He waited till the very end of the season, but Bruce finally landed his first barra. Brucey and I had been meaning to do an overnighter up the creeks for a few months. But with our busy lives it wasn’t until last weekend that we were able to make it happen. A late tide meant we could take our time, which suited us. After packing the boat and stopping in at Caltex for some brekkie we made it into the creek at around 9.30am. We dumped the swags on the beach and head out to throw some Sp’s around while we waited for the water to disappear. We caught a few little jacks that were going to be for dinner and I caught what I think was a morwong, but it was very dark.

As the tide disappeared so did the sun. Bruce pointed out a large rain storm crossing just behind us and I started getting a bad vibe. “This doesn’t feel like barra weather” I thought to myself. I’m not even sweating??? But while we are stuck here we might as well give it a bash. We collected some bait and rigged up our rods ready for the current to slow down. I cast in a livie and before I could stick my rod in the holder something had picked up my bait. I could tell by the crappy fight exactly what it was. “Bloody catfish!!” After repeating this process over and over I decided to move to plastics. It made no difference, the catties were loving the 5inch jerk shads. I upgraded to a 7inch and that seamed to do the trick.

It only took 15mins before my first solid hook-up. I could tell by the first run I was into a baz. I love the way barra fight, they are fast becoming my favourite fish to catch. The fish exploded out of the water, confirming the species. It was a nice 80cm baz. Not a bad way to start. Bruce was determined he wanted to get a barra on livie but unfortunately it just wasn’t feasible with the catties. Seeing me land my second baz (74cm) a few mins later was enough to convince him to make the switch.

80cm bazz

74cm Bazz

I managed to land another 3 barra (72cm, 71cm and my new PB of 90cm) and drop 3 others. It was about this time that bazza envy was starting to kick in for Bruce. The sun was setting and the tide was starting to push back in. I mentioned to him that we should see one more fish as the tide starts pushing. I had a nudge and looked over to see if Bruce saw it. He didn’t because he was holding on for dear life as his rod was buckled over and line was peeling from his reel. “I think this is it Web” he yelled out to me. The fish put up a hell of a fight on 6kg line, but Bruce did well keeping him out the snags and chasing him down the bank. As it came close to the bank we saw this was no small fish. And when it hit the mud serious high fives were exchanged. On the mat it went 92cm. Not a bad first barra at all.

72cm baz

71cm baz

New PB 90cm Bazz

Bruces first Bazz and a cracker at 92cm

That night we drank to a good session (any excuse) but learnt a few lessons. Lesson number 1. Bring a fry pan, we had to make a make-shift grill out if tent pegs. It works but I wouldn’t recommend it. Lesson Number 2. Don’t park your boat where the high tide will push it up on the bank and leave it there. We woke up at 2am only to find the boat a good 3m from the waters edge. We cast around for about half an hour but our spirits were dampened so we returned to the comfort of our swags.

We woke as the sun rose to perfect barra conditions, hot as buggery, no wind and plenty of midgies. The tide still hadn’t pushed in so we smashed some TANTRUM!!!! Otherwise known as V. and chucked around some plastics. After about half an hour the tide started raging in but our boat was still high and dry. I altered my retrieve to where I would strike hard on the line, and then just let it float back with the tide. This was to give the SP a chance to get to the bottom. It seamed to do the trick as I dropped one barra and landed another, my sixth for the trip (77cm).

77cm bazz

Once we had enough water we headed home in glassy conditions. Seven Barra including two PB’s and a first. Needles to say we both had huge smiles on our faces as we headed back to reality.