper competitions on the trip. Big fish week started well for me when I landed a 9lb brown in a difficult gorge… and it continued well! In the next few days I landed an 8, 8.5 and 10.5lb brown and lost 3 more of equal caliber. Paul had one fish of 5.5 and Sean had a 7lber. Was luck on my side? yes, but its true to say that the more i do this the luckier i get!!! Someone famous once said that!

We all had our gear confiscated by Fish and Game at the very end of Big Fish Week because none of us had our licences on us! Not so lucky but very funny… which makes it lucky i guess because how could laughing be a bad thing!

Tight Lines.   Ronan.. (stuntman C.I)