It has been far too long since I have caught a legal barra, so I decided to get a little remote and hit Bynoe Harbour for the day. Mud and Alice came along, we had really good tides, so we were pretty optimistic.

The first thing we did was start casting at some snags and Mud hooked a barra but it spat it straight away. A good sign the were on the bite. Another decent hook up in a few minutes had us optimistic. Then not much happened four a few hours…
We tried the drains and there were some amazing looking ones. But zero fish. We found a few rock bars to troll over, I pulled up a reasonable golden snapper, and Alice pulled up a reasonable cod. So that was good.

As the tide turned we tried the drains again, it is my experience they work best about an hour or two after the turn. Suddenly we had a lot more action. Alice first got a bite but it failed to hook up, Mud then did the same thing. Alice then had a large threadfin follow her lure all the way to the boat but decide not bite.

Frustrating.

Another bite on Muds lure that didn’t hook up and the drain we were at went quiet. Went to another where we could see the swirl of a barra, so we peppered him lures and BANG I hooked up! After about 30 seconds of fighting… it managed to spit the lure. I was devestated, it would have been a 70cm fish I think.

We were running out of time at this point so we tried a few more without sucess and we started to head home. Mud wanted to visit our favourite rock bar on the way so we did that and we trolled around. I filleted the snapper to save time and while the rod was in the holderI managed to hook up! At first I thought it was the bottom but it soon revealed to be an impressive cod. I don’t know I deserved this fish given I flicked the bail arm off at first thinking it was the bottom, but given the dissapointing day of barra refusing to hook up, I guess I was due.

Cod and Golden Snapper for dinner. Could be worse.

Got:
Me: Impressive cod, reasonable golden snapper
Alice: Reasonable cod, small stargazer
Mud: Small stargazer

Random story of the trip:
I spent $40 on an OSP Bent Minnow with the promise that it would be killer to barra. After promising I wouldn’t sucumb to these fads and prices I failed. And I didn’t get a single bite on it.

Snap