HUggy B decided it was finally time to venture north of the 26 and into the Pilbara in search of his first Barramundi. He arrived with nothing much more than the shirt on his back, his fishing gear and a 6 pack of some of the finest beer (cascade first harvest) I have ever tasted. We decided that we were going to ditch the original plan to chase GT's and barra in favour of just the barra. the tides were not great for GT's and with stronger forecast afternoon winds on Saturday we opted for a bit of creek action.

The weather for our transit to said creek was nothing short of perfect, the whole trip we sat on 30 knots, simply stunning and a great into for huggy into the "Pilbara Lifestyle". We arrived and spent the next 10 minutes sorting out the boat, swags went up top, rods rigged with lures and we were ready. In that short time the wind came up to almost 20 knots, and from the east so trolling was going to be a tad difficult. The water temp was also a tad shy of 27 degrees, I was starting to feel a little more pressure. Anyway we set out on a troll run and first pass BANG!!!!! I was on, a nice baz jumped out the back of the boat, nice fish but we didn’t land it. Next pass and again we were on my new favourite baz lure was working a treat...

The wind was really gusting and holding a pattern at slow speed was difficult so we opted for some livies. There was plenty of bait around, it didn’t take too long to grab a few and set them out. It must have only been about two minutes and I was on again, this time I landed the fish from memory it went 80 something, then I landed another and another, huggy was getting the shits because during that time he dropped about 1 or 2. Anyway I coached him through the next run and he managed to stay connected, soon after he landed his first ever barra. then he landed his second, and third, I think you get the point. WE got 8 in the first session and dropped quite a few as well, we both managed fish in the 90's mine was a 96.5cm and huggys was a 93, happy days!

Huggys first ever baz, not huge but he did improve on this one

huggys 93cm baz

Biggest of the trip 96.5cm, released

Well we decided to relax a little for the rest of the afternoon, we had planned to get up around midnight to fish the night low so after some home cooked rissoles for dinner it was to bed for an early night..

The alarm went off at 1230am and I tell you what it would have been pretty easy just to stay in bed, alas we got up and went off to try our luck collecting some livies at night, oh what joy! We managed to get a few stoinka whiting, we made our way back to the boat and changed into some dry shorts (oh the chafe still hurts) before settling into another great session. We only had a few baits so we were going to have to make the most of them. I am pretty sure it was me who hooked up first, I landed about three solid 80 something cm fish while huggy landed another 93cm barra, it was action packed and we dropped about another 4 or 5 fish. The barra were going crazy which convinced me to throw on a popper. It didn’t take long to get stuck into some action. I got three massive hits, one of which was right at my feet (scared the bee Jesus out of me and huggy) by this stage the moon had set and it was bloody dark. I had a hit but no hook up in one area so I flicked the popper out to the same spot, BANGGGGG this time it came up solid and a really nice sized barra jumped. I had the fish on for a good five minutes and we were in the closing stages when the dreaded occurred. On the jump the fish managed to throw my hooks. I have caught quite a few barra on popper before but not this year, would have been nice to land it but hey, we had a cracking session anyway. not sure what the tally was up to by the close, probably around 12 landed and about 10 dropped.

Night time bazza

Huggy getting in on the action

Huggys second fish in the 90's

looking pretty happy with him self

Well the sun rose on another spectacular day and with it came the hordes of Pilbara anglers looking for a bazz. We were one of 6 boats in the area and things were tough. Plenty of fish were landed but not like the previous day for us. A couple of our mates managed about 12 or 13 fish for the day between the three of them, awesome stuff and even better because they all went back. We managed to land 4 and had a real shocker with dropping fish. Huggy landed a small bazz on SP, pretty cool. WE dropped a lot of fish when we probably shouldn’t have but hey I guess that happens from time to time doesn’t it. We ended up leaving the creek pretty happy, especially with day one. huggy landed his first baz, first thready, first jack and well his first second third.......one hundredth catfish, lol....

Huggys baz on an SP

me, landing one after dropping about 4 in a row

On the way home we stopped in at the pontoon near point Samson to throw some plastics around, there were some big fish under there, queenies, trevs, small mackies were all shying our lures. I switched to one of Big Johns banana jigs and came up solid on a queenie first cast, next cast I lost the lure to a spanyid, damit... Huggy landed his first ever queenie in the funnies of ways. I had just hooked on to a mackie on a slice, a queenie was shadowing mine so he flicked out a bait. he hooked up straight away and watched it run under the anchor rope and back the other way. He tried to pass his rod under the rope and it snapped. meanwhile the queenie was still going ape, somehow even with me laughing my ass off he managed to land the fish, very very funny circumstances.

Queenie on BJ's home made banana Jig

Huggy's first ever queenie and his broken rod, hahahahaha haaa hahah a ahahaha (still making me laugh)

Thanks mate, it was fun

Final Tally 16 barra landed and approx 15 dropped in 2 days, not tooo bad, but we will do better next time.