The end has come to yet another great week on the Daly with the 2009 Barra Classic.
Jack & I went down to the river 5 days prior to the comp starting, spent that time necking p..s, dragging a lure here and there, no serious fishing just prospecting for new areas worth a look. In hindsight, perhaps we should have been a bit more serious.........
Had a good chat to Rab, the Fishing School guy, about sounders, he gave me the mark for a silicone Barra that he has placed in the river for students to search out and use to set their sounders up for optimum performance. I’m yet to have a look for it; I’m keen to see what it shows up like on the SI unit.
Saturday was the Kids Day, we had Liam (son) and a young bloke, Rusty, from Jabiru in my boat, as with most of the juniors they all want to fish the Esses, we gave them an hour or so around the lower Ess and suggested they may like to move up to the Golden Mile, dropped in on the small rocky outcrop a few hundred metres above No Fish and was immediately into them, left them biting and went up above the main rockbar and found the fish were on the chew there as well. The two lads ended up with 3 Barra each, Rusty took out the award for the biggest fish of the day.
Southy joined us Saturday just in time for the Calcutta, which he hosted, managing to entice Footy to bid on every team.
It was a very frustrating tournament for us, mostly doing it hard , we picked up scoring fish on all days, but only managing a couple of hundred points each time with the exception of Day 3 when we scored around 500-sh. Getting a lot of non-scoring rats does nothing but give you the shites! : Nothing more exasperating than hitting a trolling line with a number of other boats, all using the same lure, trolling the exact same line and only a handful of the boats picking up fish, not just a fish here and a fish there, but, every single troll, sheesh…………………………….talk about giving one the craps! This happened on a number of occasions. :
Never seen so many Barra rid themselves of Polties either, they usually stick, especially when rigged with big singles, from talking to other guys we weren’t the only ones having trouble keeping the hooks in. :
I think we ended up in the high 20’s or low 30’s, I’ll know for sure when the full results are mailed out. :
Fishing aside, it is always a great week on the best river in the world, with good company to share it with. I’m counting the sleeps til next year already!
This style of tourney fishing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea; up at 5 every morning (5.30 – 5.45 for me ), on the water for 10 hours, back to camp, dinner, bit of socialising, bit of necking p..s, get your shite in one pile for the next day and then it happens all over again, for 5 days. I love it!
Now it’s time to fix up stuff that was damaged over the week; two Humminbird transducer brackets busted, sounder RAM mount busted, engine cav plate trim tab busted off, engine control cable grommet ripped and finally, find where the boat was taking on water (it’s got me stuffed).
Good to meet Score from the forum, putting another face to a name.
Also good to see Buccaneer2, Milney and Barramatta & Sean hit the river, I think were another couple of FFF stickers floating around, did’nt get a chance to catch up.

Jamie and the lads from “Wilson Barradise” ended up Champion Team after coming home with a BIG last day.

Many thanks for a top week Blinky...plenty of with a few thrown in and the ocasional on like you say one of the most spectacular rivers going with good company what more could any man want.....

Blinky it was a great week we had a ball, probably the only bad part was towing the boat back on orientation day... and defiantly good to catch up for a few beers just glad you didn’t roster tails on the last day.

hey blinky, good report matey

looks like a good time was had by all

cheers for adding the fotos as well some good pics in there!

Thanks for the update Blinky i enjoyed reading your report and your pics were great with a few laughs thrown in there.

Sounds like you guys had a stack of fun with some fishing thrown in the mix.

How many boats and people were at the comp this year?

Cheers Lyndon.

Top write up Blinky my mates team had a shocker nothing like scoring a rockbar at 65 clicks if ya know what I mean

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Seeking, there were 45 teams with 3 anglers in each. Makes for a lot of hooks being dragged around the river, at times it was like a “wall of death” across the Elizabeth rockbar.
Seeking Barradise is on the side of the boat that won the Champ Team, you’re not a snoozer in the wood pile are you?



Yeah Ernie, we saw Milney towing them back up river, sussed Rohan out about it that night, can’t blame him for that though………..nothing blows my hair back as much as going fast in skinny water, keeps the pucker factor hovering around 10! I just prefer to do it in 6 inches over sand not rock.

Might be able to explain the inflatable life preservation device. We were down for a mates bucks weekend, obviously unaware that the kids classic was on that same day. The life preserver was inflated further down the river (the guys didn't know is was so big ). By the time it got back to the S-bends there were kids everywhere, so it was taken away and tied up (teabagging the water as so eloquently explained), to be retrieved after the kids had finished.

The buck also had to remove his so sexy booby apron

we were wondering what it was all about, at first I thought it was the marker for the end of the speed limited area. Then when it was missing the next morning we had no idea. Did you guys also put the doll on the bank? The one dressed as Dr Evil.

Nah, the doll wasn't us. There was another larger lady style doll, but after blowing up the other thing, the guys didn't have any left to get her up as well.