One out of the fridge

[Dick Pasfield]

Had a nice fish in that fridge we used to call a river today, water temp is just on 20C the coldest it should get for the year and cold enough to keep our barra in ugg boots.

For the first time in over a month the south easterlies had the day off, really making it a nice day with the afternoon temps getting up into the low 30s. Spent the afternoon prising unwanted sooties and catties off the hooks, although when they were the only thing biting a pleasant enough diversion.

With the sun and all the other boats gone for the night I got a bit serious and ventured into the main channel, a pain in the butt earlier in the afternoon when everyone is using it to get from back to the ramp.

A couple of runs with a tilson gave nothing so changed to an old scorp repainted lumo green. With the wind stopped floating weed that runs down the channel was not pushed over to the western bank meaning I could run out a bit wider and pick up a mid water snag I hadn't been able to get close to for a long while. Third run got me one nice fish that wished it was a metre, the following run lost me one the probably was.

No matter there is tomorrow.

[tailorboi99]

That is one hell of a barra. Great fish

[warrior]

do your barra seem to go harder in winter than summer when i was in darwin the fish up there went ape in the colder months when hooked.they werent as big but had after burners in them good looking fish too

[Dick Pasfield]

G'day warrior, no but I know what you mean. I think barra go as good in most water temps until it gets extremely hot, by that I mean over 30C. Had a few fish that I've caught in hot shallow water fight like a wet blanket. Usually in the months of November December and in areas where there's no relief from the heat such as some of the estuaries that get a daily influx of warm seawater and have large areas of mud/sand flat exposed at low tide. They are predominantly wide shallow water bodies that suck up the sun's heat, no place for a fish to live

[NAGG]

Lovely conditioned fish Dick ...... Its got the shoulders of a 110

Well done !

nagg

[Steve B]

Nice Fish Dick.!

20 degrees hey!! must be a bit cold up your way. I agree about the fish going harder in the cooler months. Seems to be like that here.

cheers steve

[Dick Pasfield]

Went back this evening just to see if anyone was still home from last night, there was that last hit that didn't stick to think about.

First couple of runs were just after the sun had gone down with a classic but all was quiet. Strapped on the luminous scorpion that did the work last night and second run got hit.

Lots of head shakes had me fooled for a second until it arced up and bolted. Had a snag close enough to touch with the rod tip on the right but the fish ignored it for the moment an swam downstream with me following in reverse.

Half way between one snag upstream and the one downstream I pulled a halt to the proceedings by selecting forward gear driving the boat inshore away from the trouble on both sides.

We argued the toss about who should be in and who should be out of the boat for a while, in the end we both ended up in the boat for a minute or two.

After 47 days fishless it was a sweet weekend but wondering what turned them on?? I've eliminated the moon straight away.Was it the fact that the wind had died for the first time in six weeks? Could the water temp have risen just a touch or did the lack of wind pushing the weed across the river allow me to work a bit wider, or was the fact that there was no water slap on the hull due to wind waves?

Shant lose any sleep over it but be good to know.