With a tough bite on the cards at Mondy I decided to give us the best chance of catching a barra by heading to Awoonga - plus it gave me another chance to have a look at this magnificent location.
Lee & I arrived in pretty nice conditions - though with all the primo locations taken up along the waterfront - we had to settle for under a big fig tree (turned out to be a blessing) -
So after a quick look around , we headed down to the main basin for a bit of a fish in a bay that had been fishing well ........ After a few casts with an X Rap , I picked up my new upgraded bradia / lucky craft combo and had my very first cast - then on the second cast I threw the outfit into the water after getting a tip wrap... with a wallet and phone still in my pocket .... it was impossible to react.
As you can imagine - the mood of the trip was just shattered. we tried to recover the rod but to no avail.
next day headed out for a big day on the water ....... though with conditions changing from strong northerlies to southerly finding fish was a bit of a challenge - Attachment 62431 though I did manage a healthy 107 that took a modified black and gold 130 slick rig. Except for another couple of half hearted hits nothing much happened.
That night night we were belted by a storm that hit from the north - causing a bit of damage to our tarp set up and having to deal with it in torrential rainat 2am.
The following morning was cold as and so we decided to go have a hunt for some more fire wood ....... while we were out my camp chair got blown into our camp fire and was destroyed -Attachment 62432 Then on returning to camp to unload our wood Lee notices a small brown snake in a small hollow piece that I broke off a fallen tree ....... phew , we pushed it out of the car still in the log hibernating due to the cold (another camper put the log in the bush).
As for the rest of the trip -Attachment 62429 Lee caught a 89 fishing a slick rig in the back of a wind blown bay ( also on a slick rig - 110) ....... I missed a strike on a decent fish that had a go at a rapala X Walk fished tight to heavy weed. I followed this up not long after with a hookup to a fish that took a small Jackall smash minnow fished down the back of a creek. Initially I said I may have had a big catfish on as it slowly swam towards the boat before coming up boatside with a big headshake & look before diving under the boat and out the other side ..... even with freespool this rather large 120ish fish just pulled open the light trebles (upgraded from standard to ST-56BCs) Attachment 62430....... you simply can't get away with lighter gauge hooks when you have a top and bottom hookset.
We both missed a couple more fish on plastics - and Lee broke one of his spin rod.
So all up ...... we had cool to cold conditions , strong winds with some nice patches of warm calm conditions in between - fished what seemed to be ideal locations , with fish sitting off some banks - transitional water - bays with plenty of bait ..... lantana which held fish - but just not good enough to take advantage of those opportunities............. there is so much too learn about Awoonga .
Probably should have stayed at home ........ but then again
Cheers
Chris
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Originally Posted by smoked
...... such a large body of water , so an extra week spent just looking would be advantagious.
