Take advantage of the great fishing during breaks in the tropical summer, from January to mid-march, when monsoonal rains bring the landscape to life.
The Top End’s tropical summer always starts the year with monsoonal rain that brings the landscape to life. Fishing during the monsoonal breaks can be very good.
Once the monsoon settles over the Top End and soaking tropical rain showers become frequent, the floodplains fill and expand, connecting billabongs and linking them to the main river course. This gives the fish in those waters an opportunity to swim towards the tidal section, feeding in the floodplain channels along the way.
Inland and Estuaries
At this time of year, barra are sometimes on the bite in the tidal rivers, even if they are flooded, though hooking a barra can take quite a bit of hunting around before you locate a patch of feeding fish.
The best barra fishing during the summer is usually in the mangrove creeks and estuaries, like those in Darwin Harbour. Top End estuaries are alive with juvenile prawns in January and February, so these are also excellent months to target black jewfish, golden snapper, cod, pikey bream and mangrove jack, which have moved into the bays and creeks to feed on the prawns and small fish. One of the advantages of estuary fishing in the summer is that the impact of storms is not nearly as great as in unsheltered waters.
Bluewater
Bluewater fishing is totally dependent on the weather conditions during the tropical summer. However, in between monsoons, conditions can improve and anglers have the opportunity to catch quality fish offshore, especially reef fish such as golden snapper, black jewfish, tricky snapper, cod, coral trout and red emperor.
Although there are opportunities to fish during the summer season, at its peak, monsoonal storms are best avoided.