A good freind of mine made it to Cairns on Saturday and we managed to meet up to hit the Barron later that afternoon. Talk about cutting it fine, Dave and his freind Garth had experienced traffic dramas on the way up from Townsville meaning they had no time at all to get their gear sorted. A mad scramble ensued to get luggage and fishing gear together but we were at the ramp in time to get a supply of live bait.
We were joined by my regular fishing buddy Gavin who has been fishing the Barron for years. The four of us were on the water by about 5pm heading upstream to the usual bait gathering locations. On this trip we had some difficulty getting prawns which contrasted with earlier trips. Still after about an hour we had a reasonable amount of poddy mullet. We snuck up on these by seeing surface activity and having a loaded cast net with David and I taking turns on the bow of the boat to net them.
With four anglers and the new anchoring strategy fresh in our minds from some recent successful trips it was just a matter of time before the chances of a hookup were inevitable. David got the first hookup. He was hooked on to something powerful diving deep and just putting up a really stubborn low down fight all the way to the boat. I was thinking he was onto a good table fish like a big fingermark or possibly a salmon. Instead it turned out to be a nice 67cm barra. Hows this for a good start to Dave's Cairns trip, one cast, one barra and still many hours of good fishing time left!
Since it is still closed season the barra went back and darkness closed in. Things really started to pick up when the sun dissapeared over the horizon. Once again David's Pacific Composites rod buckelled over and he was on again. This time David was onto a tarpon, quite a sizeable one that had made a mess of his trace (see attached photo). Somehow the hook had threaded through three different points in the tarpons mouth and hooked the gills- he wasn't getting away!.
A few minutes later David hooked up again. The rest of us watched in disbelief as David's Abu7000 and heavy braid outfit was put to the test. To start with we were thinking another tarpon as it had jumped in the distance just as David set the hook. This was clearly something bigger by the longevity of the fight. David is used to catching those lazy freshwater barra in Aplins Weir (Townsville), he soon found out these Barron salties keep you a bit more honest. Once again the water lit up with silver and I was netting another barra for David. It measured 73cm, a respectable fish; Gavin, Garth and I could not believe our rigs were sitting in a similar area untouched.
We observed some serious surface activity at about the time of David's second barra. It was decided the lure casting outfits were to be released from the lockable boat rod racks. Within a couple of casts I was on to my first fish of the night, a small acrobatic tarpon. This fish was going ballistic, at the net it took some crazy headshakes throwing the lure. Not to worry there were still plenty of fish surface feeding right in front of us. A few casts later my lure got taken again, this was no tarpon. I lost an unbelievable amount of line for a few minutes just holding on as mr.bg sailed off toward New Zealand. A few rubs transmitted through the ultra-sensitive fireline on the nearby pylons signalled the fight would be over unless I turned the fish very quickly. Unfortunately the opposite happened leaving me standing demoralised with slack line blowing in the breeze. A short time later gavin hooked up, but he too lost his fish as the it shook the lure free.
About half an hour or so later the change of tide meant we would move a short distance downstream, with some hope that the change of tide would get some decent fish chewing our hooks again. For the most part this did not happen eventhough we did secure a supply of herring (and surprisingly some baby mackerel) in a secondary cast netting expidition. Eventually my live herring was belted on my spin rod. I expected a tarpon especially after spending a good amount of time targetting tarpon in the North Johnstone river on light spon gear and herring. As it neared the boat I began to loose line rapidly. It turned out to be a dogged fight that had fish and angler gaining advantage at various times. Eventually we saw colour...another barra. David made no mistake with the landing net, and I was blinded by a beautiful slivery chrome 71cm fish.
Unfortunately that was about the final action any of us got for the remainder of the night apart from some half-assed hits that did not connect. We decided we would wait it out incase any stray fish would put Garth or Gavin on the board but luck went against them on this trip. We called it quits at around 3am totally exhausted. Ever since the trip ended Dave has been lamenting on the fish he caught being understandably stoked that his trip up to Cairns was well worth the effort. Both Garth and Dave are extremely grateful to have been able to go out in Gavin's boat set up and really it has made their trip up here something they will never forget. Enjoy the photos!
. We normally share that general area with other boats, I think there were two other boats there on the night that didn't have much luck.
. I was thinking of coming back to do my last uni subject (was supposed to finish last year) but it looks like I can do it here in Cairns. Its actually a bit of a shame because I really enjoyed my time there and didnt want it to end. The Aplins barra can now look forward to a life of relative peace 