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Just spent 4 days fishin and camping at smallish creek north of Mackay. Hopes were high that we could tangle with a a few early season Barra, even though the day time temps have been struggling to reach 23 degree's.
The trip stated slow with only a couple of small Queenies, trevally and Jacks coming aboard, all on hardbodies and plastics casting to structure and all released. We ended up droping 1 Barra on the troll. So we new they were sort of feeding. That night we went for a flick and Trent managed to pull a 65cm Barra on a shimano ocea fat minnow. Hopes were higher.
Day 2 we headed downstream and caught and released over 10 Flatties to 70cm, 3 jacks to 30ish cm, a good blue salmon, 6 trevally, couple of cod and archer fish, all on plastics, hardbodies and fly.
By the afternoon of day 3 we worked out where the hottest temps were, and found the barra, feeding in only 22-23 degrees in the upper reaches. Between us we caught 6 Barra to around 60cm and about 10 small jacks, trevally and tarpon.
Morning day 4, went back to the same spot, and caught 10 Barra to 70cm, 8 small jacks to 36cm and a few other odd bits, which rounded off an awesome trip with great mates. And stoked to catch Barra and Jacks in winter!
Ended up with 18 Barra, 26 Jacks, 10 Trevs, 11 Flatties, 2 X Queenie, Tarpon, Cod, Archer and a longtom. Most fish were of the smallish variety, inline with the small nature of the creek we were fishin. Fished from 2 small punts- 5 anglers.
Best lures were the shimano fat minnow,esp for barra, and squidgy fish on a 1/6 jig head. All fish were relesed to fight another day...
Great report Matt and nice pictures as well. You will have to get back up there in the warmer months and see if it fishes any better although a trip like that sounds hard to beat. keep the good reports coming.
All quality fish and none caught on bait thats the best thing about fishing and what a creek to flicking in too. I would definately go back in summer and try your luck. At least some of us can get away from work.
You'll just have to work out an excuse to get up here one day in summer and we'll take you out. I'm sure we can think of some workshop or conference to hold up this way that only lasts for about 3 hours on a friday morning.
I'm sure you'll rub it in when that little creek just north of you starts firing again for jacks.
It was an excellent introduction to soft plastics for me though. I had used them on and off for a bit with mixed success. These guys showed me some of the finer points of using SP's and now i'm hooked ! (sorry, bad pun)