Sunday Territorian 4 Apr 2010
Sunday Territorian; NewspaperNT
2010-04-04
This publication contains may contain links to external sites. These external sites may no longer be active.
English
Community newspapers -- Northern Territory -- Darwin.; Australian newspapers -- Northern Territory -- Darwin.
Nationwide News Pty. Limited
Darwin
application/pdf
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Nationwide News Pty. Limited
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/220182
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/700380
www.sundayterritorian.com.au Sunday Territorian, Sunday, April 4, 2010 43 P U B : NTNE-WS-DA-TE:4-APGE:43 CO-LO-R: C-M Y-K 1/2 DAY OFFSHORE FULL DAY OFFSHORE EXTENDED TRIPS 8932 3006 BLUEWATER CHARTERS 3 DAY EXTENDED TOURS - SEATS AVAILABLE MARCH 26-27-28 e r3 7 0 7 2 0 Clay target shooting can be for ladies and juniors AGE NO BAR: Great-grandmother Audrey, 75, shooting skeet in Darwin By BART IRWIN NT FIELD and Game, in conjunction with Darwin Clay Target Club, runs a program to encourage ladies and juniors to take up clay target shooting as their sport. It began on January 19, 2007 and since then it has been run every Friday evening throughout the Dry. The program is run at the Darwin Clay Target Club, Abala Rd, Marrara opposite the hockey grounds. Shooting starts at 4.30pm and all who attend receive a full and thorough introduction covering firearms safety, gun fit, vision and stance. If necessary we will turn the lights on and continue to shoot into the dark. Night shooting has been a regular occurrence at the Darwin club. Typically, beginners start using a 28 gauge shotgun which is very light and has little felt recoil. When they are comfortable with the basics of shotgun shooting they move up to a 12 gauge shotgun. One of our aims is to develop subjunior, junior and ladies squads from which future NT teams will be selected to compete at the national titles. The 2009 Ladies Skeet National Handicap Champion, Kelly Dalton, and the 2006 Skeet National Handicap Champion, Craig Herbert, are products of this program, as is Denise Millington-Flay who won a C grade gold medal at her first National titles. While our focus is on the under-represented ladies and juniors groups the program is open to all. The program continues to expand with new shooters, commencing almost every Friday night. It focuses on skeet shooting and is designed to cater for novices or those who may never have fired a gun but are interested in trying out our sport. The clubs licence covers those participating so a shooters licence is not required. The club also holds public liability insurance which covers visitors for their first three visits. After that they must decide if they wish to continue and if so they must then join the club. The club and coaches provide guns for the program and ammunition and targets are available on the night. Participants are required to wear enclosed footwear and eye and ear protection sun and prescription glasses are acceptable. Safety glasses and disposable ear plugs are available at the club. Skeet shooting was developed as a means of maintaining and developing waterfowl shooting skills in the off season so goose and duck hunters might be interested in touching up their skills. Clay target shooting is a safe and healthy sport, suitable for all ages so if you would like to give it a try come along to the Darwin Clay Target Club on a Friday evening, or contact George Hennessy on 8945 2234 or by email to george.hennessy@westnet.com.au. HAPPY SNAPPING: Andrew McCourt shows off a 75cm barra caught at Finniss River during a recent trip A WINNER: Shayne Melbourne with a 86cm Finniss River barra HITTING THE RIGHT SPOT: Jamie ONeill fished the East Alligator River and nailed a string of chrome saltwater barramundi Got Ones Craig Grosvenor said Easter was unofficially the beginning of the dry season. I can feel the excitement building ... the bluewater scene is looking promising with early reports of sailfish and even a small black marlin sighted wide of Dundee, he said. Thats got tongues wagging and the game gear is being rigged up ready for action ... and its only just April! In general, the barra scene has kicked off with an explosive start. At Shady Camp the quantity and quality of big fish from the mouths so far this year has been as good as Ive ever seen it. The Daly River turned it on too, although it was a long haul to get there down around the mouth. I wont repeat the claims or I will sound like a broken record. The Adelaide River started off ordinary, then it was like someone turned the switch on for about a week. Big barra came from Beatrice Creek upstream and Black Jungle, the Wilshires, The Narrows and Saltwater Arm in the lower regions. It mustve been good cos Got Ones Mal Strong went back twice and he is purely a hardcore bluewater fanatic. Ha ha ... thatll teach him to bag out the barra boys. OK, so what to do now? Coming into April, Id be keeping a close eye on the weather website www.bom.gov.au for daily updates. If you cant catch a mud crab at the moment, you mustve forgotten the bait. Big bucks are everywhere and every day we are hearing reports like 12 crabs in two pulls. It doesnt get any better than that. As you would expect ... Shoal Bay, Saltwater Arm and Darwin Harbours Middle Arm all returned good numbers. The landbased guys are into it with Reidys metal jigs working well on a fast retrieve. The queenfish have responded nicely and a few macks are about now. I might mention that landbased barra fishing has been worth the effort too. Charles Point continues with its jewfish affairs, most fish around the 11kg mark. Funnily enough, the bigger tides are doing well right on the change and blue salmon are among the catches on dead baits. On the www.fishingterritory.com forums Ando1001 posted a report about a Corroboree Billabong trip he did on Thursday. He wrote: We put in this morning with only two other cars in the park. The water colour was pretty good up to the cutting to the Rockhole where it went a bit cloudy. The Rockhole had cloudy water too. Colour was good again heading towards and way passed the S-bends. We didnt get a barra all day (not for lack of trying) but got heaps of tarpon up to around 40cm. There were guys working on the ramp when we pulled out this arvo. They were mixing cement and gravel to solidify the dirt at the top of the ramp (Im guessing for the Easter rush). Even though we didnt get what we went for, it was very scenic out there, and the tarpon made it fun. Again on www.fishingterritory.com forums, Dinga posted a story about a Finniss River trip that started well but ended badly. He wrote: I went to the Finniss River and did OK, after trolling around for only about five minutes I had the first fish in the boat and it went 68cm. The pressure was off for the rest of the day and the following day people were boating good-sized barra in all parts of the river. There were plenty of fish at the mouth and we didnt push any further up than the first rockbar. All the luck changed when we got out of the water when one of the other blokes we were with got T-boned as he was turning into the driveway of the place we were staying. The bloke ... nailed my mate in the drivers side rear door, writing off two cars, two trailers and with a lot of boat damage. At least no one was hurt. (Other) than that it was a great trip, we even did OK with the trickies, snapper and coral trout out wide.