MELVILLE

MELVILLE ISLAND

Melville Island and Bathurst Island are known as the twin islands are both located approximately 70 kilometres off the coat of Darwin and are separated only by a narrow channel. Our base was Top End Sportfishing Safaris' fishing camp on the shores of Snake Bay on the north side of Melville Island and our hosts were Les and Annette Woodbridge. The camp facilities are very comfortable and consists of client accommodation in one of half a dozen converted sea containers. Each container is comfortably fitted out in a 31/2 star motel style, sleeps two or three clients in single beds and is air conditioned. The shower block is clean and airy and close by and at the centre of the camp there is kitchen and dining area which is well laid out and a great place to exchange stories about the days activities. The meals were excellent. Evening meals consisted of fish as the main fare each alternate night with the other nights featuring rack of lamb, a couple of choices of curried casseroles one night and monstrous T-bone steaks on the other. Each second breakfast was something special including bacon and eggs and croissants and there was always plenty of cereals, toast etc. Lunches consisted of up market hampers that were always looked forward to.

Les employs a number of very professional guides and each is in charge of one of the 6.2m or 6.6m Predator boats. These boats are powered by 115 hp Yamaha or Suzuki 4 stroke motors, travel comfortably at 55 kph and provide stable and roomy fishing platforms. When the chop is up a little the boats can be a bit wet but with ambient temperatures around 34 degrees Celsius that's hardly a problem and in some cases a welcome relief.

Prior to committing to the trip I spoke to Les Woodbridge a number of times initially to make sure that they did cater to fly fishers and secondly to make sure that I had the right gear and flies. Les gave the impression that he and his guides were tuned into to fly fishing whereas the reality was that one had cast a fly rod and the other three had heard about them. OK it probably wasn't quite that bad but the guides, each very professional and resourceful were tuned into lure casting and dare I say bottom bashing and I often found myself in situations not suited to casting flies. Anyway I was there to fly fish and that's what I did.

The first morning we set out with Dan and BJ. BJ's real name was Bjorn but somehow BJ seemed to suit him better. Our first destination was Trevally Ally. It's about 30 klm off the coast and less than 400 Klm from Indonesia. The name conjured up visions of big GT's stripping backing off the reel and by the time we got there I was pumped up and ready to go. The boats are all GPS equipped and so there was no trouble homing in on the mark. Dan and BJ quickly set my boat partner up bottom bashing and I set about casting my fast sinking shooting head and chartreuse over white clouser around the boat in search of Trevally. Matt my boat partner proceeded to drag in a range of reef fish and whilst Dan did hook a fish on lure, which unfortunately threw the hook, and I had a hit probably from a passing mackerel, which just cut me off, I never came close to catching a fish at Trevally Ally. This went on for what seemed to be interminable time and then was repeated at a couple of "never fail" marks as we proceeded into a delightful estuary called False Goose Creek for lunch and some inshore afternoon fishing amongst the mangroves. I caught my first fish at around 2 pm, a small Barramundi, but at least I was off and running. Flies out fished lures that afternoon and by the time we returned to camp I was feeling much more relaxed with a few barra, mangrove jacks and queenies caught and released and I had pretty much put the mornings fishing out of my mind.

I also drew Dan and BJ as guides for the second day. I wasn't to sure that was a good idea but at least l was fishing with a good mate Rob and looked forward to that. I asked Dan about our destination and protested a little when he told me we would start off at Trevally Ally for a short time saying "yesterday was the exception and not the rule" adding "then we'll come back into Snake Bay for some inshore fishing on the run out tide". Rob was unfortunately happy with the sound of Trevally Ally and so with the numbers against me I settled back to make the best of it. At Trevally Ally Rob bottom fished and proceeded to drag in a range of brightly coloured reef fish onto the boat and I swoofed my flies around the boat and around the heads of those on board without hooking up to anything. Whilst it was pleasant enough at Trevally Ally I was not disappointed when Dan weighed anchor and set a B line to the back waters of Snake Bay. On the way in we passed an exposed rock and as we slowed down Dan and I saw a lone large Trevally. I don't think Dan was keen to stop but he did and Rob got a cast away before I had even picked up my fly rod and within seconds was hooked onto a 22 lb GT. We chased the fish for about a kilometre with the boat and Rob was like the cat that swallowed the mouse when he landed it on his 6 kg bait caster outfit loaded with 30lb fire line.

I was disappointed when Dan didn't take us back to the rock but accepted that he knew better. We had lunch tied up in the shade of the mangroves with a few thousand little red mangrove flies. The mangrove flies don't bite but the boys told me that they are often accompanied by sand flies which was good to know. As an aside I should mention that on good advise I took a course of vitamin B1 tablets for the two weeks prior to the trip on the understanding they would make me smell unpleasant to sand flies. I don't know if it was the B1 that worked or the occasional spray of Aeroguard but I can report I didn't suffer one sand fly bite when others around the camp table scratched and complained about the little buggers. Dan was keen to get us onto some big Barra and we spent the first part of the ebb tide fishing shallow gutters amongst the mangroves. The big barra were elusive but we did sort out a few smaller ones to 55 or 60 cm. When the tide fell too low for the shallow gutters we retreated to the eastern side of Snake Bay where there were some deeper gutters that we fished for a few Barramundi to 60 cm, small queenies and jacks. At one spot we did see a couple of big Barra moving about the overhanging mangroves but they seemed preoccupied and uninterested in our offerings. After about half an hour of stalking these bigger fish a big crocodile surfaced just 10 meters from the boat as if to say that the barra were more worried about him than us. Anyway the afternoon was good and we finished up releasing an interesting mixed selection of fish and of course the crocodile story. That night I had a yarn to Daryl who is Les' son and arranged to fish with him the following day. Right from the start there were no pretences of any fly fishing knowledge with Daryl and I liked that. Quickly the plan for the day was set. Daryl, Peter, a mate of mine I had made the trip with, and I would be running up the coast past False Goose Creek to Goose Creek.

As usual we got onto the boat actually in the camp yard, the boat was towed the kilometre or so to the ramp and the boat was driven off the trailer without anybody getting their feet wet. Thinking back to how the crocodile had appeared from nowhere on the previous afternoon, this launching strategy and the reversed recovery strategy in the afternoon made absolute sense. Once in the water we headed out of Snake Bay and up the coast probably 30 kilometres to the entrance of Goose Creek. This was a substantial bit of water and looked very fishy. The first spot we stopped at produced my biggest barra for the trip. It was a clear 70 cm long and fell for a black and barred thing. "Things" turned out to be the best inshore fly for the trip with pink and yellow things working best in the dirtier water and the black and barred thing working best in clearer water.

On almost my next cast I got a nice little queeny. Daryl knew the Goose Creek system very well and took us to some great spots where we landed a range of fish dominated by barra averaging 60 cm in length. I had told Daryl that I would like to catch a Saratoga and with this in mind he gradually moved us further up the system. We travelled about 20 kilometres up the main arm of the creek fishing various snags along the way with the water getting progressively muddier. Eventually we came to an area where the water changed from muddy and brackish water we had been fishing in to a more appealing green and fresh colour. On both sides of this dramatic colour change barra were "buffing". In the previous days I had seen individual barra "buff" amongst the snags as they fed and it had been explained to me that "buffing" is the term used to describe the noise that barra make as they open their relatively huge mouths and water and hopefully food is sucked in to fill the vacumeous void. We spent a very enjoyable half hour or so fishing to these barra with the only takes being on pink things - none on lure. There were also a lot of tarpon in the same area and it was often difficult keeping the fly away from them. The fun of fishing to buffing barra eventually gave way to hunger and we moved up river for lunch amongst the lilly pads with the occasional fish slashing near the boat. When fishing resumed we had one of the best hour or so of fishing for the full week with heaps of fresh water Barra being caught amongst the snags. During the afternoon I was also able to polaroids a couple of Saratoga and for me that was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the trip. I tried a number of different fly patterns during the afternoon and found that the black and barred thing worked best in these conditions. Keeping in mind that we had around 20 kilometres of creek and 30 kilometres of sea to travel on our return trip we headed back down stream in mid afternoon. Along the way we stopped at different snags again and it was fun experimenting with different fly pattern at each spot. One fly that was particularly interesting was a wiggle minnow tied in "gaffer" colours. This fly is very active in the water and was particularly attractive to mangrove jacks when fished amongst their snags.

At 4:00 pm it was time to head back to base but only after Daryl phoned in on the satellite phone to let the camp now of our intentions. As usual within minutes of arriving at the ramp the truck and trailer turned up and the boat was driven on again without anybody getting their feet wet. There were 9 lure fishermen in camp that night and of course one fly fisherman, namely me, and there was plenty of pleasant banter and a little sledging around the dinner table. I think Les must have been getting weary of our conversation because he changed the conversation over to the tax system and that quickly cleared the table.

The next day I was fishing with Daryl again and heading even further a field to the Jessy River and that was at least another 10 kilometres past Goose Creek. Because of the distances involved we were travelling in the company of Dan's boat with Peter and Rob on board. Once we arrived at the Jessy we split up. The Jessy system as it turned out was very different to both False Goose and Goose creeks but in a pleasant way. We found plenty of fish during the day with quite a few nice mangrove jack falling to the jaffa wiggle minnow. Lunch this day was particularly interesting because almost as we tied up a mixed school of fish started bashing mullet or some other small fish within casting distance of the boat. Whilst Daryl made the sandwiches I caught seven or eight fish most of which were thumper tarpon and a few medium queenies. Anyway they disappeared just as quick as they arrived and that gave me a chance to eat.

On the final day I was fishing with Peter on Daryl's boat. Somehow Peter had managed to fish the previous four days without doing any bottom fishing and he wanted to give that a go. I of course had been swoffing my nine and ten weight rods all week and because my arms were a bit weary I also agreed to bottom bash as long as it was only for an hour or so. Daryl said he wanted to target black jew fish for the camp table and took us to a reef in water of only about 10 meters. When we arrived he anchored on his GPS mark very carefully and we dropped our lines. We were in position about fifteen minutes before the change of tide and Daryl said nothing would happen until the tide started to push in. On cue I had a couple of small bites and when I struck was surprised at the weight and strength of the fish. This was my first jew fish ever and even though it was on bait it was a lot of fun. We stayed on that mark for just an hour and I was rewarded with six jew fish averaging around 23 pounds with the largest tipping the scales at 27 pounds. After cleaning the fish we headed back into Snake Bay and spent our last afternoon looking for GT's, threadfin salmon and big barra. We didn't find them but did get quite a few fish along the way as well as a nice queeny on a pilchard over white clouser.

It was all over as quick as it started. As I was sitting in the plane on the return trip I found myself conjuring up strategies to catch that big barra , GT and threadfin salmon that we didn't find on the last day. I reckon I've got it all worked out but I'll have to wait for the next trip to see for sure.

Last modified: 11-Jun-2008.