Monduran - no photos, no fish!

[Peter4]

We headed to Monduran on Thursday for three and a half days of barra action.

Arrived to be greeted by persistant SE winds that gusted over our entire stay to the point where there were whitecaps in some of the bays on Sunday morning!

We cast our arms off all day Thursday for no hits. Our only 'success' was one catfish trolled up in area B. We also found a very 'stinky' section deep in area B that smelled like a broken sewerage pipe! Needless to say, we didn't fish there for long!

Friday and Saturday saw us try our luck in Rainforest Bay, Bird Bay, White Rock, area D and area A. We found some warm water late on Friday and KH15 had a brief hook up before the hooks pulled.

After throwing big lures around for two days KH15 tried a 'mini' barra classic in area D and almost immediately was monstered by a huge beast just two metres from the back of the boat. After a brief struggle the line broke due to some undetected abrasion from earlier timber mishaps! Unfortunately that was our only mini barra classic lure!

Finally I managed a fish on the cast in a sheltered bay in area B on Sunday morning but I knew immediately from the soft bite that it was just a catty!

We agree with BR65 - water temps were quite low between 23.5 and 26 degrees with warmer water hard to find. Very few barra and even catfish were hard to find.

Few other anglers we spoke to had any action and the only barra we saw was trolled up by a couple of blokes downing XXXX golds as they circled round and round in 20 metres of water in the main basin!

Oh well our first doughnut in the last four trips.

We're now looking forward to our next trip (not until August!).

Regs

Pete & Kyle

[NAGG]

Pete .... Sorry to hear about the doughnut ( 3 days hey!)

Mate , your not giving me a lot of confidence for our trip ( starting tomorrow)

Cheers

Nagg

[McCod]

Thanks for the update Pete.
Heading there tomorrow to get some casting practice by the sounds of your not so encouraging report.
Looking forward to the challenge


Cheers Les

[Callop]

BUGGER. But as they say in the classics - still better than being at work.
Dave

[Peter4]

Les & Nagg,

I'm sorry to say the forecast remains poor.

Elders weather predict cool, cloudy, showery conditions with moderate to strong SE and ESE winds until next Sunday.

Still, if I had the chance I'd go straight back and try again.

After all, we did miss two fish and barra still have to eat!

Regs

Pete

[TonyM]

Too true Pete - you've gotta be in it to win it!

Doesn't seem fair that they're having a heat wave in Vic and SA and we're up here breaking out the winter woollies!

[Big_Ren]

Bad luck Pete but things can only get better for you in October hey Thanks for the informative post. Not sure when I'll be back myself, but a hit and run mission will no doubt be in the planning.

Cheers
Paul

[BR65]

Gday Pete, had a scout around up there cause I knew you and son were up, but didnt see you, obviously, might have helped if I'd known what ya boat is.
I pulled one at 5 in the morning and dropped one at 5 in the arvo, it was a long 12 hours in between, not a short strike, swirl, nudge or catty to be seen, tuff day.
Not wrong about the wind, I choofed off home early, 5.30am, Sunday morn and it was gusting then.
At least yous seen a fish, I spoke to a couple of blokes up from Victoria for their annual barra bash and they were eating donuts, with some pretty ordinary weather comeing up this week, long way to travel for that.
Allways next time mate
cheers
brian

[nipsta]

Gday Pete, had a scout around up there cause I knew you and son were up, but didnt see you, obviously, might have helped if I'd known what ya boat is.
I pulled one at 5 in the morning and dropped one at 5 in the arvo, it was a long 12 hours in between, not a short strike, swirl, nudge or catty to be seen, tuff day.
Not wrong about the wind, I choofed off home early, 5.30am, Sunday morn and it was gusting then.
At least yous seen a fish, I spoke to a couple of blokes up from Victoria for their annual barra bash and they were eating donuts, with some pretty ordinary weather comeing up this week, long way to travel for that.
Allways next time mate
cheers
brian

did any of ya see a silver rav 4 with a blue and white bass boat there with a 90 yamaha on the back at all just wondering if they got any

[eotbmg]

[quote=Peter4;
Oh well our first doughnut in the last four trips.


As i was saying to Brian on his post, you blokes have been braining them of late so 1 bad trip out of 4 aint to bad!!!!
What do you think was the main contributor to the poor fishing Pete??
Cheers
Ben

[Peter4]

G'day Ben,

I think water temps was the main contributor. Most mornings the basin was 23.5 - 24 degrees and higher up the system 25 - 25.5 degrees was very common.

The two places we lost fish were 27 degrees or better but warmer water was hard to find. The constant wind didn't allow the water to warm up during the day.

There was also a distinct lack of sunlight due to heavy cloud cover and personally I like the sun bringing out the shine in my gold & silver lures.

Some people were catching the odd fish but we just could not crack the pattern.

Rotting vegetation did not seem to be an issue though it 'may' have been responsible for the stink in area B.

Regs

Pete

[fish_on]

yeah bad luck pete you said you were going up no matter what. i didnt end up going up because of the weather. glad i didnt now. going to head up after the easter crowd. thanks for the report anyway. you only usually here of the times where people actually catch fish. cheers

[mylestom]

Bay B smell settling down, few fish showing up on the sounder. Not much in the boats though.

Worked B, D, H, Upper Kolan today for loss of one very large fish, got him out to clear territory twice, but the third time took me straight through rough timber.

Result, fish too good for this angler.

Just a 90cm yesterday (C&R).

Warmer day today and few boats heading out at moment for afternoon session

Regards


Trevor

[DEANO68]

thanks for the report pete, they dont seem to like that s/e wind much do they, we had the same problem..prob wont be able to get there till october also due to work n such, but will chase some bass n reefies round the coast for now...cheers deano..