Tag Archives: barramundi

Shady Camp Madness!!

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The drought is over!

An insane fishing trip. We went for the day to Shady camp for the day, which is over 3 hours from my place, meaning we only had about 4 hours fishing in the day for a 6 to 6.5 hour drive. We hit the barrages… In about the first 5 minutes Mud had us a 62cm keeper. Great stuff. It got bigger from there. Mud got a 60 something one soon after. And then another. Okay, good stuff Mud. Then BANG I am on… I think the excitement got to me – soon I had reeled in a nice, large, silver… catfish!

Soon Mud had pulled in an undersized barra, and not long after I was on. I won’t play it up (that will happen later) I knew it was small as soon as I got him, a 50cm barra.

We moved about 5 metres down to give us better access to what looked like a hotspot. Mud soon hooked up a 70cm barra, which was great, but I was getting a mite frustrated. I was using the exact same lure, technique, and spots as he was, and not much to show for it. There was a 30 minute lull after that, but soon BANG Mud was on again… this time with a 74cm fat barra. I netted it (despite my urge to crack Mud over the back of the head an leave him there… outfishing the captain like that is plain rude) and soon lost my white squidgy.

I decided it was time for my “lucky lure” the gold Starlo hardbody with the terrible hooks that I hadn’t gotten around to changing. As well as my custom rod (a present from the fiancee) I had set the drag a tad loose as there weren’t any snags… what could go wrong?

I tried and tried to get something, 30 minutes later I was starting to lose heart, about 1 metre from the boat a massive barra inhaled lucky and started peeling off line. It had a massive run before I brought it back to the boat. Soon it went on its second massive run. At this point I realised the drag was too lose, so I thought on the third run I would tighten it. It jumped on the wind back and I saw the lure was on the outside of the mouth, and I hate adjusting on the run, so I scrapped that plan. Soon it was on its third run away, and I was thinking “man this is fun!”, you’ve got to enjoy these moments. I got it back to the boat for a third time…. it was off again of its forth run. This time I got back it decided it should hide under my boat, that made me tighten the drag, and the fish was spent. Booyah!! He straightened 2 hooks in one treble, 1 in another, but it held him.

(If you think this paragraph is a bit much for a single fish, read over what I’ve done this year to get him)

I was going to release it… I tried to revive it for about 5 minutes but it was done, it had given everything to the fight, ah well it will get eaten and enjoyed.

Oh yeah, we then hit the main barrage and had a crack at the huge school of tarpon there for some fun

Got:
Mud: 5 keepers, 3 rats, 62cm smallest keeper, 74cm biggest, 2 tarpon
Me: Catfish, 50cm barra, 72cm barra, 4 tarpon
(I won the tarpon-off at least)

Story of the trip:
My 3 goals for 2015 was to:
1) Get a metery
2) Bag out
3) Release a keeper (I never do that unless I have very, very good reason)

So that is item (2) done. Bagged out in 3 hours! Most people at the ramp said it was a poor day…

Boat problems:
Nothing. Barely used it though, went about 500metres

Snap:
Very happy (the red is from my esky)

Lots of work, one small barra

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Well, well. Looking at the tides I thought the harbour would be good, but ended up hitting shoal bay instead. Lots of work for this trip! Apart from the 8 hours of solid fishing for one undersized barra, other fun included:
– Motor constantly getting blocked with mud
– Electric motor problems, culminating with the foot pedal starting to smoke
– Someone’s crab pot rope wrapped around the prop
– A constant battle to keep the main battery charged (I had a back up battery for the trip home, but I wouldn’t lekkie from it)

Wasn’t all bad. I learnt a lot from the experience, shoal bay and buffalo creek boat ramp is a nice spot, and the boat handled the small chop really well. I’m sure I’ll get some results soon, though that electric motor is critical to how I fish.

Got:
Me: 1 undersized barra
Mud: Nothing

Story of the trip:
Some guys were battling a large barra. I think they were live baiting and it kept taking it and jumping out of the water. I really wanted to go over and start flicking at it, but that would have been majorly uncool. I don’t think they ever landed it, but they hooked it a few times.

Boat problems:
Need a new foot pedal. No more electric motor until I get one. And at this time of the year…

Snap

A crock getting stuck on a float

Success in the Harbour!

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A blind squirrel will eventually find some nuts!! Smashed it, at least, smashed it for me. The day started out badly with jprbeard not showing up at my place, I waited 30 odd minutes, but he wasn’t returning phone calls or texts… (hope he just slept it and it a bit sheepish, as I still haven’t heard back) so I went to Palmertson boat ramp and grabbed one of the land fisherman to give me a hand launching, and thought I might as well take him for the ride. He got a jack 45cm but had to get out at 11am and i wanted to fish through until 2. As the low rolled over I had scouted a mud bank I liked the look off… boom! Got a great threadie, netted him by myself easily. About 20 minutes later I surprised myself (wasn’t near a snake or drain, just a mud bank) by hitting a good barra! He fought like all hell, look a crap load of line off me (it was pretty loose as there weren’t any rocks around) but I got him to the boat. The netting by myself this time was a disaster, he managed to wrap himself in my line haha, was lucky I got him in the end. But I did!

Got:
Darren: 45cm Mangrove Jack
Me: 72cm (from tip of tail) Threadfin Salmon & 66cm Barra

Story of the trip:
Well it’s the last trip for 5 weeks for me (holidays) and I haven’t caught a nice keeper since the the run off so pretty stoked with that.

Boat problems:
NOTHING!!!!!!!!!
Looks like everything is coming up milhouse

Snap
3 snaps for celebrate the end of the year:

Daly River Barra

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We went down here hearing how the river had flooded and you now launched from the road. It had gone off earlier in the week, we didn’t know it at the time, but now the reports were that the Daly wasn’t delivering anymore. We spent the day drifting up creeks and cutting the motor to float backwards. All of a sudden bang! my Zerek Prawn delivered me a 63cm barra. No other bites or any signs of life for the day, just the one fish… worth it!