Three and two O's @ Awoonga

[MitchCalcutt]

Anyone who has fished Awoonga over the past two weeks will know only to well how hard it was to get the Barra to bite. Some people we spoke to hadn’t got one at all even after fishing for 10 days.
That was a scary comment to hear on my first ever trip to the dam. Luckily for us Wednesday arvo was hot and sticky, just the way I like it, to fish for Barra that is. I have never fished impoundment Barra before but have fished lagoons up north a bit. This is all I had to offer in the way of experience, as it turned out that’s all I needed. The first spot to fish I was advised to use a Slick rig which I’m not fond of at all. Five casts into it saw a small fish miss the lure, this had me tying on my favourite “C” lure Barra pro, that did the job with a smallish 65cm model come in. One more hit a couple of minutes later kept that lure on. After another hour without a hit I had decided to change to something different, all I had to do was retrieve the lure. Most of the time this is a simple task, but not this time. I twitched the lure past the patch of weeds I cast at and began a slow wined back to the boat. The line went slack. I cranked as fast as I could but couldn’t catch up with the fish. One jump and a huge Barra spat the lure like a Watermelon pip.

I had been using a relatively small lure by Awoonga standards with some luck, David used the standard size lures with no results at all. So my next lure of choice would be another small but well use one from my flathead collection. The next fish was a slightly bigger one at 76cm. That strike was well worth waiting for, it was the kind you don’t expect but marvel at when it comes. I had finished the retrieve and was about to lift the lure out of the water when he took it off the surface with a gulping role.

With only an hour to fish we started the drift again, this time I cast into the thickest patch of weed I couldn’t see and simply dragged it through. On the other side of the pre mentioned weed bed was a 95cm Barra that didn’t mind at all eating my weed covered lure, a couple of photos later a my third Awoonga Barra slid back into the shitty coloured water.

That was it for the next two days, with a howling Southerly blowing the worm water away. We only had three more hits in two and a half long days and nights fishing. It was still worth going though, I met a few new fishos and had a great time. The high light for me was Greeny’s famous Cobb roast and seeing that fish taking the lure off the rod tip.
I would post some pics but appears yet again I have been blocked.
Mitch

[bdowdy]

great stuff mitch,,, would love to see some piccys,, at least you got some fish mate the wind was terrible everwhere else... cheers bdowdy...thanks for the hinze trip with the young fella and those beautiful jewey fillets mate...brett

[rc@hinze]

Well Mitch you now know what it is like to see the two sides of impoundmenat Barra fishing, the exitement and rush of the hits and landed fish, and the days and hours you put in for no result. Well done on the fish you did get that day. Sure sounded like hard fishing for you all.- Richard

[NAGG]

Good read Mitch ....... Nice to see that you caught fish........ 10 days without a fish would be hard to take

Chris

[SeekingBarradise]

Hi Mitch thanks for the hard trip report it provides balance for everyone on here as we have all had tough trips mate. You guys still did well to get fish.

Good to see you enjoyed the camping side of the trip as well with the Cobb roast.
We have the meat order done for our next trip and a roast on the coals is on the menu. Maybe a butterfly chicken on the coals as well. Might have to pack the metamuesal!!!

Thanks again for posting becasue if all we hear is rosy reports we don't get to hear the truth.

As it was your first trip to Awoonga what did you think of the place? Wildlife, scenery etc, size of the lake? Was it what you expected?


Good luck on your next trip.
Cheers Lyndon.

[MitchCalcutt]

Hi Lyndon,
we stayed on the big house boat of fishless soles, on that trip anyway. Lake was big, cow's were big, generally it is a beautiful place and I'd do again any time. Getting to know your adversary and his surroundings is always half the battle. Feeding a Barra when he doesn’t want to eat is a totally different battle altogether
Mitch

[vet]

Awoonga has been fishing pretty hard of late but that is to be expected when you are setting new record minimum temperatures overnight. Wednesday was the last easy day so you were lucky to get one good session in. I picked up 7 late tuesday night and into early wednesday morning. Then I had to choke down 3 donut days in a row as well. Finally washed that terrible taste out of my mouth last night, we had 10 bites between us but only landed 1. The conditions are improving and the barra are just starting to bite again albeit tentatively at present. I expect to hear better news from trev tonight and hope it will be better again tomorrow. There is no consistency in the weather at the moment, it just starts to warm up and they come on a bit then a cold change comes and it becomes hard again. Very strange for this time of year.
Thanks for the report as we normally only hear about the good trips. It appears that donut king has set up a branch at awoonga for the moment.
cheers scott.