Well we didn’t have much time this year unfortunately. Adam came up Friday night for a fly by visit. I had my daughters birthday party to attend on Saturday morning so the plan was for Adam to get the boat ready and we would take off from K town at about 1400 Saturday arvo. Was forecast to be windy all weekend, and it was, the trip up was slow although not too bad we had the anticipation of catching a few barra urging us on I guess.
On arrival things were difficult, a 2000 low tide meant it was mid water on arrival into the creek, and with the sun fast fading it was very very difficult to get any bait. I think from memory in the couple of hours of work I only managed 4 really decent mullet. We had a few dead baits so I was still confident things would be ok.
We both opened the accounts with a decent thready each, mine went 106cm, not a PB but not too far off either. They were both released.


106cm thready, went bloody hard on the strike and I must admit I called it for a barra initially.

Well I set another dead bait out into the hole, I wanted to save the mullet for the low and the initial push of tide to follow. After a couple of catfish were landed by Mr dot com my rod screamed off, the jump followed and we caught a glimpse of a silver barra hard up against some snags in the moonlight. Well it didn’t take too long and it was all over, first fish in the boat from memory it went around 84cm


The tide had started to slow quite a bit and I decided to throw out one of the live mullet we had, I put it in the middle of the creek this time and it must have only been in the water one minute when it screamed off again. Adam asked if it felt like a good fish after which a barra blitzed out of the water, perfect timing and a great way to answer his question. Again the fish came boat side and Adam netted it, right things were looking good second fish in the boat in less than an hour it went 70 something


All right, things really heated up after that, I threw out the same livie which I had used to catch the previous fish and as soon as it hit the water I was on again. This time a BIGGGGG fish ran hard and fast sideways in a very very skinny piece of water. For the first time in my Pilbara barra fishing experience the fish managed to get me in a large and messy piece of timber. I asked adam to undo the anchor rope so I could pull us toward the snag and try to get the fish out. The barra could quite possibly have gone over a meter and it was still jumping while wrapped in the timber. We managed to get it off the first branch but unfortunately it managed to ping the 80lb leader after a few minutes of trying to get it out, I think Adam could have just about grabbed it with his hands but the combination of trying to hold the torch, leader, snag, boat and net was a bit too demanding. The fish was not landed and it was the start of something.
Adam was flicking a fizzer out into the shallows and managed a MASSIVE hit but unfortunately it didn’t hook up. At the same time I hooked into another fish on baits and was just about to bring it into the boat when it took one last charge under the boat and managed to ping me on the chines, my fault just being a bit to lazy and complacent. So that’s three dropped. Adam got a blinding run and unfortunately didn’t hook up, the mullet was scaled and on closer inspection we noticed that the hook had bedded back in on the mullet, that was the 4th dropped for only 2 landed.
Well finally on the push again a blinding run broke us away from our beer drinking and banter, this time it was Adam's rod and this time he stayed connected. A large fish showed itself in the moonlight and a good battle unfolded in the skinny water. Ads did well keeping the fish away from the timber and it wasn’t long until it was lying on the brag mat. The fish was full of roe and in good breeding condition, it went 91cm.


Well we called it quits after then our 4 livies resulted in 3 landed and about 3 dropped not including the fizzered barra. Could have been 7 in the boat, not a bad session.
Well we awoke to a beautiful morning, we had time for a quick session before we left for home. We set out the lures and it was pretty instant, in keeping up with traditions and my continuing bad run I dropped a thready on the first pass and Adam dropped a nice barra on about the third. We caught a heap of cod and other species as well

One of many dangas landed

Well after quite a few passes and Ads deciding to put his rod in the rod holder for a change of technique he hooked up on to another nice barra. This time I managed to fire off a few shots before, yes you guessed it, we dropped another one. Still we only had 3 barra for a potential 9 or 10, ahh well at least we were seeing them. Upon closer inspection of the photos we could see that the fish was only hooked on to the front set of trebles and considering we were using babless hooks it is no wonder we dropped him.




the last shot shows the very point that the fish managed to shake the lure free
Anyway we had enough of trolling, we settled down with the two livies I gathered and packed things up ready for the slow trip home into the wind. With the push now well and truly coming, Adam hooked into another nice Bazz. This one went very hard and we were surprised to see the fish was only 87, not a bad fish but def punching above its weight class.




As I said before the trip home was slow, but worth it. 4 landed 91cm, 87cm, 84cm, 73cm and countless dropped. Not bad in and out in less than 22 hours
Cheers