well well well

what can i say, first time up in the kimberleys and the place blew me away.This will be a regular future destination!

Arrving in kununura we were told the area of the wilderness park we were staying had only just recently opened due to the very heavy rainfall over the wet season and flooding. A lot of damage was done to areas, and some scenic parts of the the wilderness park are still closed off, Some areas for example, the zebidee springs and the moonshine billabong had just recently opened. 

I didnt have much time to fish,due to it being a family holiday with over 20 of us up there. Though i did manage some everyday, waking up at 5am and going till around 9 am then  most nights as well right till dark. Now i have zero experience in barra fishing what so ever,so wasnt confident heading up there even scoring one. The conditions werent in my favour as well being that water temp was only around 22-23 degrees within all the river systems/billabongs. I arrived with news that there was still some barra being caught, but it was hard work finding them and enticing them due to the low water temps. 

One afternoon  my lil cousin of around 10, casts a lure and bang, hooks up to a baby barra of around 250mm just off a lil rocky ledge. Funny enough i look close and realise where we're fishing down at the bottom of the gorge, that we were actually on larger shelfs, and there were barra EVERYWHERE!!!! swimming in and out of cover, mind you the avg size would of only been around 30-40cm and a fish or two pushing 55+cm, at one stage at the half way point of the gorge, with the sunnies on, I counted 15 barra all over these rock flats chasing small bait fish. 

We focused our time here for a while and it resulted in no fish being hooked, but countless and many frustrating follows all the way to our feet but then to shy away and disappear. Me and a friend got up every morning at around 5 just before dawn, and would either take a small dingy out trolling, or go bush bashing and find our own holes to fish, walking down the river banks. Which again we found some fish, but they just wouldnt take the lures, constant 2-3 fish at any one time all the way to the bank just to turn away! 

Come the arvo/night we turned our focus back to the huge river system at the homesteads door step. and boy did we fish. we focused here more and more inland of the penticost.  The last arvo some of the fam went off to zebidee springs for another swim, i took the missus out for a lil troll in the dingy. straight away the missus rod kept getting strikes but poor hook ups that would never hold. Mind you she hooked a fish in the middle of the day while i was setting up the boat on the ledge next to me! not bad for a girl thats just learnt to cast that day. and finally on our last pass we had a nice strike which the hooks helds and it resulted in a fish of around 300mm, real small but put on a nice lil show with real light drag, and all of a sudden mariahs wants to go fishing more and come out on the boat! 

back home (i always try and get her out there) we headed in for a quick break and 2 of us were back walking the bottom ledges of the gorge flicking hard bodies again. and this night everything just came together for some reason. A couple casts into a snag/ledge resulted in some nice strikes and on the third cast bang i was on, and this fish felt somewhat a tad larger. Resulted in a nice 500mm fish. Stoked my first ever barra!!!! from then on i caught a couple more all between 250mm-400mm. A couple minutes later my mate was on and after a short tussle it resulted in a nice 600mm. My lil bro came down after hearing we had a couple nice small fish and i told him to grab the spare rod and cast where im casting, as im getting hits regularly and there was small sooty grunter getting chased everywhere. 

and what happens first cast, bang rod buckles over, mind you this gear would only of been small 4kg spinner, line starts peeling and all of a sudden around 5m out directly in front of me this big big barra of my estimation (this is an exaggeration due to me not catching this fish) of at least 850mm + and thick, erupted trying to spit the hooks, went back down and jump  again and the hooks went foul.  On closer inspection some of the trebles had nearly been straightened! devastating. We fished again the next morning which again resulted in only another small barra of around 400mm. 

We went walking just along the river system to a boat cruise just around 1km inland, and we never fished here.  we fished more out on the penticost, where the boat tour was on the chamberlain, and we some what regetted this as we saw nice nice fize fish in the snags. We wished we took our rods but like i said 20 fam on the tour didnt really want us fishing 24/7. Where we stayed was right where the chamberlain and Penticost rivers meet. 

So the fish resulted in around 8 barra being caught, the biggest being 600mm and all released back successfully. Its always the one that got away, but for that exact reason ill be back up there again, chasing the mighty barra, as just like me and billfish, i really get a thrill targeting such hard and remote fish to find! At first i never thought id get into barra fishing but now im well and truly hooked. 

Funny enough the rangers we talked to when chasing advice, told us to focus in that area where we found that nice fish, they said they knew of some very decent fish in that hole, but they are well fed unfortunately and very very hard and fussy to get. Though mind you just walking down a dirt road track and then just veering left into bush and finding a creek system and just walking down it was just as fun than whether you hook up or not. 

Love the exploring side of things that come with barra fishing, out in the middle of the bush, no one else, no cars nothing! and yes we saw a couple of fresh water crocs and always were on the look out. 

Unfortunately a lot of the fish photos are on other cameras which i will get and post up. 

Brett

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