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.

After Fridays effort we decided to do another quick run past the Channel Markers for another jig. Hit the water around 5.30 for the quick trip out in condition far worse than what we were hoping for. First drop was ominous with Brad being bitten off on the drop and a Spaniard doing a free jump not far from the boat. Thankfully they were mostly interested in Brads gear. (plenty of plastics and jigs on special at motackle mate)

Pulled a couple of Queenies, couple of little Macks and a couple of different species of Trevs. Brad got a little Trout barely bigger than his Gulp at one stage too. After a bit the Queenies cottoned on to what was going on and couldnt get much more than a follow out of them. 

Made it back just in time to pick the Mrs and kids up from the airport.

After a pretty ordinary week work wise I decided to head out for a quick twilight jig around Hedlands channel markers.

First drop saw a double hook up with me getting blown away but Brad staying connected to a nice Brassy. Shut down for a bit then shifted spots but could only find some small Bigeye.

That PE2 sure loads up nicely.

After borrowing and watching the nomad DVD of brad, I was well inspired to get out after some GT’s. I knew Bruce has been wanting to get into it and it didn’t take much convincing to con him into a trip. We invited pickles and sold it to our other halves as a training session for the exy comp.

The day started out quite well. Huey was kind to as and we had a flat run all the way out. We hit up a spot, well known for producing large numbers of queenies, as a bit of a warm up. Within 15mins we had two large queenies in the boat. I believe these fish are under rated as they were pulling 12kg’s of drag without too much drama. This, however, was not the target species so we moved off to our next spot.

The day turned out to be very slow. We tried many spots and sent out hundreds of casts. We worked drop-offs, tide lines, bait schools and bombies and stood there scratching our heads thinking “I was sure there would be a fish there”. However around midday Bruce hooked up to a very solid fish, which lived up to the ‘G bus’ name. Unfortunately for Bruce it was ‘next stop, a big bombie’. Bruce’s first GT encounter and he got tanked, loosing his brand new $60 popper. We decided a drinks break was needed, and took a nice long troll to the next spot so we could down a couple of beers. Pickles managed another nice Queenie on the trawl which interrupted our drinking some what.

An hour or so later and things finally went Bruces way. He had a solid strike that resulted in a good GT. It fought above its weight class and gave Bruce some curry. He was stoked to see it come over the side. A great way to open his account and put some runs on the board.

Bruces first Popped GT

A monster pulled from the depths

We spent the rest of the day working every possible nook and cranny to not much reward. It was literally in the last hour of the day when the tide had seriously started pumping out. Bruce hooked a nice little Spaniard. While he was dealing with his fish I lobbed a cast out into the current and watched as my popper just got smashed. We kicked the boat into reverse and convinced the fish that it didn’t want to head to the rocks. He didn’t run that far but I could tell by the weight that he was a nice fish. At one point we sat there for a few seconds in a stale mate. He didn’t want to move and I couldn’t move him. As he came boat side I started hooting a swearing as I looked down at my new PB GT. It really is amazing how a good fish can make the back pain and sore shoulders associated with 8 hours of popping, just disappear.

Popped Mackie

Hooked up

BP GT (Last cast of the day)

Dodgy and i decided to go for a blat late saturday evening for the last barra fish of the season. The water temp is still well up over 32 degrees and it looks like it is going to be like that for a while BUT, to tell you the truth i think i am over the barra for now. It has been a pretty long season and i need to find something else to do for a while to revitalise my barra fever.

Well we didnt have much luck on arrival dropping around three fish before we settled down for a nights sleep in preparation for the early mnorning tide. The wind had dropped off through the night making sleeping a tad uncomfortable, fortunately we didnt get rained on through the night and we woke to a beautiful morning. Things were pretty slow we managed a few finger mark, jacks and salmon and not much else before the tide bottomed out.

Then i managed a nice hit and stayed connected to the first bazz of the session. I landed it on a 7" Nuke chicken Gulp. Was pretty happy. Since it was th elast fish for the season i decided to keep her. She went around 77-78cm.

baz 56 for the season, and the last for this year...........

Dodgy was the next to hook up, the fish jumped a few times before she came in, again the fish was around the 77cm mark. We hooked about another three barra in the morning session however we didnt stay connected. Was surprisingly a little quiet. Came home not long after ten in the morning. Have a nice feed of jacks and barra to last a couple of weeks. I am looking forward to trying something different now, see you next summer Pilbara Bazzas!

I think it is GT time again..................

Had a bit of time free after giving the rig a bit of a clean up this afternoon so decided to head out for a quick jig offshore from Hedland.

Launched around 5 and was still a bit choppy heading out the 10km or so.

Cobes were around in good numbers. Kept one for the table and put the rest back. 

Webby and family made the drive from K-town in search of what had been a pretty elusive species for webby this summer, the mighty barramundi. We set off very early Saturday morning in pretty average conditions. The wind was pretty much pumping from true north (the worst wind for what we were doing). We were wet and tired but we pushed on, both of us with our goals for the trip willing us on. I only had one more baz to crack my target of 50 for the season, and well webby just wanted to catch one, he hadn’t really had much of an opportunity so far and when he did he had a case of the dropsies (know that feeling my self)

Anyway we made it and set the anchor for a couple of hours sleep before we would have our first crack. As the sun rose so did our hopes, the wind was gone and the water temp was all ready well over 31 degrees, not bad for march.

We opted for a troll initially as the tide was still running a bit hard for casting the sp’s. We had made the plan to only target barra with artificials this trip. First pass and I think I managed a nice little blue nose salmon, there were heaps around. We found an area showing some large arches and although I did manage two substantial hits I didn’t manage a hook up. We decided to beach the boat and flick some SP’s around. Jay and I had a reasonable amount of success last week so I was hopeful.

Things were quiet at the first part, it would have been easy just to lob out a livie and wait but we persisted. It must have been around cast number 100 when we finally saw some action. Hits started to come mid water on retrieve. We were using a variety of jerk bait style SP’s with ½ oz jig heads. The barra seemed to be holding up in the middle of the creek on the edge of the rutts. I was the first to hook up, an 81cm baz jumped and I stayed connected. It was good to get the monkey off the back and crack my goal of 50 bazzas for the season. I had a beer to celebrate, it was only 0745 but it tasted bloody good. Once again the SP’s were really starting to prove their worth.

It wasn’t long after that and I was on again, this time it was a 71cm variety, again the baz put on a good ariel display and again I landed it, very happy. Webby was starting to get a bad dose of “barra envy” it didn’t help that I hooked up another two times right in front of him to some pretty solid fish, luckily I had dropped both of them or things would have been interesting in deed.

Anyway after a change from a shad style to a gulp 5” there was an instant change in success for webby, he was on to a solid fish and he managed to stay connected right until the end. There were a few high fives and chest pumps after he landed that fish, congrats mate, time to RELAXXXXX!!!

Webby’s first Bazza taking to the sky………..

A happy chappy!

With the pressure off we settled in to the rest of the session we both landed another fish each mine was only a pup but webby’s was a bit better. From memory we dropped another couple each as well. There was quite a bit of by catch with many blue nose salmon, finger mark, jacks and grunter finding their way to the shore. The session ended with a tally of 5 barra landed and the same number dropped. I had a baz slam my sp n the surface and jump at least 6 foot out of the water, the highest I have ever seen any barra jump, it was amazing.

Anyway we did a bit of exploring in a new system after the morning session. Had a bit of a jacks fish and rounded out the day with a few beers. We had planned to fish the evening low but gave up pretty early in lieu of a good nights sleep.

Bait gathering

Webbster man chu getting Jacked

We woke Sunday morning to some pretty awesome conditions, not a breath of wind…

The session started off slow but again persistence paid off. I started off with the first fish again it was only about 60cm. I then caught a baz that would luck to be 40cm, smallest Pilbara baz I have ever caught but a great sign of a healthy system. We both dropped a few fish in the morning of really good size, one of webbys would have been around mid 80’s when the plastic slipped out of its mouth right on the bank, I literally jumped on top of it to try grab it but all I managed to do was cop a spike in the arm pit before it swam off.

A small Pilbara baz

Another Very small Pilbara Bazza, sign of a healthy system

I managed a nice baz of around 84cm (biggest of the trip) on the last of my gulp 5” SP’s on a 5/8 oz jig head. The fish put on a pretty good show with quite a few jumps, that took my tally to 6 for the trip to web’s 2 at that stage. Luckily just after that webby hooked on to another nice fish to wind up the session it went pretty close to 80 from memory. By this stage the tide was coming in fast and we were on our way home. Total tally was 9 landed bazzas all on SP’s and 7 dropped.

Biggest of the trip, 84cm

Webb man chu with a nice hedland sp bazzamundoli

Like I said, Hedland bazzas just love SP’s

It took my personal tally to 55 for the season with a boat tally of 87. The water is still pretty warm with the lack of cyclone activity so I may go out again yet, but I think I have had enough for now. We will see how long that lasts ……

...

With a break in the weather forecast, my sister’s boyfriend and I decided to head out and find some fish. Heading out the water was glassy. We stopped at the first spot to do a bit of popping. On the first cast my popper was annihilated by a school of large Queenies. We spent the next hour or so playing with these acrobatic fish and Matty even managed a nice GT on his barra gear. By 8am we decided we deserved our first beer.

After that we went out wide to find some bottom fish over the high tide. We had decided the night before that we weren’t going to take any bait. And just persist with artificial all day. On the sounder we saw that our first lump was holding some fish so I dropped down a softie and was rewarded with a nice trout.

We trawled over to our second lump and managed two Spaniards, one just over size. And the one pictured bellow. The second lump held small cod a flag and another smaller trout.

By this stage we were both dehydrated and exhausted so we headed in. as we got into the archipelago, the weather was atrocious and the whole place had turned into a big sloppy mess. A very different place to out wide. It’s amazing how a few miles can make a difference in the weather.

It’s also good to note that no matter how far out you go, even if you can’t see land. There is always some one that will see you fishing and come and anchor right next to you…  

Last weekend went out from Dampier Saturday and the forecast was not right as the wind blew up. Was planning to go to Rosalie shoal or outer patch for trolling and bottom bounching.

Not comfortable so ended up in the lea and found the motherload of small to just undersize Blue bone. 4 of us fishing with bait, jigs and SP must have landed about 100 of these babies, to the point of calling them blowfish.

Even though they became a nuisance, it does look good for the future.

Also has anyone come across such a concentration of baby BB, as I found it odd in my fishing experience.

Neels

PS caught some good other fish but all for fun. Hooked a Black whaler we think that lumped 3m, then snapped the 40lb leader and then decided to free jump about 4m in the air 6m behind the boat just to show us he can get into the boat. Jenny on board also trolled up on a red head popper a 90+cm Jumping freak Queenfish that was awesome to watch.

I have a day off tomorrow on short notice so will be heading out for a fish in the morning. Got a spot free so if anyone want to come and have a look at what Hedland can turn on in close here is the oppotunity you are looking for. Heading off around 8 in the morning. Must be kid friendly as my 3.5 year old is the usual deckie and has the day off kindy.

Hey there, thought i would share this picture with you guys as it's my first real fish i have caught up here. As you can probably tell i was pretty stoked when i saw it was a barra ended up measuring 81cm .

Dont know how to make picture smaller

Geez, i tell you what it is good to be back in the Pilbara after all of this time away. Well it was mid week and i decided that i was going to go up a creek in the local area for what will be the last time for a while. I couldnt convince webby to chuck a sicky so i was on my own, which i kind of liked. was awesome sitting there last night watching the sun set on the local creek for the last time on my own while enjoying a cold beer.

Anyway i managed to get into the creek just in time, was a little to neapish for my liking, this generally means the cat fish are around in plague proportions. I had to work pretty hard to find a pattern that was working but alas after finding the fish on the troll (and dropping my fist fish) they always strike when your rubbing sunscreen on your face dont they... Anyway i set about collecting some livies, i got about a dozen whiting in the first cast and decided that would be enough. I seetled down to soak a few, after dropping another fish early and landing a few of those pesky catties i connected to a decent barra of around 81cm. Stoked, in the creek for less than an hour and i have already seen three barra, one of them was in the boat for a photo before release.

number one

I enjoyed another cold beer and some afternoon tea before the next fish, it was very similar in size to the first and again it was released.

Number two

The sun was setting and my bait was dwindling. I managed another two barra before the night was out, one again around the 82cm mark and the other about 61, both were released.

Number three

Number4

I had another beer then rolled out the swag on the deck of the boat for a good night sleep. I had planned to get up and fish the 4am low but i decided it was a lot more inviting to stay in my swag, especially since i already had a few fish in the boat. I got up just before the sun came up to throw a few poppers around on dawn. I had a massive barra strike on the first cast, it came right out of the water but didnt hook up. Next cast i got another stike, however again it was a pasky catfish, yukkkkkkk..

Yuk....

nice morning

Anyway i decided to call it quits, there was next to no wind and i hit 42 knots on the way home in my boat. Take my barra tally to 48 for the season so far, 76 for the boat. Pretty happy considdering i havnt fished for barra for the best part of 6 weeks.

By by k-town, ill miss you

Howdy, I'm new to town (Karratha) and just chasing some tips for places to fish off the beaches and in the creeks. Went out to Sam's Creek next to the shed today, had a few bites till my rod tip snapped off. I'm pretty limited at the moment because I dont have a 4WD or boat and my gear's not really set up for fishing up here so any info on bait and set ups would be much appreciated.

Just for something different, this year when asked what I wanted to do for my birthday, I said I wanted to go fishing. (Don’t know why they asked?) So the missus, the kids, my parents and sister, plus friends and I headed out to the shack for a couple of days. The weather forecast was looking good so straight after work on Friday we headed out.

After dumping the stuff at the shack we headed out wide for a brief popping session.  I had two solid hits, one from a monster of a fish but unfortunately nothing stuck.

Throwing some poppers as the sun goes down.

The next morning we woke up early and headed out for a bottom bash. Matt hooked a nice cod on trawl and I caught a solid little queenie on a soft plastic. My mate john caught some small trout and a few snapper and things were looking good until the sharks moved in and after several bust ups a change of plan was needed.

Matts cod

Queenie on SP

We decided to head back out and try for another GT. It only took about 10mins for the first solid hit, but once again no hook up. By this point I was starting ask serious questions as I had not yet caught a decent G buss on popper.  However two casts later my popper was smashed once again. This time I managed to stay connected. Only fishing shallow water I was forced to not so gently persuade the fish he didn’t want to go under several bombies. When he came aboard the back treble was completely missing, split ring and all. It wasn’t a monster but it was a good way to open my GT innings. And I am stoked.

PB GT

After this john and I swapped, me on the wheel and he throwing the poppers around. We did this for another half hour but had no love. The wind started coming up and we were nacked so we headed back to the shack for lunch. Apart from a quick cray sesh that arvo, the rest of the trip was spent kicking back sinking a few with friend and family. Bloody good way to spend a birthday if you ask me.   

Crays

Hey Guys

I have just had the pleasure of moving up to karratha as my Girlfriend has been placed in a teaching position at Millars Well. Karratha was her top preference (due to my influence) and we are so stoked to have been placed here. I am an avid diver and also love fishing (although prob dont do enough of it as Perth fishing was fairly crap seeing as though I only have a 4.5m runnabout) I cant wait to try my hand at fishing up here and even more so cant wait to land my first barra.

I guess the pupose of me writing is to get a few tips on some good places for someone starting out in this area to go. Maybe some popular areas to get a few barra (I would even be stoked with some large threddies) or maybe some good areas to fish around the close islands (due to the small size of my boat) also speaking of the boat ive had a few problems with it recently with not getting full power to the engine, I have cleaned out the carby and it got a bit better but i want to take it into somewhere and get it looked at, any places you would recommend? and what kind of gear should I be looking at getting for fishing up here as my gear is more targeted to smaller species fishing around Perth (although I have a nice abu garcia bait caster reel which i think will be good for barra).

Thanks for all your advice guys, also if anyone needs a deckie any time soon give me a yell as I wont say no to heading out with some friendly locals who know their Pilbara fishing.

Matty

I was going to write an article about our recent trip to New Caledonia but I have a fair bit going on in the next few months with work and moving etc so I thought, stuff it I will put all the photos up here for everyone to have a look at instead. That way you can enjoy the picks without ever having to fork out 7 or so bucks for a magazine.

Jay Glenn and I set off to New Cal mid Jan of this year in pursuit of some BIGGG GT’s. Unfortunately as you may already know we didn’t really get blessed with favorable weather conditions for our journey, this did make things very difficult at times. We were fishing with reputable new cal charter organization LPB. Quite a few of our friends had fished the area in the past while doing reasonably well. Rudy our skipper and guide and Rastafani the decky were really good company during our stay and made things pretty easy for us. Rudy and Rasta Picked us up after our first night in Noumea (and to many number 1’s which is the local beer) at about 0530 on the first morning of fishing. Our boat was a 27ft edge Water named the GT monster.

Location: well we were somewhere in the south west of the lagoon camping on what was aptly named “Wild Island”. Sea snakes and birds crawled and flew all over this place, my first encounter with the snakes was on night one when in the dark of night sitting by the camp fire one slithered straight over my feet. We did all eventually become accustomed to the creatures even when they were trying to get into our tents at night, “make sure you zip up your tents boys” a quote from our guide Rudy……(jay, did you always remember this advice, cough….hahaha)

Wild Island

Our time on the first couple of days was spent inside the lagoon popping reefs rising from as deep as 55 meters to only a few meters or even dry on occasions. The areas looked extremely fishy and although we did manage a fair amount of by catch it was really really really HARD slogging at times.

First of the trip

We all had a minimum of two GT combos both PE10 and PE12. The most common lure weights ranged from 170-250g unrigged. I concentrated mainly on the GT3 ultra Big mouths and 190g cono cono’s with GT recorder 8/0’s and my 150 and 170g Weezels in between. I am pretty sure jay was using the same as well as patriot master bombs around the 220g size. Glenn used I cups and his favorite cono 150 when he got tired. A Variety of stick baits including bigfoot’s, craftbaits, carpenters and black jacks were also used with a fair amount of success.

Pretty sure on day one Glenn landed a GT of around the 17 or so KG size after not much casting. We had a few really big strikes and follows on the first day but from memory we only landed 3 GT’s for the afternoon (all Glenn’s) as well as some by catch of blue cod (the hardest fighting fish in the ocean, hahaha) bass, trout, tuna, barracuda etc etc

Jays toothy cuda

Day two, we were amped after far to many mantas and number 1’s (local ale) it didn’t matter so much because again the weather was puss for most of the day. Jay and I managed to score a couple of GT’s as well as some solid red bass while Glenn got another couple of GT’s as well. I think the biggest for the trip was at that stage about 23kg (me and pretty happy to as it was on the “pilbara sunrise” coloured Weezel). Again Glenn had a solid hook up on a fish well over 30 but unfortunately he didn’t land it

Dinner

Day three, had some GPS trouble and the bad weather also confined us to the lagoon again. All good managed a few more GT’s reefies like bass, jobfish, tuna, barracuda. Pretty sure this was also the day we had a really eerie late arvo glass off. It was very very very lat and the sun came out, again not very good weather for the G busses but pleasant none the less. Had a jig and managed a small trout before loosing about 8 jigs between us to barracuda, Jay got SMASHED by a pretty good sized dog tooth, unfortunately didn’t land it

GT monster glass off

Day 4 finally got “outside” for a proper dig just for a couple of hours. I managed to get busted off by what looked like a large GT, it appeared to bite the front of my popper on the leader, luckily the lure popped up so we could get it. Good arvo for us, Jay landed his MONSTER WWAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and probably the fish of the trip at 40kg’s, a first for Rudy at LPB, well done mate. Glenn managed 2 GT’s one tipping the scales at around 33kg, not long but a very fat fish, rest and more beer followed that night

Fish of the trip I would say

Biggest of the trip at 35kg’s and a new PB for me

Last day was only a half day fishing and was probably mine, I landed about 7 red bass and the biggest GT of the trip at 35kg’s. Glenn got quite a few petite GT’s and jobfish while I also landed a nice trout and jay also snagged a few bass and other reefies. The 35KG gt was a new PB for me by about 2KG’s but hey, ill take it

We went back to Noumea probably a little disappointed with the fishing but not with the experience, company or the trip as a whole. Great company great beer and an all round great experience was had.

I ended my overseas holiday by spending another week on a tropical island resort with my wife who flew into Noumea the day after our charter. I had 40kg GT’s swimming around my over water bungalow on 2 occasions, was pretty hard to take..

Cheers and I hope you like the pics

PS - I want to place some emphasis one thing. We still managed quite a lot of decent fish and in the report it may look as though we did really well - but believe me it was hard work. There were a lot of hours in between casting and one occasion for me a whole day in between fish. Yes we got some great captures but it just goes to show that in one of the best fishing locations in the world, it can still be tough going……………………

hey guys going to work up port headland fulltime in a day or two, would be keen to get into popping for gts etc but will more likley be casting off the beach untill i can sort a boat as i have every sunday off and one week a month off, any help would be appreciated as i have never been up there before, some basic spots to try from the shore, gear to use, lures etc, or if somebody has a spare spot on a boat one sunday...

hey all just wondering if anyone was going fishing land based round karratha this sunday?

After the creek session I had with Brad the family was pretty keen to get into one of the creeks to see what its like as they have only been blue water fishing. Well they were not disappointed...We headed out early to catch the tides and after a cup of coffee and a morning snack the little fellas "helped" me get some bait. I wasn’t expecting anything for about an hour but chucked out a bait anyway. 10 minutes and the rod was screaming, I picked it up set the hook and to my surprise a barra jumped out the water, a great way to start. We had a red hot session landing 2 Barra 1st one 84 cm my pb and the second landed by my wife a large 91cm. Needless to say it is no help at home with the wife having a larger pb Barra than myself.

Sean8 and i went out for a fish this morning, the plan was to head out "real wide" to some new ground however the weather gods did not let that happen. We opted for a jig / fish on some familiar ground a lot closer to shore. I used nothing but jigs while sean used bait. Unfortunately the demersals were not playing the game and seans bait remained largley untouched. Alas it was going orfffff on jigs, just one problem, i couldnt land any of the fish i was hooking. There were large numbers of BIG spanyids around resulting in around 10 lost jigs for me, ahhhhhhhhh

all good i did manage to land quite a few mack tuna, gold spots, cod and a snall mackie.

I am afraid i also lost the traveling lure to a large mackie, sorry guys.... I hooked something BIG as well which again i didnt manage to land. Every time i managed to get it up off the bottom a few meters it would bury me again, i am guessing it was a huge cod of some sorts.

Attached a couple of photos of some of the landed species

Jigs sure won the day over baits

Hello,

Can you launch at Balla Balla on any tide? Also, are the creek systems to the west of Balla Balla accessible on any tide ?

Thanks

Joe

Sean8 had never caught been creek fishing before and I had been promising that I would take him at some stage for quite a while now. So Boxing Day was going to be the day. Not so long ago Sean moved to the Pilbara and I had all ready managed to put him on to his first chinaman, trout, rankin, mackie and a few other northern tropical species. This time on the hit list we had a barra and a thready, I was pretty confident that it wouldn’t be too much of an issue although we were going to a spot I wasn’t really too familiar with.

We were up early and on the water just as the sun began to creep over the horizon. We made out way into the system minus a little less paint on the skeg of seans optimax because we had a falling tide and not plot for this creek in his GPS. All good, we found our spot and set about getting some livies straight away. It didn’t take too long to get a couple of good mullet and whiting in the bucket.

We were fishing a pretty skinny piece of water so we opted for nosing the boat up on to the bank wile soaking a few. It didn’t take long and Sean got a solid run, followed by a jumping barra on his rod, he was checking the time when this happened and didn’t get a chance to grab his rod, ahh well all good at least they were around.

Next my rod screamed off and a nice barra jumped out the back. I managed to set the hook and land the first barra f the day, it think it went about 76cm from memory, it was released. We managed to get into a pretty hot little thready session after that. The current had stopped over the low and the threadys were on the hunt, we managed to land about 7 ranging from 80cm to almost a meter. Sean managed a few and had that species ticked off the list. During that time I managed to drop two more barra, I hooked into a nice little rat on an atomic prong SP, I was spewing as well I have never landed a barra on that particular type of SP, we had it next to the boat about to net it when it managed to shake itself free.

first of the day

thready action was hot

more

even more

yep, more

last one for now

The tide had turned and with the bit of push came a bit more barra action. Sean managed to stay connected. This time with a bit of luck and quite a few jumps we got another one in to the boat.Sean8 was stoked, only a couple of hours and he had both of his target species ticked off the list. His first barra went 78cm and was released. I dropped another barra, this time my braid parted on the spool, the only thing I can thin of is that I had a nick in my line. So tally after the first session was 7 threadys landed 2 barra landed and approx 4-5 barra dropped.

seasns baz

seans first ever baz, 78cm and released

We changed spots for another session once it got dark. I was pretty keen to try get another baz on popper and on the first cast I got a massive hit, you guessed it though it didn’t hook up. I managed about another 3 hits but no hook ups. During that time Sean8 got a massive run followed by a jumping barra, the fish managed to throw the huge bait out of its mouth on the jump, another dropped fish., sigh.........

Well there were a few fish around, after throwing lures for an hour or so I switched to bait for immediate success. My line must have been in the water 30 seconds when I got a blinding run. I set the hook and saw a large barra jump in the moonlight. This time it stuck and I must admit I was pretty nervous after so many dropped fish, but alas I managed to thankfully land it. The fish went 95cm, the biggest for the day, it was released.

was pretty happy to land this one after dropping quite a few

biggest of the boxing day bazza's

Sean was the next to hook up his fish went very hard across the surface and playing him for quite a while before he could land it. We were pretty stocked to see a large thready come into view, not only was seasn already breaking P B’s but the meter mark as well. The thready went 108cm, a great fish congrats Sean, it was released..

seans PB monster thready, 108cm and releaed

A very happy chappy, it has been a good year for threadys up this way, this is the 12th meter plus thready caught from my boat this season, biggest going 111cm so far..

I managed one more barra for the night, on a dead mullet of all things. The fish hit the bait like a bream but then set off on a screaming run followed by lots of jumps. It went 88cm and released.

took the personel tally to 38 and the boat tally to 72 for this season so far

88cm, released...

Well I chucked a popper around for another 10 minutes or so before bed and I couldn’t believe it when I hooked a catfish, the one technique I thought was safe from those pests, ahhhhh, oh well all good………….

sigh...............

Can't believe thats its been nearly 2 weeks and not a single story from brad, jay, webby, neels and co. Hey guys the closure is down south of steep point. jeeeezus

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.

Finally got a decent weather day that coincided with a weekend so James and I planned a hit and run overnighter off Onslow. In line with the quick trip we kept camping gear to a minimum and planned to sleep on the boat.

Saturday morning we left the ramp at 5.00am, hoping to fish the turn of the high tide at 7.30am on some red ground. Trip out was bit slower than we liked due to some slightly stronger than forecast winds. First drop on the spot was at 7.00am, worked it for 90 minutes for some average spangles, a 10 kg estuary cod and some juvenile reds (all fish released).

Plan B was put into action and we headed to some more ground 1/2 a mile away. First drop, bang, 73cm red for me, excellent. James got busted up big time, re-rigged and then hooked what he thought was a good red. Couple of minutes later up popped a nice chinaman. Nice fish but not what we were after so he released it. Over the next two hours, pulled a few nice rankins, spangles, school sharks and little pest fish, then the floater finally went off.

James had his work cut out as his fish took off across the top leaving a rooster tail in the lines wake. Wahoo? The unseen fish took several powerful runs on the 20lb finn's braid, eventually gliding into view as the cry erupted, waf*&^()$%hoo! Good gaff shot behind the gill plate and aboard the Further North comes James' first wahoo. Very happy boy. Took the obligatory pics and decided to go have a cray snorkel.

Water clarity was great and we grabbed some good painted's and one green, which was destined for peri-peri cray entree that night. Plenty of bluebone around but only just size so the rob allen wasn't shot in anger. After two hours cray snorkelling we decided to troll back and look at some other bits of coral I had previously marked around the area. No luck on the coral but picked up a small dolly on the troll.

Ended up back on the mornings spot, no fish on the sounder this time and the tide rising again. Pretty slow and then bang, 82cm red crashed my party and James nailed a 10kg spaniard on his floater. Pretty tired by now so cruised into the lee of an island and put the mooring anchor down. Cooked a feed and then crashed. Not a bad nights sleep once we got used to the water slap on the ali hull.

Sunday morning saw James awaken with red fever burning in his eye so we hit the spot where we pulled the big boy the night before. Very slow, the odd picker and rankin, but perseverance came through in the form of another big red for myself, a PB at 84cm. Fished on for another hour, but then pulled the pin to have a look for some red crays on a favourite spot. Three reds and a big painted for James, finally saw us pull the pin and head home. Thankfully the 20 knot sea breeze was blowing up our date on the way home.

Pretty tired now and the stable soft bed, will feel good tonight. Not a heap of fish, but the quality was right up there.

still up creek now with huggy 8 landed 4 dropped in the first session lots more to go huggy biggest 930 mm my biggest 965 mm

Just got back from a quick trip to pick up my boat from Exmouth and managed to pop into Karratha as well for a few days to catch up and have a fish with Brad. Unfortunately for me the weather didn't care I'd driven 3500km and blew for most of my stay. Brad and I got up a creek one arvo to fish the evening bite but 20-30kt easterlies, falling water temps and big tides meant slow fishing. I jumped off a 80cm barra within the first 15mins but that was it. We weren't prepared to camp up the creek but the trip back was going to be sh*t so we sat around deciding what to do. We ended up deciding to leave so Brad made a temporary blanket out of a towel and I spooned his centre cab to try to get a little sleep while we waited for the tide to rise so we could get out. The trip home was slow and average but we made it, finally hitting the hay at 1am.

After a day off to recoup we decided to try again, this time mother nature was a little kinder with the weather, not smooth but far better than the day before. We got into the same creek and cast and trolled for a few hours with no luck. Once the tide was low enough we (well Brad, I was just the bucket b*tch) went off chasing bait. The first few throws were empty and we started looking at each other wondering if we were in for another long night. Brad perservered and we ended up with a bucket full of whiting and mullet for the session. Well it turned out to be a good one at that, with numerous runs and hook ups. Between us we landed 4 threadfin salmon between 90-99cm and a 87cm barra to Brad, and lost a few more barra too. All in all a good day/night was had, but unfortunately for me I think I've found my hoodoo- Pilbara barra. I've had 5 attempts now and still haven't landed one with Brad. Still I've got a few frequent flyers points saved up for early next year to try again.

Good luck next weekend Huggy, I hope the weather is kinder to you than it was to me, and I hope you're feeling fit enough to chase Brad around the flats with a 20kg bucket in your arms while he's collecting bait.

B-Dog with his barra

My thready.

Cheers B-Dog and the rest of the Bells. Good luck next weekend.

Hey everybody,

           Pretty new to the pilbara, and saltwater fishing for that matter!! more use to the fresh water back home in the New England area. Anyways pretty keen on this GT popping ive heard so much about.. Any tips & places to go would be much appricated, i dont mean top seceret locations cause i no most people are very protective bout that kind of thing... but a little advice would be greatful. Ive been out a few times and managed to hook up on a few sizable fish but have only landed 2. Been snaped off bout 6 times, so i dont no if im unlucky or what. anyway,   cheers...