It was with a measure of trepidation that I set off for my annual road trip to Peter Faust with flashes of stories racing through my mind relating to massive numbers of Barramundi going over the wall at most of the East Coast Impoundments, Faust included and the following tales of either no fish or very few fish left in the lakes with the majority of the escapee’s the larger fish. I had received reportsfrom my good friends at Prossie that there were fish available and that they were a combination of small fish with larger models also around, these fish were coming from the tree tops in deeper water, so it was that information, after having a few poor years up there that convinced me to hook the boat up and take off.
I also had another reason to be excited about the trip, a new Sounder/GPS that I had justpurchased and installed in the Hornet, A Lowrance HDS 10 with Structure Scan. I had spent a few days with fellow member Awoonga running all over Monduran looking for fish using Trev’s Humminbird 1100 series side scan and was suitably impressed, so with a fair amount of research I opted for the Lowrance insteadof Humminbird.
Did I ever mention how bloody far it was, geez once I would have done the twelve hundred odd K’s in one hit, unpacked and gone fishing in a matter of minutes of arriving at the destination, but I’m telling you it now takes this old bugger a day to get over it, I guess as they say “Shit Happens”
Well after the lay day which included rigging rods and preparing all the gear for the assault on the lake, we headed for the ramp and what a shock it was. Even after seeing the lake at 80 percent last year it was a shock to see how much bigger the lake looked and only a car and boat length to the water at the ramp, a big difference to years gone by when it was a fifty meter trek up the steep ramp to get the car after a day on the water.
On that first day on the water very little fishing was done as I had to familiarise myself with the lake and where certain things were, so with the aid of some saved waypoints from years gone by I had the place sorted, now where were the fish.
On talking to others at Camp Kanga we found that some had been there a month and not afish, another a couple of fish after a few months there, but then there were the friends from NSW that make the trip most years, the crowd from Bellingen(two lots from there) the first group had a fairly poor result which was not the norm for them and they went home after we were there about three days, then the other group from Bellingen arrived, a group of good fishermen, they were to get some very good returns over the week they were there including a fish of 123 cm’s and a few more fish over a meter. Another Husband and wife team from the NSW Central Coast area were going great guns in the period just before we arrived with Karen boating 7 fish in a session. The big thing was that fish maybe at one location today but were not there the next day.
The method was to use the structure scan, locate the fish, attempt to catch them, no sense in fishing where there were no fish, and guess what this method works, the only problem is sometimes the fish will just not bite.
When the water was cold the fish could be found in the tops of trees in quite deepwater, when the water temp rose they could be found in shallow water and around the lily pads, we also got a number of fish over the weed beds. I vowed to get Spec Savers up to the dam to fit the barra with glasses, so funny when you drag a surface lure across a weed bed and they are going boof, boof and missing it each time, get the lure to the boat and they boof at it and hit the boat, or when you just lift the lure out of the water and they boof at it just as it’s leaving the water, frightens hell out of you at times.
When you found fish with the structure scan there were usually a good number of fish,sometimes 20 or 30 fish and then sometimes fish of many sizes.
What we also found was that the fish were super charged or on steroids, 70 cm fish wouldpull like a meter fish as a result of this, I think it is why, a lot of fish were hooked and after a good fight would chuck the lure back at you, this was a common storey with people catching say 5 fish but hooking a dozen and losing them.
I, after a number of years finally caved in a bought one transam lure, I hooked a good fish on it and fought it for a couple of minutes, then it spat it out with the rear trebles hooked up and over in the lure s back, the leader was scuffed up the leader about 6 inches so it had the lure a long way down. One day I drove the boat up to a tree with a lot of shags nests in it hoping to find a big sootie,the structure scan showed me a very big barra lying beside the tree, the water here was about 40 feet deep with masses of tree top just a few feet/meters below the surface, I dropped the transam down beside the big tree, 5 feet, ten feet, 15 feet whack, rip, rip rip, goneeeee, oh well that was 30 bucks I didn’twant.
It lookslike I have already written too much drivel so I had better wrap it up, the first two weeks fantastic, plenty of fish, how many, not sure, but between 20 and30 with probably around at least that many dropped. Never got a fish over ameter, the longest was 96 cm with another 6 or 8 in the 90 cm class, fish down to 56 cm and most in the 70/80 cm class, all fish in superb condition.
If you want to catch barra it’s the place to go, obviously cold winds and temps slow the fish down but if the weather is warm and consistent you will find it’s a bowl of gold containing a lot of barra.
On another note the river down below Camp Kanga, in the time we were there gave up a good number of sooties, horses they were, the best was 63 cm with a lot in the 50 cm range, also a number of barra were landed in the same spot.
A word of warning, if you go there just watch out for the snakes down there, there are alot of them, browns and bloody taipans.
I will probably think of some over crap about the trip, if it happens I will add it later. I will also sort out some pictures and load them along with some screenshots from the Structure Scan.
Sorry I have been long winded here.
Cheers,
John.
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Originally Posted by NAGG
