Sheldon (kelvin8tor) and i decided that we would both take some time at the beginning of the week to do some barra fishing. After speaking to a few people we new it would be hit and miss if we went, water temp was way up (36.8 degres) and quite a bit of fresh had made its way into a few of the systems, either way we decided to have a crack anyway. We made our way down the coast by night fall, we had some pretty crappy weather for the transit and i once again neglected to put those bloody clears up, oh well at least the water was warm. We navigated into the creek at night via the gps and set the anchor ready for a good sleep. We awoke to some pretty awesome conditions and a lot of midgy dangas. After a quick sound and gathering of bait we settled into a hole with some livies and waited for things to happen, and waited, and waited.......
Had a few half assed runs, there were fish on the sounder however the water temp was already over 36 degrees and things just seemed to be sluggish, ahh we got a few threadies and i managed the one barra in the first session, at least we got a fish i suppose. The barra was released.. went 70 something from memory

Sheldons first black jew, released

Sheldons first ever threadie, in the esky!

Well as i said things were quiet and the wind had come up a bit, we moved up river for a bit of soft plastics fishing. Even that was a bit quiet but we did manage quite a few bream, jacks etc was pretty good fun. After that we went and grabbed a few more lives, at least in the heat the bait was easy to collect. 6 or 8 good sized mullet a cast was the norm.

Jack on SP

Sheldons baby jack, released

Well we moved around a bit looking for some deeper water that fish might be holding up in we found some and decided to soak a few livies on the high. Sheldon and i both managed a barra this time both around 81cm which was a PB for sheldon, congrats mate! There was at least plenty of bycatch this time with heaps of jacks to 40cm, cod, baby black jews tto keep us occupied. I vertically slow jigged soft plastics under the boat for quite a few bream, jacks and cod this wasnt a technique i have ever tried before was good fun.

Sheldons barra on the mat

Sheldons 81cm PB barra

My very lean 80 odd cm barra

lean silver pilbara barra

Anyway things went quiet again so we put the boat into another hole after collecting some more bait and waited for the night time low, we cooked up some spag bowl for tea and had a rest before the night time session. Baits out at 1030 pm and this time it didnt take too long before sheldon had a crancking run, by the time he got to his rod it was ll over, dropped it. I decided to throw a popper around for a little while, i picked up a rat barra on about the third cast and had a massive hit after that, unfortunately no hook up. Got another hook up on bait but dropped the fish on the jump so again although we had a few runs didnt manage any more than the one rat barra, time for bed. Night time temp was about 30 degrees with no wind, thank god for the 12 volt fan which made things bareable.

Packed to the rafters

rat barra on popper

Home sweet home for 2 days

Anyway awoke to another glorious day, again had a troll first up with no action besides the odd catty. Opted for some bait as the only fish we did see ont he sounder was holding up in deeper holes, still do you think we could get them to take anything? was a long time inbetween runs thats for sure. We had quite a few but they were half assed and baits were just comming back mouthed.

Beautiful morning

Another baby black jew

A Baby blue nose salmon and sheldon getting too close

Well i had a HUGE mullet soaking for well over an hour in the prime spot that had fish holding up on the sounder befor it happened. Finally got a massive run and a solid hookup. The fish ran hard to the other side of the creek and powered accross the surface, i didnt get a good look at it then because the sun was in my face. It came back into the deep water and ran back under the boat, sheldon was filming the whole thing so that will be a good keepsake. Anyway managed to subdue the fish and netted it, was stoke to see it was my new PB a 104cm barra and my second metery in a couple of weeks. It was released.

PB 104cm barra

Anyway things were very quiet still after that, we got a few more jacks and i made a few jacks burgers for dinner before we settled down for a good night sleep. Sheldon had one last crack at a fish before bed and managed his PB thready, 97cm well done mate, it was released

Sheldons PB threadie

Well weather was great for the run home was pretty good overall although quiet by the normal standards

Cheers

Brad

Cody Danga on an SP