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Cannon Charters - West Coast NT
I've got myself in a bit of a frazzle trying to remember how things happened on my trip up to the NT last week.
For some reason that I can't make sense of right now, when I got back in on day 1 I decided it would be a good idea to not keep a diary or any notes.
I think it was the call of the Pepperjack distracting me...
So basically, last year I committed to go fish Lake Eildon in September. Then we discovered we're expecting baby number 2 - in September...
So a quick shuffle of some plans, a couple of false starts, when a mate gives me a shoulder tap and says stop stuffing around and just come on this trip in April.
Once I got sign off from the boss I started getting excited and had a good hard look at my tackle cave... Well, turns out there was not a lot of shopping to be done...
In preparation I bought 2 river rats, a Raider travel rod to suit trolling, and a Large green Flopy, circa 1970s, for a laugh.
So, Friday before last I get home from work ready to go to the airport first thing Saturday.
I speak to old mate in Darwin and he says 'See you Sunday'... Ummm what?
I thought he was pulling my leg - but no, I was flying Sunday. Lucky he said something, would have been a pain making the trip twice...
Sunday flight up to Darwin was more or less uneventful, except that I met a lovely young lass heading up to fish the Nats with Team NAFA. I expect she'll be featured on a magazine cover at some point or something - I might have to buy a copy for some light bed time reading.
Pub meal Sunday night with most of the boys and an early night ready to take a sea plane out and meet the Cannon the next morning.
Took a Mallard out to Port Keats where we are given the option of fishing the immediate area and steaming later in the afternoon, or steaming while we prep gear and hitting a better spot first up. We chose to fish the better spot, even though it meant a slightly shorter day fishing.
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So first up I was paired with a Ian, who was struggling a bit. Older fella - not in the best form of his life, and in a wrist brace after a fall down some stairs. (Guide - Clint)
We went and slow rolled paddle tails for a good part of the first day and got the monkey off the back with a few barra each. Old fella got his casting (mostly) sorted with zero mobility in his wrist.
Out to the main troll run for the peak times and I pull out my brand spanking new rod. Geeze it looks flash...
Troll troll troll troll, up, down, up, down, up, down... Hit! Load up! SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! Well that was short lived...
The ferrule near the butt exploded, and the line broke after cutting in to the EVA at a funny angle.
It felt like a donkey of a fish... Crushed...
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Anyone know if you can claim warranty on a travel rod when you only have 1/3 pieces?
As the afternoon rolled on, we watched a pack of other guide boats fanging in to the river. A group of 16 split between 4 guides on 2 motherships were joining us. Most of them had at least some courtesy but one of the knobs came through at full noise throwing wake everywhere. The same bloke later opted to pull up on a point in the middle of where 3 Cannon boats and 3 other boats were all cooperating and working a troll line and had his guys casting. The other boats working the troll were quick to point out that even though these boats were all serving the same group, all the guides were contracted separately out of Darwin, and didn't exactly like each other. Actually I am pretty sure everyone just disliked the one guy - and now we did too :)
Day 2 and I pressed for a swap in the fishing arrangements, and hopped aboard with Brad who brought me on to the trip. (Guide - Hayden)
In the morning we trolled a few spots, and cast a few bits and pieces for a few fish.
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This fish came up and nailed my custom Wests Tigers lure as it hit the water.
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But basically made our way upriver to the run off which was blasting down. A couple of boats had beaten us to the junction we wanted to tie up at so we just perched on the inside of the main junction and cast a back eddy on the opposite bank.
I don't know how many fish we caught, but it was red hot. Plenty coming over to mid 70s sort of fish. I pulled out nearly 20 different lures, laid them along the gunnel, tied on a clip and just started banging 1 or 2 fish on each before throwing something else. Some lures took 2 casts for 2 fish, some took 10, but it didn't take a long time. Only one was a 'failure', and that was purely down to blowing out in the current. I'd have probably eventually caught something on it if I just kept floating it in the eddy.
Meanwhile Brad fished a pearl white/chartruese squirrel the whole time, and you couldn't say he outfished me. Despite having the best lure and 30 odd years (12 guiding) barra fishing under the belt.
I dropped a bigger looking fish to a hook that opened up on a peacock bass jig! Another (Cannon) boat pulled in to the same junction with Ralph on board so I told him to pull a jig out of his bag and just roll it deep round the outside of the turbulent water. He had the better angle as the jig was coming back toward him to bring up slack line where mine was drifting across me and I often missed hits with too much belly out. I must have watched him pull another 10 on his jig in no more than 20 minutes while I was still catching fish on other bits and bobs.
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I fluked a few on bream and bass lures - but this little trout lure from Denmark was not up to it...
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Where we should have been trolling for big fish was mostly avoided, due to old mate still anchored back on the same point casting at rats.
In the arvo we volunteered to go on goldy duty and put something in the kill box, as well as hope to tick a black jew off the list. Dropping those Madeye 6" paddle tail prawns saw a few goldys on board for dinner. Unfortunately while being a bit overenthusiastic to get one on board the guide took the top off my spin rod... (Guide was a good fella. Stressing out about it, and very apologetic, but nothing to worry about - if he'd been a twat I'd have charged him for it.)
Not a complete disaster though, clipped it back and continued to use the rod for vertical stuff and landed 3 brassy trevally to over 8kg - so the rod was doing ok.
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That evening we upped anchor and motored to the next river, hoping we'd get at least a day in there before the other boats followed.
Day 3 and it was a return to the starting arrangement with Ian. (guide - Clint)
I started the morning in the mouth of the river, on a sand bank reminiscing. Whatever!
I jumped out with the guide and we freed us up a quick smart. Other boats were on croc watch for us. (The the guides have been coming in for a few weeks already this year and marked new low tide tracks, etc... So it was properly low!)
I set about casting an x-rap while old mate stuck with slow rolled z-mans. I don't think the "twitch twitch" was happening for him with the bunged up wrist. Banged a good few fish on the x-rap and the confidence was right up. This is how I want to be catching fish, no offence to z-mans...
We worked along some sand bars as the tide came up, sighting fish and bust ups and casting vibes for a couple of fish but they were tuned in to the jelly prawns so we couldn't really interest them with the bigger offerings.
Went and hit another spot that had plenty of timber, and while the other fella stuck with slow rolled paddle tails, I started hopping shrimp and jerkbait style placcies. I felt like I was bream or flatty fishing - particularly with my (now not quite so) light spin rod and 2500 spinning reel. We banged a shitload of barra in the morning session - mostly on the plastics. And it was interesting - because I never really imagined myself slow hopping minnows for barra... Some would say you can't catch barra on anything but paddle tails - but if I can do it, it's a piece of piss...
Anyway I was up front, and old mate fishing from the middle, and I noticed he kept getting his pants stuck in hooks from the rods not in use, and I think he kicked them lightly a couple of times... After having to cut a hook off my lure to free it from his shoe laces I said boss you best take the casting deck and I'll cast back here. Some time later he dropped his tackle bag off the deck on to the rod butts (You probably know whats coming here... I knew what was coming here...)
The afternoon of day 3 we mostly trolled. I think for most of the arvo I was using a Reidys Judge from the guide. We donged a few nice fish to mid 70s, and a couple of healthy threadies that were straight on ice. A huge run of blue salmon kept us clearing lines all afternoon.
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A couple of real highlights were eyeing off a tree inside the troll line but out just a bit from the bank, and just pulling our lines short and running through there a couple of times for big hookups, then gassing it out - I was squatting up front, holding the rail, like you see in GT video. Fun stuff.
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Also had a 60ish barra boatside when it was engulfed by a big groper that towed us around for a good 20 minutes before rubbing me off. The guide was talking about towing back to the sand bars for a photo. I was never the boss, though. It certainly never swam in the direction we wanted to go. I don't think the bugger even cared about being hooked.
Next morning I jumped on board with Ralph (guide - Mike) and we headed straight for the river again.
We'd had a couple of hours in there before the flotilla of other boats arrived. We laughed (cruelly...) as 2 of them immediately beached. Looked like they were following a GPS route that must have been set along a channel that washed out a couple of years ago. And there was a lot more water than when we'd come in.
Because all the boats were already fishing 4 up - those clients just had to sit there for a couple of hours. At least the tide was rising, I guess.
Anyway, these guys clearly had no idea how to navigate or fish this river and we had to deal with boats pulling in to whatever bank they saw a fish hooked up on. The guides kept it all relatively calm. Most of the blow ins at least had some etiquette. Old mate from casting the point on day 1 pulled in on a bank he saw us (and Haydens boat) on some fish and got comfortable for the rest of the day. Wanting to avoid the traffic, we just opted to shoot further up river where we suspected they wouldn't try to follow as it was still pretty low with prominent sandbars.
We got casting again and pinned a lot of fish. Again, nothing huge, but we were seeing new country, catching fish, drinking beer, loving life... I nailed a fish on a small popper, and one on the Flopy - despite guides protesting that I shouldn't fish it as it was in too good condition. Certainly some fun was had.
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After lunch we had a bit of a troll but noticed old mate still on the same bank, and the rest of the boats on the 'main' trolling bank. Those blokes were certainly not seeing much country. At some point my other "too heavy" trolling rod decided to pack it in as well - under no load apart from the light wiggle of a trolled lure. I suspect courtesy of a couple of swift kicks and a bag drop... But who knows why things happen...
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So we headed outside again to try and bang a jew. I dropped a Big Willy over the side and it came up slack instantly...
Bloody Macks. So popped my last one on, got it to the bottom, and got to work. I thought I was on a good jew that had us on the move chasing the fish on the spin gear again. When we got colour we were a bit susprised to see it was 1.15m of queeny that had slogged it out in the deep stuff. Still no jew, but queeny gets a big tick off the bucket list. I think we drank some more beers and donged a couple of small goldens, but maybe we just drank the beers and talked gibberish... Who knows...
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Day 5 we switched round again and I was fishing with Martin (guide - Hayden)
Martin has been off the grog for 7 years so my liver had a small reprieve this day, with no peer pressure I took it *slightly* easier.
We had a good morning, mostly trolling back at the same bank that old mate STILL hadn't moved off. We caught a good fish in the morning which ate both lures behind the boat! Which somehow managed to not make a complete mess of the lines.
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I got a small shark, trolling a gold classic. Caught fish casting a 6" Happy Rocks, which was then picked up by a huge ray which took us for a ride... Yet again, I was never the boss of that fish.
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And I also pinned my best barra for the week (only a pup at 77.5/78 ) on one of the Mark A timbers I'd brought along.
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At lunch we saw some tuna busting up so we decided to go chase a few of those. We were screaming around chasing bust ups, and as most of you would know, we were late to the party most of the time. But I still got a couple on an old squidgy that I found on a South Coast beach several years ago that was in the bottom of my bag. So they are obviously pretty fussy.
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But good fun all the same. We had a few drifts looking for those elusive jew again - only to be find a patch of cod more than willing to eat a willy as long as themselves...
During the arvo session the other operators had taken off back in the direction of the first river. That evening we had to decide whether to head to another area overnight for a single day trying to nut it out or fish where we were one more day and have a slightly shortened day before making a long run back to Darwin. We opted to stay - we knew fish were there, and we had a few things still to try.
The last days fishing came around and Brad and myself (guide - Mike) decided on a nice relaxing day just doing whatever tickled our fancy. We'd caught plenty of fish (although the big ones eluded me) had plenty of fun and just wanted to cruise around. We started way up the top of the river having a bit of a cast and pinning a couple of fish in nice country. It wasn't red hot but it was consistent all morning, pinning a couple of fish here and there. Mostly casting but the odd troll worked in. I pulled a couple more lures out I was eager to swim including one of Al49's timber ABMs.
I picked up a couple of rats on it, but didn't stop for a pic because I thought I'd get a better one. Not to be - but there should (?) be some gopro footage of them when I get to sort through it.
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The shortened afternoon session saw us opt to stay in the blue again, and have a crack at a spot where we hoped the queenies would come through rampaging on surface. That plan never came to fruition. The top section of my spin rod finally decided to pack it in and call it quits after a few casts with a surface lure. And I got dusted up and tore through most of my remaining vibes on some unstoppables down deep.
Back at the boat and we had a few ales to wind down while we packed down our gear...
While removing my reel from my casting rod - the EVA that was glued to the reel seat nut broke completely off - just to round it out and bring the injury list up to include every rod unpacked from my tube...
A few guys had a crack at some skeet shooting off the bow as we headed home in the afternoon sun. I had a look but determined that if I was going to make a dent in the remaining beer rations, playing with a shotty was not in my best interests...
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A few notes about the Cannon...
Just fugging awesome.
Great boat - obviously purpose built. Bunks are a wee bit narrow but comfortable and I slept like a log every night.
Benny is a top skipper, runs a tight operation, and it's obvious that the guides all work well together and work well for him.
Food on board was top notch. Great variety, well prepared, could not fault it. And not to disrespect the chef and the great meals daily in any way, but probably the highlight for me was queenfish 'nummus' prepared by Benny. Really just spot on.
I've not done any of these kinds of trips (Amazon houseboats are a bit different) but a couple of the guys have said outright that it is the best run boat and operation they've seen. This includes a bloke who ran his own trawlers and mothership for decades, and has done trips all over the world (spending his kids inheritance haha).
I'll certainly be looking to make a return trip I think. If the family situation allows it. Being away Sunday to Sunday and fishing almost full days Monday to Saturday is bloody spot on in my book. Definitely better in the timings than 15 days out to fish 6.5 days overseas last time.
(I wish I could say I was being sponsored to tell you this... But unfortunately this is just be honest, full fee paying, neville nobody opinion...)
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