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In
search of Big Barra.
Well
the wedding of the century was finally over and was a huge success, my
good mate and fishing partner (the Groom) Chris Jones was finally able
to get some fishing in. For the previous 15 wks that luxury had been
banned, what a legend! The plan was to drive to Proserpine, along with
Ross Paton and Graeme “Ace “Wheare and fish the Peter Faust Dam. Chris
was also trying to win a framed print of a barra in his firms
competition, the person with the biggest Barra caught before the closing
day would deemed to be the winner. So far the leading fish was 90cm but
we thought that we would have every chance of getting a 1m+ from the
dam. I mean how hard can it be, Jason Swan catch’s plenty there (Just
joking Jason! I now know how hard it is!!)!
As bonus, multi media star and high profile fisherman David “Lumpy”
Milson and his lovely wife Alana where to join us for the fish but we
had no idea when. We duly arrived at our caravan park where we had a
cabin booked, late that night and unpacked the boat and got set up for
an early morning start.
When the morning arrived it wasn’t that an earlier a start as we had a
few “Sherbets” that night playing Euchre! But anyway we arrived at the
ramp to find wall to wall trailers, must have been 30 boats already on
the water! As we had never fished there we were at a bit lost as to
where to start but had been told to head for the timber and start
fishing. And what timber there is, just massive amounts of tree’s,
vertical, sunken, leaning over etc etc. Now the problem was depth of
water, some were in 20-30ft others in 10 ft to nothing. Now I know where
barra live but this was mind boggling, I decided to go with my main
theory to have as less water between them and me as possible.
For the technical minded we used 32lb braid onto an 80lb leader, but
most of the locals use 50lb braid, a Varity of lures where used but I
found a pinkish “Leads” worked for me and in the shallower water a
silver”B52”, most of the others guys used there favorite lures to start
but switch to my style when I was hooking up.
My first hook up lasted about 5 seconds if that! I worked the “leads”
down the side of a log towards the boat when a huge bronze flash flew
out from under the log grabbed the lure and headed back, now by this
time he was on a short leash, the next thing I heard after my shout of
“yeah baby” was the crack as the braid snapped, it sounded like a pistol
going off! And that was the only Barra we actually saw for the first
session apart from a couple of bites and rolls. As it was getting warmer
and the fish were obviously quite at this time of the day we decided to
have a look around and check it out for another session later.
When we had arrived back at Proserpine I received a call from the “Big
Fella”, would I fish with him for an evening session as the lovely Mrs
Milson was a touch under the weather. No Problems, he duly picked me up
and back I went, be nice to stand and flick lures instead of trying to
fish and steer thro' the timber. Well the session didn’t start well with
Lumpy shoving the boat off only to see the boat part from the painter
and start disappearing into the dam, I couldn’t help for laughing so
Lumpy had to wade out for it!
“Lumpy” was applying his knowledge of fishing Lake Tinnaroo and was
looking for a weed bed that shelved of into about 11-12ft of water, to
anchor off. Having found that we started to work our lures from the
shallow to the deep and I was soon rewarded by a massive boil behind the
lure but no hook up, Lumpy was having the same trouble early in the
session. But as it got darker they were getting more aggressive and we
soon had some hook ups, the big fella is soon into a nice fish most
probably about 30 lb, we guessed as it spent a lot of time out of the
water. But it too jumped of leaving us devastated, I too was soon into a
bigger fish, I must have had it on for 5 minutes, survived several big
leaps even had to the side of the boat but it just spat the lure when it
saw the net. So many emotions, elation, devastation all in a matter of
minutes. And that was to be the story for most of the session, it got
down to a last call of 10 casts and then home when we had a double hook
up on the 10th cast.
Now the plan was to release the anchor and chase a really big one, well
I had a horse on and Lumpy had one about 25lb on, ”what Now I call”
”hang on” shouts lumpy and proceeds to skull drag his fish across the
surface to the boat and duly nets it. Whilst I’m watching a trophy fish
making a Macramé’ basket out of my line and any snag that is handy! By
the time we releases the anchor line it was all over, after some
untangling of line and trees I managed to get the lure back and we
decided to call it a night.
I won’t bore you with the morning session as it was much the same as the
previous but with a few humorous incidents. We had decided to have an
early fish so subsequently we up at 4 am and so was the rest of the park
as “Ace” set the smoke alarm of burning the toast. This wouldn’t have
been to bad except the couple in the next cabin had a trailer full of
show dogs, who all went of at once! Then to top this I was sitting on
the “Dunny”when a black cat jumped thro' the window and landed on my
head, talk about heart attack, I don’t know who was more frightened the
cat or me! Anyway of to the evening session.
We soon arrived at the weed bed and set up station around it, as we were
first we grabbed the spot from the previous night (mistake) and Lumpy
and Alana just around the next tree. My boat was flogging the water to
foam but couldn’t raise a fish, well I jumped one of (It straightened
out the hooks). Lumpy is soon into a nice fish and for once it swam into
some clear water and was able to be boated after some spectacular
jumps.98cm now that is some fish and fat as! Plenty of pics and congrats
and the fish is returned to fight another day.
Now Lumpy was being a bit unkind to Alana as she was fishing with 20k
braid on a Ultragraph Spin stick! This outfit was soon to be tested as
she is soon hooked up to a horse, it was a big fish, we could all see
that as it spent a lot of time leaping about. Making long hard runs but
lucky enough not into any snags. After plenty of encouragement from us
and Lumpy, she soon had the fish in the boat. A nice 1m plus Barra, not
bad as it was probably only her 2nd or 3rd Barra and she was able to
catch and boat a smaller fish for the last fish. What a session, for the
week-end we had some thing like 25,bites, rolls, strikes hook –ups for 5
fish landed, me I’m 99 knock outs due to win one soon!
For my crew it was a learning session but we will be back and in the
near future. Thanks to Clive and Beth at the Gunna-Go Caravan Park, pH
49451540,good cabins, great home cooked meals, you can’t go wrong basing
yourselves there about 10 minutes from the dam. Thanks to Proserpine
Bait and Tackle for all there help and info and don’t for get your
permits from the tackle shop or the BP across the road.
Jim (Jimbo)
Lee - www.un-reel-sportsfishing-adventures.com.au
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