Endyalgout Revisited

By Phill Heitmann regular contributor to National Australian Fishing Annual NAFFA

I first spent a week at Endyalgout back in 1998 after some long planning, but this years trip was weird, as though it was foretold.  A call from John Dagan of Darwin Barramundi Tours saying that there had been a cancellation and offering a once in a lifetime cost offer.   Initially I knocked it back and offered it to my fishing mate John Turnbull who snapped it up.  The two Johns (Dagan and Turnbull) immediately set about turning the pressure up on me  which took about 15    no 5 minutes and my hard saved nest egg to buy a new motor bike was plundered.  Oh well, there’s always busses.  The date was set and we only had to wait two weeks as opposed to eight months last time.

Right now I’m sitting looking at over 100 slides of what was probably the best fishing trip of my life and wondering what exactly makes a trip that, a trip of a lifetime.  That can be a variable thing for different folks so I thought I’d do a Dana Skully and do an X Files autopsy on the corpse of this trip

If you were to hand out awards for fishing trips I think the following 5 points would have to be the judging criteria.

1.      The company

Not just the guide and the support staff who look after you but your fishing mates the people you share a  small space with for several days and nights.

2.      Fish caught

The reason we go in the first place, but its not about fillets and its not just about how many fish you catch, its the species and variety of fish and how and where you catch them.

3.      The scenery

The country, the wildlife and your interactions with them.

4.      Comfort

Comfort which includes safety can make an average trip an outstanding one lack of it can ruin a great one. That includes accommodation as well as the boat and vehicles you travel in.

5.      Tucker

Not only armies march on their stomachs and despite the fact that most tucker tastes good when your fishing there’s a big gulf between average tucker and meals that you remember as part of the holiday.

Lets divert from the normal fishing article theme (if there’s such a thing) of zinging lines and screaming drags and apply the 5 points to our stay at Endyalgout Island

1.      The company.

The anglers,

Me , I suppose I could say now a veteran of barra trips seeing Dagan has been dragging me up here for over a decade. My best barra  45 pounder is due to John.

John Turnbull another croweater one of those blokes who could catch a fish out of a toilet bowl in SA but using all of Dagans tackle and expertise here in the Territory.

Then there’s Brett, Queensland’s representative and another long time mate of  Dagan. No trip is a trip without Bretto, you can have fun even without catching fish with Brett. I once dacked Bretto when he was defenceless and tied to a rampaging big black jewfish. That uncharitable act would come back to haunt me this trip.

The competent and professional staff.

The guide John Dagan. 

John, (God this grinds! Having to say nice thing about the mongrel) If your looking to fault a guide in quality of vehicles, boats, tackle, mechanical knowledge and fishing ability then Dagan does not qualify. If however your looking for a “mate” who will pour ice water down the back of your shorts when your fighting a fish or drop green tree frogs on you when you’re asleep, rummage through your tackle box in search of collectibles for his tackle box or give you that playful nudge when your attempting to answer the call of nature at the back of the boat well then Dagans your man. Fortunately for normal clients these extras are not available unless you are classified as a “mate” of  20 years who will not sue after being subjected to any of the above services.

Dennis Sten “Stenny”

Stenny the man behind Big Barra Safaris tends now to do more camp management and cooking for the clients than guiding. His beer battered barra has gained legendary status.  Share a drink with Dennis at the waters edge at the end of the day as the sun sets, I reckon he has the best job in the world.

Simon Sten

Simon gives his Dad assistance at camp and was no mean chilli mud crab cook.  He made sure the showers were ready when we got back, the rooms were cleaned and the beds made to almost military precision.  He also had a high tolerance to customer generated stirring which was just as well. The departing line every day became “Oi Simon, wave ya dopey @%#*” after he failed to return a royal wave as we gave him as we left for the first days fishing.

2.      Fish caught

Like I said its not about fillets and its not just trolling up barramundi every day.  Apart from pouring ice water down your bum cleavage its what Dagan is good at, mixing up the fishing unless of course you want to do trolling for big barra every day.

Depending on the tide we amused ourselves by:-

Motoring amongst the mangroves at creek mouths digging sighted barra out from seemingly impossible snags.  Many of the fish were less than a rods length away and were simply responding to the intrusion of the lure into their territory. The fact that the boat was right on top of them didn’t appear to bother them at all. Sighting fish and casting too them is just the best buzz.

Trolling or jigging up golden snapper amongst the mangroves, many of these were the best snapper I have ever caught in the Territory and boy did they hit those rattlers hard. We bagged other incidental species like barramundi, bream, Estuary Cod, Oc Oc and Long Tom in the process.

In one creek where the rock bottom has lots of ominous dark holes we had three knock down battles with Juvenile Queensland Groper that exploded from the caves engulfed the lure and then attempted to dive straight back in the hole.  Miraculously we won every battle and we even saw the ugly heads appear from the caves before they ate the lures.  One coughed up a big live mudcrab as we netted it just to show the appetite these things have.

My personal high was one snag and one lure in particular.  If you have ever busted a gut trying to catch a decent jew imagine four 40 pounders in 4 trolls.  The lure was a fluoro green Halco Scorpion 4M.  It could not miss and no one else got a sniff.  On fish number three I failed to see Bretto sneaking up on me and the dacking episode years earlier came back to haunt me.  When you got a hard running Jew you cant spare a hand to pull your pants up, It wouldn’t have been so bad if Dagan hadn’t followed it up with a cupful of ice water.

The very next day it was the same result 4 more jewies but Turnbull was using my lure in fact everyone else were using my lures (for some reason every Halco Scorpion had disappeared from my tackle box during the trip out).

Trevally and queenfish were the targets along a spit on a small island offshore. As the tide drained across a mangrove point the fish go nuts over simple bucktail jigs and up to 20 fish are fighting over your lure. A hooked fish is held near the boat bringing in its mates and the other anglers simply jig up frenzied fish.  Often sharks charge in and tear hooked fish apart.  There is no telling what species you might jig up while doing this we also hooked a wolf herring and small mackerel.

During a reef fishing session we bagged all manner of reef fish. Bretto had a half hour session tied to a horse of a trevally that he dragged out of an impossible situation.  John Turnbull defeated a lure eating jewfish that has a habit of breaking anglers hearts in this spot every time.  When released it headed straight back to the rock hole.  I caught a new species (to me) it was a catfish but if all catfish were like this I’d fish for nothing else.  It was still ugly (I said it was a catfish) but instead of the rounded head this thing had a bullet shaped head, built for speed I imagine.  It hit harder and fought tougher than any of the black jew in fact I was sure it was a Jew till I landed it.

Mud Crabs!!!, did we eat some mud crabs, they were every where.  We got them from set pots and often scooped up crabs as they sunned themselves in shallow water in the creeks.  We also gathered a more than a few oyster covered rocks for Oyster Kilpatrick that night.

The jewel in the crown of the trip was two barra sessions on a building tide over a rock shelf a bare kilometre from camp. It was the best barra sessions I have ever had in my life. It’s the type of bite that wins Barra Classics.  A school of barra from just legals to over 30 lb were in feeding mode in the shallow muddy water covering the oyster covered rocks. We anchored up and cast to the fish , any lure would do.  We lost fish and we lost lures but no one cared. We lost count but we must have landed 50 barra in a half hour session two days in a row. If you lost a fish you grabbed a lure (any lure) tied it on as fast as you could and cast out again.  I am always sceptical of any article where the claim “A fish every cast” is made.  Normally it’s a blatant promotion if not an outright untruth, but for about 15 minutes it was the case here. If you got a lure back untouched you were paid out as a useless angler.  If you dropped a fish, often you were hit again as soon as the lure pulled free.  Two outstanding captures were Brettos black Jew from between the rocks and John Turnbull’s estimated 30+ plus fish that no one much paid attention to till the slides came back so intense was the fishing frenzy.

3.      The scenery

Getting to Endyalgout is usually done by air and the scenery along the coast is fantastic flying over mangroves, rivers, reefs and the Arhnem Land coast.  We drove in with Dagan and the trip through Kakadu and the escarpment past Cahills crossings is equally spectacular.

We reached the camp by boat and from the mess tent or the sleeping quarters the sunrises and sunsets are equally spectacular. Sea eagles, kites and a small resident croc are regular visitors.  The topography changes from mangroves where fruit bat colonies screech to offshore islands and reefs.  The eucalypt scrub extends right to where ochre coloured cliffs fall right into the Timor sea.  Sand bars offshore were heavily marked where turtles had laid their eggs the night before.  Sea birds are just every where.  You don’t feel like a visitor you feel like part of it.  Yours is the only boat on the whole sea, its exclusive rights to the island camp and the area is unchanged since white settlement. The fact that you are on the largest estuarine system in the top end explains the variety of the wildlife.

4.      Comfort

I’ve already mentioned Dagans equipment. That leaves the camp.  There’s no air conditioning here, if your after 5 star then its not for you but I’d rate it higher than 5 star.

The camp is comprised of a series of accommodation steel framed tents and a mess tent.  When I say tent these are serious structures covered with canvas and insect screens.  They are off the ground to maximise air flow and pedestal fans keep the air circulating.

The shower block is new with overhead tanks supplying water to showers and flush toilets  after a days fishing no shower ever felt better and they are ready as soon as you return and have a beer if that’s your wish. The single beds are comfortable for even me and I have one of those temperamental backs.

Even though you come here for the fishing and you make concession’s like sleeping in tents or getting used to the background noise of the generator there is no other way to describe the setup as civilized camping, if camping got better than this you’d call it a hotel.

5.      Tucker

I think a mate of mine said it best to the huge cook at Barra Base once, as he shook his hand he said “I hope you can cook mate coz #$%& I can eat”

Anglers can eat and after a days hard fishing (or even before) most tucker tastes good but muck it up and it becomes the focus of all attention.

Both Stenny and Simon proves themselves deft hands at the hotplate or wok.  Seafood features heavily at the island and Golden Snapper, barramundi graced the table cooked to perfection. Dennis fooled us one night with a chicken stirfry that turned out to be queenfish.  Even Dagan knocked up queenfish in an outstanding numis.

We had a variety of breakfasts every morning, fresh made sandwiches and dips on the boat for lunch plus mudcrabs on ice.  We usually had more mudcrabs before tea which invariably was more tucker than we could eat.  All meals are provided, the only extras is whatever you want to drink which is purchased ahead of the trip and hauled out there.

SUMMARY

Like I said, it was the best trip of my life (so far).  My savings are starting to look healthy again and I suppose sooner of later I may have to decide between a new bike and trying to top this trip.

While I try to decide, if you visit Endyalgout can you do me a favour if Simon sees you off in the morning.  Wait till your 50 yards out, cup your hands and yell

“Oi Simon,  wave ya dopey @#*%!!!”