It’s been since March that I got my last barra keeper. This was the 16th time that I have gone out and targeted them without personally pulling one in. I was up at 4.30am, it was very hot on the boat (it’s November after all) and we put in some serious hours on the water.

Mud got two barra, the biggest was 47cm. I got one, though technically not landed, I might have put more of an effort in had it been size, I would estimate 35cm. So it wasn’t all bad.

We headed to Salt Water Arm, we even got a Tales from the Tinny report from Shane Compain for SWA on the way there. Last weekend he got 30 fish, 20 keepers, it was as healthy as he had ever seen it, all we had to do was…

So we followed his advice, without much luck.

One thing we realised on the way there that TEBs was at SWA and there were going to be boats everywhere. My only consolation at my current cold streak is that I spoke to quite a few boats, and it seemed much the same. Three didn’t have any barra at all, three had a single keeper, all barely legal.

Well I am off to the tiwis next weekend and if I can’t get barra there, I will have to think about a retirement… maybe start targeting tiny cod, I’m good at that.

Got:
Me: 35ish barra*
Mud: 47cm barra, 40ish barra

Random story of the trip
It is possible I hooked a monster fish at the narrows, but I am still pretty sure it was the ground. Mud thinks line was peeling off to fast to be a fish, but it was about 2 seconds before the line snapped, so who knows.

Snap