Awoonga 18th to 24th Feb - Bills Bugs

[Bad_Bazza]

Hi all,
I have just returned from a week at Awoonga and my results read like this 57 hits for 36 hookups and 25 fish landed. My best day (and my last day) was 9 fish.
This I add was without my electric motor which died on the first morning on the dam.
The hits to hookups ratio needs explaining and I will get to that because I'm hoping someone out there can explain how to overcome the problem.
I was on the dam at 3 pm on Monday for about 25 minutes and had about a dozen casts when I picked up my first hookup on Squidgy Pro lite and the fish then proceeded to throw it back at me. Well I knew there were about a 1000 cast to be made to the next one. It didn't turn out that bad though as I had another hookup on dusk and this time the fish chewed through the leader (I was using a Leathal ready made leader on my plastics rod). I ended up the day with no fish landed but two hookups.
Tuesday was the start of a real test when I lowered the electric nothing happened. I then went through the process of checking everything out, battery connections, leads, plugs etc without any joy. I was now thorougly P****d off.
I went on the troll to calm myself down and think about how I was going to deal with things for the rest of the week. As is usual with trolling after about 3/4 an
hour and nothing I had to move back to casting. I had worked out in my mind how I was going to appoach the rest of the week. I had to find banks which had the wind blowing along or almost along them and more importantly banks that like that held fish.
On Tuesday afternoon late I managed two fish on Tango Dancers on dusk at the point where I had scored on Monday.
Wednesday on the water just after midday and went up Ivenagh Creek for a quick look (in retrospect I don't think I spent nearly enough time in there) and it was very coloured especially upstream.
I then headed into NZ Gully and had a quick look at the prospects for the night session and worked out a couple of areas that I wanted to fish.
From there headed up to Brolga Island and found that I could drift along the edge of the submerged grass and weeds, and the end result was three good fish from here. A friend fishing alongside in his boat managed two as well. This looked like being a good prospect for me for the rest of the week.
Thursday I was on the water just after midday and started on the point leading into Riverstone Creek and got a hookup not long after starting. It wasn't to bad on the drift as the wind was reasonable so I could get a few casts in before having to push the boat back out. Moved on from here to Pelican Bay and scored a fish to start the day. I moved out to the upstream edge of the bay and the wind was just about spot on to drift this edge and I only had to make a couple of adjustments during the drift. This edge proved to be a ripper and I picked up four fish along here (all of the fish were on Sqiudgy Pro Lites) and missed three others. I scored another couple of hookups off the edges working upstream but the wind had now kicked and I was constantly having to drive the boat out from the shore so it was move time. Moved up to Brolga Island as it was now closing on night and managed to find water quiet enough to fish and scored a hookup and again the leader chewed through.
Friday was a shocker with only fish landed for the day. I was with a club group and all reports for the day suggested that the rapid increase in temperature had an effect on the bite. The fish came from Brolga Island area. Another interesting event was a hookup right up the back of Andrews Bay in a group of trees in 2 ft (yes that's right 2 ft) of water. I set up a drift along an edge of drowned grass and the lure ticked some weed and I gave it a rip and got smashed and nearly drowned by the water coming off the beast that erupted alongside the boat.
It got rid of the plastic in short time but I guarantee I've added another five years to my life with the adrenalin rush! I had a pretty short day as the heat had got to me today and was coming off the water at the best time of the day.
Friday saw me on the water with my brother in law from Rockie (a non fisher) and although we tried casting I realised that it was going to be to hard. Ran up to the top of the Boyne where the boys had trolled a couple of fish yesterday and set the lines to run just over the top of the submerged weedbeds (around the 17ft mark) and it took a couple of runs before Rob scored his first barra of 73 cm. Back on the troll and another couple of runs and he hooked and landed a 1055 cm fish.
He now has a very, very different perspective of fishing and can't wait for the next trip! We only had a three & half hour session and went back for a BBQ lunch.
I came back out onto the water at 4.30 pm and went to the edge above Pelican Bay and after drifting about half way down scored my best fish for the trip at 1035 cm. Nothing further happened here and the wind was kicking so I had to move on. Next stop was at Brolga Island and even though the wind was kicking I was able to fish along here and picked another four good fish in a couple of drifts.
At this stage it was dusk, and this is where my problems started. I pulled out a Bills Mouse Bug (120 mm) and began fishing it back through really wind broken water but the "noise" was turning the barra on and I was continually getting KAAAABOOOOOFED but not hooking up. They were hitting it on the move, on the pause but at no stage was I getting "weight". This went on until I called it quits for the night and I am still to hookup on a BB. I tried allowing "sag" in the line as advised from a couple of excellent posts on this subject on this board but it did not make any difference. I started with a continuous retreive and went to a rip,rip, rip pause (also varying the length of pause)retreive but I just could not converted. HELP frustrated!
On the subject of "sag" I really believe this has helped my hookup rate on plastics. I have been holding my rod at 20 to 30 degrees above the horizontal to create the "sag" and I reckon it has made a significant difference to my plastics hookup and landed rate. The other thing was that we were (others from the club and myself) getting follows right to the boat and I included in some of my retreives a small rip every so often and this produced four fish for me during the trip.
Well to say Sunday was a red letter day and PB day for me landing 9 fish for the day goes without saying. All of the fish came from the one area in Ivenagh Creek. It is an area I had fished earlier in the week without success. All fish were taken on Pro Lites and colour seemed irrelavant. I did two visits in there during the day the first one for six fish and the second for three fish. As well there were other hits and hookups (19 hits, 14 hookups and 9 landed). Again come dusk and the Bills Bug came out with the same result. HeeelP!
I know that this is a long winded report but I'm hoping that I can get the some help on the BB issue. I did try other surface lures in the areas but because of the wind effects it appeared that they were not doing it to the fish in the way BB's were.
A pretty satisfying trip especially without the electric. You have to wonder as to how many fish I chased out when adjusting my drifts with the main motor!
Oh and one other thing I went through 4 packets of Squidgy Pro Lites. The fish love 'em but they don't last long!

Bad_Bazza

[Screaming_Eagle]

I've had the same issue with BBs. lots of action for not a lot of result. had some success at awoonga last time with mate throwing a placcy in behind the BB. but i remain on 2 fish out of god knows how many hits. i've worked on getting slack line out of the equation and really hitting hard at the fish on the take (b/c often i'd feel weight ofr about a second).

[Mak579]

Bad_Bazza,

Awsome report, congratulations on your success.

I have a couple of ideas that you might try the next time your surface fishing for barra.
In the Tournamant Angler Guide 08 the Taylor bro's have a couple of great pictures of surface caught barra. A closer inspection of the lure reveals three split rings on the trebles, this effectively lowers the treble giving greater opportunity for hook up during the boof. If you want to try this just make sure the lure still swims well after you've modded it.

Secondly, often times barra will boof bait not to eat it.... but to stun it, a long pause can sometimes result in the barra coming back and absolutely slamming it.

Thirdly, continual miss hook ups usually indicates that somethings not quite right with the presentation. Different retrieves, different lures might have to be tried to really turn them on.

I really enjoyed your report and congratulations on your success once again.

Cheers
Matt C

[McCod]

Gday mate,
Great detailed report’ Sounds very frustrating with the nil hook ups on the fizzers Bazza’
I probably can’t help a real lot but one thing that may help is to strike as soon as you get Kaaabooofed……Don’t wait til you feel weight reason being is this, The barra can suck it in and spit it back out in a fraction of a second…… almost always faster than my brain can react…… Don’t know maybe I’m just slow Not a real big fan of the BB in standard form anyway as the prop inhibits hook up a lot of the time IMO.
If you double split ring the rear end and go to a larger wide gape treble you can increase the hook up ratio.
Catch ya up again soon!

Cheers Les

[Big_Ren]

I really enjoyed your report too Bad_Bazza....a fantastic chronology of events.

In relation to your BB issue, Ben (eotbmg) is a big fan of them and has had some wonderful success on them. Hopefully he will see this and respond.

One of the technqiues he passed on to me was to let the bug sit there for as long as possible on splashdown.........in terms of the duration, just wait until all the water rings have dissipated from the surface before starting your retrieve sequence. Ben can hopefully add to this. Lots to do with the pause as Matt says, and the way the BB sits bum down in the water just waiting to be imploded

Cheers
Paul

[the_matrix]

How long you pause depends on the mood of the Barra.
Sometimes a flat out retrieve is the only way to get a response, other times loooooong pauses (a minute or more) is the way to go.

Les is 100% correct, strike methods need to be focussed on, Barra boofs are super fast.
The art of striking is becoming a forgotten art in my opinion, ever wondered why your leader is scuffed 20cm up from the lure?????
You cant tell me its been a short strike, more like a poor strike from the angler.
Smack em hard and fast!
Barra are experts at catching you with your pants down.
Great report
Cheers
Jas

[Bad_Bazza]

Thanks for all of the replies guys and I will certainly keep all of this in mind for my visits much later this year. My next one will be in June probably.
Les,
I'm like you and probably even slower reacting (it's an age thing???! for me anyway).
Jas,
I certainly will do my damdest to hit them on the boof and I understand the concentration necessary to make that happen.
A change of pace coming up, with a week at Boondooma from tomorrow.
This retirement is hard work.

Bad_Bazza