Do an extended trip bloke. Day tripping is not going to get you quality sized fish.

I use arafura blue water charters when I go out for reefies, generally a mixed bag of fingermark mackeral and jewfish, but not really of size when in close.

of the better larger charter operators. they used to do a 2 day overnighter that puts them on better ground

 Thanks for the replies, only doing a day trip due to time constraints

cheers

My 2 cents,  I fished with Arafura in the middle of last year during the neap tides. The operator turned up 30 minutes late and proceeded to deliver a 30 minute safety induction (useful I admit, but could have been done on route especially given he was late). We chugged out for 2 and half hours, I had taken my own gear which was quite fortunate as the stuff on the boat was a little tatty albeit functional. At the first drop the current was running at 2.2kn so i dropped in a 150g jig in 20 m of water and it was 40m off the back of the boat before I could say Huh? The skipper had a chuckle and said waste of time rig up a bait rod......so I did. persisted with that for an assortment of extremely small bits and pieces over the next hour until the current desisted. went back to SPs and jigs and snagged a few bettwer fish including a spaniard ~14kg.

Whilst the skipper was deliberating over whether or not to try his super Jewie spot another guy hooked up big (most likely a shark). Now initially he was encouraged by the skip and all on board to keep battling away and drag it up,. However the encouragement turned to harassment and eventually got blamed by the skipper for making everyone late for getting to the next spot and missing the bite. 

IMO the skipper was a bit of a knob, quite pompous and unprofessional, the deckie however was a super star and couldnt be of more help. I caught a few fish at what I was informed was a challenging time of year. Would I recommend them - nope. However i havent done an overnighter or live aboard with them which might be quie a different experience.

 Whent on a 2 day fishing trip last august with a mate went both days with barra base fishing charters 1st day went to the little Finnis river with 2 others plus guide  pitched up at  5 from hotel  drove to Dundee (think it was named after the movie) all got a barra ,first for me ticked off a fish I always wanted to catch retuned to hotel about 6 shower grub few beers bed up again at 5 for Day 2 again went out of Dundee again 4 people plus guide blue water fishing on way out saw fish breaking surface we had a trawl around I caught a Spanish Mac on other off my list not huge but still great to catch.  then went quite moved to drop spot  busted of a couple of times then got huge bite close to surface went real heavy could not understand then guide told me you have been sharked sure enough busted line another 1st. Ha ha. Others landed snapper baldys red throat 8 good fish in all lost several others to sharks guide put a livey out the back hooked a big spaniard handed rod to girl on board and told her to wind like hell as sharks were coming we could see 4 or 5 swimming around the boat. She got the spaniard to edge of the boat after some spectacular leaps as guide bent down to lift fish big shark bit it in half almost lost his  hand. Fought the shark between us swapping every 10 mins or so got it close to the boat a couple of times then it just peeled of 2 meter plus estimate . Then long run back in 50 ks. This was the worst part as the boat was realy a barra boat rear console Ali so a lot of slapping and pounding on the way back in, killer on my back.  They filleted all fish and froze them for us to pick up on way to airport on Monday morning. Great trip and really good guides both days we caught more than other charters operating out of the same area . would definatly recommend them they told good stories shared a few beers before the trip back to hotel.

Brief run down on experience with fishing charter operator out of Darwin.
Picked up from caravan park just out of town all's good taken out to a camp 100 ks out from Darwin wife myself and guide all in 16ft tinnie gear supplied bit decrepit but assured it is all fully functional.
The guide fished and caught 3 big barra we caught nil.
second day out guide caught 2 very big barra we didn't get a bite (trawling lures both days).
On the water we were given a two lte bottle of water each with a lunch pack of salad and a chicken leg for lunch.
So we parted with some good dollars and got a bad luck buddy make sure you come again and hopefully you will do better next time. (I don't bloody well think so).

Now some questions to put to yourselves,

When you pay good dollars to the guide and he fishes, and is the only one to catch fish, who's' fish are they, and why.

Just what did you pay the guide for.

We have been out on charters down here in Perth and always come home with a feed of fish, if we didn't catch any thing decent the skipper gave us a couple of kgs of snapper or dhuies price included lunch and soft drinks.

I should add at the end of the second day all the way back to town we were told by the guide how much he was going to get for the fish as he had a licence to sell fish, (that made us feel just great, I don't think)
This was some years back I must admit but I would like to hear your views on just what you think you should get when you go on a charter.

 Have been on a few charters out of darwin and would rate barra base on the low end of the scale found the guide to be very full of himself, we caught no fish that day but thats fishing, what pissed me off is the guide continually repeating if only you had been here yesterday.

To do any good on a day trip in darwinnyou really have to pick you tides if big springs are running makes the fishing hard and small neaps even harder, you need the tides to be roughly around neaps building into springs, you still get the clearer water with a bit of water movement.

If you can make the time overnighters of extended trips are the better way to do a trip. Did a 5 day trip with Fish Darwin and couldn't rate them highly enough both for the fishing and the skipper snd deckhand.

The best thing about fish darwin is the boats ard smaller they omlh have up to 7 or 8 guests on  board which means more fishing room for everyone on board..with arafura and other companies they have bigger boats which means more people on board which means less one on one with the skipper/deckhand because generally speaking they do have a fair bit of knowledge about the area they fish.

If you can only do a day trip you may have to take the good with the bad  unfortunately can be hard work finding fish on a day trip and august can be very windy as well, maybe try  a tour out of dundee beach they generally have some good fishing out there.

 Had an absolute shocker with Darwin Reef & Wreck  some years back with 4 mates. 4 day trip & skipper was an knob. As we were a late booking he let us on for half price and told us not to say anything to the other guests on board.

We steemed at night all the way out to flat top banks in the roughest seas (maybe 150nautical miles from Darwin past Dundee). Got there at 4am, fished for 2 hours and he decided if was too rough. Then proceed to steem all the way to Bathurst Island (more than 150nautical miles) got there late arvo and it. Caught couple of fish and seas calmed abit then when it got dark he packed all the rods up and said no night fishing, this was specifically after I asked during booking I'd you could night fish. Next morning rough as guts, tried a few spots until all the green client complained bout getting sea sick. Skip pulled the pin on the trip early and it was that rough that steeming back we we under the cabin and looked like the fibre glass went and water started coming in the bedding area.

No refund to anyone. The operator should have just canned the trip - Greed. Was classic when we came back he said will give you a discount next time... Yer righto mate. Never again, we still joke about that trip.