Daly River/ Woolianna/N.T.

Wal,

Haven't been there as yet, but I am going with another bloke in June for 12 weeks fishing. There and the south aligator river. He assures me that it is a great place. He has been there a number of times. We are camping more towards the mouth of the Daly. Express from Sydney and then just settle back and fish. Looking forward to it

John

Hi Wal ,

I have fished the Daly half a dozen times in the Barra Classic and am going up to Woolianna this April with my tinny and a couple of mates .

Woolianna is the best park , as it is the furthest down the river ( closest to the best fishing ) and has great boat launching and mooring facilities . Also you do not have to cross the river to get to this caravan park - which can be quite difficult if the wet continues late as it sometimes does .

The good fishing starts below Browns Creek - you could camp there last time I was up , but it is bush camping with no facilities ( or it was last time I was there ). Also at Browns , it can be difficult to launch a decent sized tinnie .

The Daly can be a bit tricky if you have never fished any of the tidal rivers up there before . There are sand bars and rock bars to be careful of and the tidal flow can get you into trouble too .If you have not fished there before , maybe you should ask lots of questions when you get there , and try to follow another boat for the first couple of days - I strongly suggest you do this .

Fishing there is mostly trolling and live bait . Casting to the snags always seems to be a waste of time , although using softbaits at the creek mouths usually gets quite a few smaller fish . You need to take lures that troll at 10' and some deeper diving ones for the deeper holes deeper .Also make sure you take a "tackle back as you get snagged a lot .

The Barra Nationals Run April 16 - 23 and the Barra Classic runs May 1-5 .
There will be probably be 35 to 50 of these boats in each comp tearing up and down the river during these dates , so maybe you would want to avoid these times . On the other hand , these are good tides to fish and it is quite entertaining to watch their antics as they troll 20 yards behind each other after someone has caught a fish . You can find out good spots to troll by watching them because , on the whole , they are pretty switched on fishermen . Also it is a huge river so even with 50 extra boats it is possible to find plenty of areas to be by yourself .

I am getting there on April 28 . If you see a silver Toyota TD with a Trak Shak , wander over and say hello .

All the best ,

Willie

PS . I have booked a site . I am not sure if that was neccessary , but maybe you should check this out , if you have not already .

Willie,
thanks for the reply.
djdubbelboer@yahoo.com is correct; Yahoo has a 250MB mailbox
or try bluemarlin@iinet.net.au
maybe your emai server has a problem with the file size you're trying to email.

Cheers,
Dave