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What's News At Cape Don?
December 2005 Seasons greetings to you all! After our unfortunate start to the season with cyclone INGRID causing havoc on our opening day in early March this year, Cape Don has enjoyed a good season with many familiar faces re-visiting Cape Don. The Lodge is looking better than it ever has with new roof, new exterior shutters and it is now all newly painted thanks to INGRID. Each year we find more “Hot Spots” around Cape Don with the aid of new GPS and colour sounders fitted to the boats making the guides work easier to get the clients on to that fish of a lifetime. These new spots have added to our ever increasing species count with Giant Herring, Jewfish and Golden Snapper becoming more regular on the catch list. It has also been a good year for cobia which are such a hard fighting fish. Trawling with deep diving lures in some of our deeper creek holes has produced bigger barra than previously caught. Also on the increase is the number of female anglers coming to Cape Don and quite often they have showed some of the guys a thing or two with better catches for the day. Saltwater Fly Fishing We have noticed a steady increase in the amount of fly fishermen to Cape Don, - often fresh water enthusiasts wanting to try their hand at the saltwater monsters. I am pleased to say that we have successfully expanded the horizons of these freshwater flyrodders with some novices catching longtail tuna and barramundi on fly using flies they made at Cape Don with the assistance of our guides. At one point we could not keep up supply of surf candy flies to the mean fighting tuna machines. We have had good success on barramundi with a fly from Dogtooth, called the “shaggy dog” in colours red and white with 2/0 hooks. The ever reliable “clouser minnow” in white/orange, white/chartreuse, has caught everything from Giant Trevally to Coral Trout in clear water along our many fringing reefs skirting the shores near Cape Don.
Cape Don Lodge is equipped with 8 weight and 10 weight Loomis fly gear ready for the learner or experienced fly fisherman along with all the appropriate flies and fly lines. Our new jetty is proving to be an ideal place for beginners to learn to cast and at the same time catch their first fish on fly. New records broken at Cape Don for 2005 September saw the much awaited longtail tuna arrive in their truck loads, sending the sea birds into a frenzy as the tuna rounded up huge schools of bait sometimes measured by the acre. The bait schools were so large it was possible for 4 boats to be attacking the same bait ball at the same time with consistent hook-ups on all boats. It was during this period that a new Cape Don record was broken. Brian Anderson from New Zealand now holds the “Heavy Haul Day” award at Cape Don. On one day Brian caught a total of 49 fish, (3 longtail tuna, 23 Spanish mackerel, with 11 other species including Queenfish and Giant Trevally) with an estimated total weight of 280Kg of fish landed in one day by one person. Brian stayed for a week and each day the fishing was close to the one just mentioned. The other record broken in 2005 was for the most species caught on a boat in one week, the record is now pushed from 46 species to 49 species by “Team Duncan” in November 2005
Bookings for next year Every indication so far suggests a big wet season as we have already experiencing good rain at Cape Don since early November, at least a month earlier than usual. This will produce good fishing for barramundi in March / April / May as the fresh water starts to run off the mudflats into the creeks. The spring tides of these months will book out early as these are the best periods for getting to the snags where the barra are ready to ambush. We have noticed a trend of the past few years that people wanting to book Cape Don in the June to August period often leave their booking too late and find that the flights to Darwin are all full and that there is no accommodation left in Darwin over that period. The airfares certainly rise over this period also. The problem is certainly the worst around the major events such as the Darwin Cup and the V8 Supercars. If some of you are wanting to combine the major events with a fishing package before or after - PLEASE BOOK EARLY to avoid disappointment. The dates for the major events in Darwin for 2006 are:-
We can offer to help with booking accommodation in Darwin and transfers to and from our aircraft if groups combine these events with fishing at Cape Don. Quote of the month “Today I caught more fish than I have in the past 20 years.” - Peter Hobson NSW Single Share? We now keep a register of single clients who would be happy to share a boat and room with another like minded single client to take advantage of the twin share rate as opposed to the single rate at Cape Don. Just advise us of your preferred dates and we will see if we can match up another single client to save you money. Specials for 2006 We are offering a special 20% discount for any new bookings for the dates between 20th and 31st March 2006. They will be sold on a space available basis only. Season greetings to all,
Tight Lines!
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