Just back this arvo, wrecked! but gotta get it down fresh, before the adrenaline wears of and real life kicks back in.
Three points in my head right now - 1. How good is a barra hit! fair dinkum its bloody awesome! Like throwing a hand grenade out attached to a length of cable that you are holding onto!
2. How the bloody hell do you miss hooking so many of them when they smack it so hard???
3. How amazing/frustrating/mind blowing is it that you can fish for 10 hours without a hit and then get 10 hits in an hour!
I love it, even though we worked bloody hard, and didn't actually land many fish, we experienced the full gamut of what impoundment barra fishing is all about. High highs, and low lows! Lots of long hours, but fortunately some great rewards!
Myself and Mark headed up thursday morning, great drive up, we had camp set up in the Awoonga caravan park by 2pm.
Mark is an Armidale local who I've met through mates at bream and bass comps. Currently residing at Tweed heads, and apart from a rat barra caught off the Hervey Bay jetty years ago, he was a barra virgin. So I was keen to make sure he got his first decent one.
Thursday was cold, a bit wet and water temps were in the 21s. We prospected all over the place. But it was a tough session, I got one hit on an Xrap that spat it first jump. It was good to blow out a few cobwebs, warm up a bit, and take Mark through a few different techniques. We were in by around 10pm.
Friday, conditions were stable and warming up. We were up reasonably early and fished from 8.30 to around 1pm, did a heap more exploring, for one catty and just one hit on a hollowbelly. Back out again at 3pm, seabreeze kicking hard, so we anchored and worked a point. Mark was on an Olive Xrap, and I was throwing all sorts at 'em. Mark got a couple of hits, but couldn't get a hook set. I started throwing an Xrap as well, but couldn't get bit. Mark gets more bites and hooks a couple temporarily but they spit it on the jump. He was using a bass style rod, so I gave him my ABU Revo, and 6-10kg barra rod and he has more hits, one even pulls a few metres of drag, but still no joy.
After 6 bites to Mark, I'm yet to get a touch. His retrieve was very subtle stabs, slowly retrieving rather than pausing between stabs. I try to emulate it, rather than my usual whack, whack, pause - to no avail.
Finally at about 8pm, Mark hooks up good and proper and it's Mayhem. Just the usual barra jumping, running, changing directions, dogging it under the boat. At one stage it went under the anchor rope and I lifted the rope for him to put his rod under, just as I did, it changed direction and jumped. If I didn't have the anchor rope lifted, it would have jumped over it.
After many tense minutes it was in the net. I called it for a metery, but it was one of those fish that grew in the net, and by the time it was on the truth mat, it became a 112cm! An awesome first impoundment barra for Mark! Unreal to see him so stoked and share the experience.
He had another hit after that, that again failed to connect. The wind dropped off and the bite slowed so we headed in around 10.30pm. I was a bit shattered that I couldn't even raise a bump. But that's barra fishing!
Back at the ramp and caravan park, most boats were reporting one or twos per session and everyone was optimistic about the improving water temps. That went up 1 -2 degrees, and warmer weather approaching.
Saturday we did another big moring sess. A lot of exploring, and lots of casts for nada. We had lunch then a nana nap and headed out around 3pm. I was starting to feel the barra pain, Two and a half days for two hits! No fish! What did I have to do?
Awoonga was packed for the October full moon session. I estimate over 60 boats on the water, and just about everywhere you looked later at night, there were red and green lights.
We went straight to our point, and within 15 minutes Mark gets an 86 on a power mullet. He was beaming again, very happy to get one a plastic now.
About an hour later I get rattled on a Mullet, but no hookup. Later I changed to a 6 inch hollowbelly and get belted on that, again no hookup. I decide to run a protoype swimbait of mine. After about half an hour that lure gets belted, and I hit it hard, I feel big weight, but it doesn't move, it doesn't jump. But then everything goes loose. It went slack so quickly, I thought I had broken the line. but after winding in, its all there - I'm devoed!
That one really hurt. But I'm finding a new level of focus that I hadn't experienced this trip yet. I'm casting my mind back to successful sessions of previous years when I'm feeling one with the lure and really focusing on what the lure is doing, and picturing its depth and action. I'm finally in the zone, and realising that up until now, I've really just been going through the motions.
About 8pm I finally get a solid hookup on my prototype, and the adrenaline kicks in. It was a great fight, at one stage it charged twice in a row, forcing me to wind like hell to stay connected. It burried into the weed twice, and i had to coax it out. It never jumped, just stuck its head out and shook it, so I was calling it for a big fish. But one in the net it didn't grow, and made just 96 on the mat. But I was a happy lad.
We had one more hit each for the session, again good hits, but our run of missed hookups continued. The wind and bite eased from around 9pm and we were back in the caravan park at 11pm swapping yarns with other camps. Just about everyone had scored, but just ones and two again.
Next morning the story was different though, we spoke to a couple of more experience anglers who fished onto midnight for some very encouraging results!
We took the morning off, as it had thus far proved unproductive, and we prepared for a PM mega session. Many crews went home on sunday, and reckon it was back to about half the boats on the water.
Launching at Noon, we headed out with great anticipation, water temps were now in the 25s up four degrees in four days. We spot hopped all arvo, spending about 30 minutes at each spot. We settled back into our night time bank just before dusk, and had yet to register a bite for our 6 hours thus far.
Mark then got an 94cm on a 5" hollowbelly. So he was up to three for the trip on different lures, and really picking up the barra fishing bug - big time.
We fished our spot for a couple of hours before spot hopping again. From one spot we heard boofing in a bay several hundred metres away, so we moved in there on stealth mode. It was 10pm by now, and after big anticipation for the session, I was yet to get a hit! 10 hours on the water in perfect conditions, what the hell do you have to do?
I was wrecked and just had to lay down, I had nothing! Mark fished on, and he got a hit on a hollowbelly. Then about 10 minutes later I hear this explosion beside the boat! he'd been belted about 3 metres from the boat and the fish came out and spat the lure at him. So I was up, slightly recharged but not quite awake.
The bay was about 4 - 6 foot deep with broken lilly patches, and sticks. We were rolling the lures between the lillies whe I got a good bump. Hey finally, something! Then the prototype got eaten a few casts later. I had it on heavy drag, in tight country it was out of the water more than in it. On a short leash it had nowhere to go but sideways or up. It was pushing the metre, and I should have backed the drag off, it charged away then jumped away from me, as its body cleared the water I kinda pulled it over backwards, and as it went fully upside down the big single hook pulled out of the top of its mouth. One of those slow motion moments where you can see it all happen frame by frame, yet the mind can't react in time, Nooooooooooooooooo!
But now I'm awake, and feeling back in the zone. Boofing was continuing all around the bay every few minutes, as we electriced around super slow and quiet. The casts were short as the bay was so tight, and for the next half hour or so every cast we were expecting a hit. I got drilled and water exploded everwhere about 5 metres fromt he boat, I ended up falling off the lean seat and the lure ended up back in the boat missing me by inches as it was spat back at me. It was short range barra combat, heart in the mouth stuff!
I got another miss hit, and the water boiled again. We worked around the bay, and then back into it the back of it. I then got a hit that just loaded up, rather than the usual exploding hit spit, and I was on! but it ran straight around a bunch of sticks, I backed drag off and chased hard on electric, as I came around the sticks, I was back onto it, this time I fought as much finesse as I could muster in the nasty terrain, and managed to keep it on the hooks until Mark was able to net it. Finally!!! it went 85cm, This is Livin' Barry!
It went a bit quiet after that, but Mark got another drilling that didn't hook up and I had a big boil at the boat, when the lure hit a lilly. I'm sure if I had another meter of clear water the lure would have been eaten.
We moved along the edge into the next bay, but it was dead, and the weed/lilly structure was different and harder to fish. We finally went in around 1.30am. So it was a 13 hour plus session, a tough start but a decent finish.
The wash up.
We landed five barra, 112, 86, 96, 94 and 85cm, but had well over 20 bites so there were lots of missed opportunities, a few dropped fish, but lots of missed bites.
We did around 50 hours fishing each for the trip, so had to work for them, but had a ball. Compared to other punters in the park, we did about the same. Everyone was getting one or two a session, but they all worked for them. In contrast, several experienced crews were there during our stay and lets just say they made us look like total amatuers.
Although we should have done better in the awesome conditions, we both enjoyed the trip, Mark is definitely hooked on barra fishing now, and is already planning another trip. Although I through a lot of standard barra lures, I got both my fish on prototypes I made, so I was pretty happy with that.
The more you barra fish the more you want to barra fish! the more you learn about them the more you realise you don't know.
How about them bites! Can't wait to get back,
Cheers,
Matt
ps first photo is of a turtle that I saw wedged in a tree, I thought he had drowned as head was stuck underwater, but we must have disturbed him, and he only just got stuck, so was still alive. We freed him with the net, and he was off.
Dam wall about 1m from spillway.
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-- There was certainly enough there to keep you going. Good guiding .... no doubt Mark would be hooked.
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Originally Posted by NAGG
