This post should have been written a week ago but alas computer problems so no report
We arrived on the Saturday afternoon to commence our two week Barra bash, most of the usual crowd that fish the moon in October were already there, the gang from Bellingen, Campbelltown, Guyra and Stanthorpe to name a few, always good to meet again and swap stories of the past year.
Hell was it windy 20 knot gusting to 40 at times with a few breaks at times, just enough to allow you to get out and fish, some days were not to bad but in general it was bloody windy. To top all that off the water temp was usually between 22 and 23 degrees with the odd pocket up to nearly 25 degrees.
At night bedtime was always a pair of shorts, lay on top of the bed and sweat, this time it was fully clothed and in a sleeping bag, bloody cold.
We were informed that the fish were hanging around the weed beds but unfortunately they had switched off that Saturday morning, just a few hits then they would dissapear, great!!!!
As we like casting in the sticks it became a matter of going out waiting for the moment ducking in for a casting sesion and getting out when the wave action made it to dangerous. Even that was a bit scary at times as we got caught under a branch on one trip, looked like we were going to have four rods busted off, both of us holding the branch to avoid disaster eventually had to really gun the Yammy to get out, copped a wave in the middle of the back as well, these waves were rolling at times four foot high through the sticks, not good.
I said to the mate stuff this lets go back to camp but we may as well troll as we are not going to be able to travel fast in these conditions. We did that and had the 50hp 4 stroke Yammy doing 1400 revs just to make the lures work, when a gust came through we would go backwards, get side on to the wind and you would have to really power up just to be able to turn, bloody wonderful.
At the end of the first week a mate fishing in the Invitational Comp. arrived, had called into Awoonga, he said that it was pretty poor there as well with not a lot happening, i guess that made us feel a bit better as we persist in driving past Awoonga to get to Faust our favorite.
Found fish at this spot one night and not there the next, saw a lot of unusually small fish, 540cm to 650 cm and really dark in colour, good to see a healthy fishery. Saw numerous huge barra backs gliding through the weed but were not interested in our offerings of hard bodies and plastics even the new big Javallon plastics that i thought they would really hammer.
And the new boat ramp!! launched on it once and once only, bloody big rocks and slimy weed, no where to beach the boat, we retrieved the boat at the old ramp and continued to use the old ramp from then on.
Result for the trip, counting the crew from Bellingen, Campbelltown and us we boated around 70 fish with the biggest going to Campbelltown at 124cms, my personal best was 110 cms and my personal best night was 5 fish in the boat with 3 lost. ALL FISH WERE RELEASED TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY AS THEY ARE TO GOOD JUST TO BE CAUGHT ONCE OR EVEN TWICE. We found that the fish were not hitting the lures as savagely as they usually do, just a bump or two and then no more interest, i believe the water temp was the reason for the turn off. As the wind blew you could see the water temp reading going down on the sounder, if the wind eased you could actually see the temp starting to rise
A report on the Invitational Comp. 66 fishermen fished from either 6am or 6.30am until about 5pm over two days. Result 1st day 2 barra 1 sooty. 2nd day 12 barra and 2 sootys, apparently the fish came on during the last hour of the comp and fish were caught trolling near the dam wall. The winner i believe caught 2 barra in the last 20 minutes and the biggest barra was 118cm in the last hour also from the dam wall area, so it looks like they did it tough to.
Will post some pictures as soon as my "IT" EXPERT son shows me how.
Peter Faust you know is a majic place even when its windy and cold, i will be back soon.
Cheers,
OBI.
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can't think about anything else or do i want to do anything else 