On the Friday before Easter I decided to kick off the school holidays by taking both my boys (Jasper 8, Ziggy 11) out on a fishing trip for some male bonding. We picked the freshwater Finniss as our destination since a) I hadn't fished it this year since it started droppping and b) it's usually a great spot to take the kids to catch lots of rat barra and plenty of tarpon. My mate Andrew got his girls organised and tagged along too.

We hit the road early, arriving at the Finniss ramp at 6:30am. The dip was at 400mm, and I hoped that meant there would still be plenty of run-off. There were a couple trailers in the car park already, having perhaps camped overnight. We launched the boats and headed up river stopping along the way at each run-off creek I had marked on my gps. There was much less run-off than I expected, but enough to create a decent colour change at each spot. Whilst the tarpon were rolling away everywhere, there was very little predatory action, and no fish to speak of. We got a couple follows and saw the odd flash of colour, but by and large, our lures just weren't getting much attention, apart from the odd tarpon.



At the last run-off on my list upstream, we finally raised a fish, which went 60cm, a typically green looking Finniss River barra. I throw back all my fish from that river, but Andrew was keen to take home a fish, so I necked it and tossed it over to his boat to put on ice. He later made Thai fish cakes out of it, and said it didn't taste muddy at all.



After that fish, and a hundred casts later, we zoomed back down the river to threeways and trolled it and cast it and jigged it and caugth nothing whatsoever. The little creek up the way had colour, but again, no fish biting. At 10:30am I had the s...ts with the place, and was keen to pull out and head to the Adelaide to see if we could salvage the trip. Andrew was up for it, and the kids were so so, but I was feeling ripped off after getting up so early, and I wanted to catch some fish.

We stopped at the Arnhem Highway turn-off to check with Andrew, and by then his girls had decided to pack it in, so I sent a sleepig Jasper home with them, and Ziggy and I pressed on to the Adelaide River, arriving at 12pm, to a very hot and very full car park. Ziggy and I run a slick operation, and it wasn't long before the boat was in the water and we were re-sunscreening up for the trip up river.

We shot up the first creek, but there was little run-off to speak of. I was starting to think this had been a bad idea. We moved onto our next target, and luckily there was some clean water coming out. Up to the floodplains we went, and pulled into the weeds opposite a tiny gutter that was pumping our freshwater. Immediately our little hardbodies got some long awaited attention. There were plenty of rats and the action was frenetic, including a double hookup. Barra were coming into the boat hand over fist, and it was exciting stuff in the shallow, narrow confines of the creek.





We sat under a shady tree for lunch, and with a fresh breeze pushing through, and some cold water over the head, the heat of the day was no longer an issue. We put a lure out the back in the current, and while we sat and ate lunch, we had five hook-ups, landing one barra and one Powertail. Now that's what I call fishing!



The highlight of the day was a fat 60cm barra that came from behind the rats and nailed my lure. It wasn't as green as the rest, and it went in the esky to bring home for dinner.



We pulled out about 4:30pm, having landed about 12 rat barras, a couple Powertail and the 60cm model in the esky. Not a bad recovery after a poor start to the day, and probably a fairly decent result for a couple of amatuers on the Adelaide.

cheers

Nice one bud,a great days fishing with tha young fella.
Cheers.

Good stuff

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Awesome post mate

well done mate, you have to love the territory when you can fish 2 awesome barra rivers and still be home for dinner. Good job gents!

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Good stuff mate.

Good to see you guys up there Friday arvo it was a long night for not much added to the score 74 was the best.

Great post. Even better the time spent with the kids, thats what its about, the fishing, not the catch. (Though it does help). Well done!

always good to see the young ones enjoying a bit of fishing! great past mate!

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A great post Ozdodge and love the pics.

cheers

Nice post Trev

Glad you had a successful day on both the waters!

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Trip saved!!! I love a hot session on reasonable rats with a chance of a bigger one....well in