G'Day,
Did an overnighter at Hardies Saturday night, with a mate that has lived in Darwin for the last 5 years, but hasn't had the pleasure of fishing our fine billabongs. We were gonna fish in the comp out that way, but we didn't want to wait until 3:30 for the weigh in before we came home, so decided to just go fishing.
On the water pretty early on Saturday, and the call was made that none of our rather large stocks of beer was to be consumed until the first fish came over the side (Powertail didn't count). Luckily within 10 minutes of arriving at a spot that has been producing, I pulled in a 60cm baz. Nice start, and we had cans in our hands by 7.
We were both getting pretty steady hits, and by lunchtime, we had 7 barra in the boat up to 84cm (my new PB). We also had a couple of toga.
The arvo was a bit slower, but we managed a couple more fish before the wind picked up and the fishing shut down.
The wind died off just before dusk, and the plan was to flick around some poppers and fizzers for a few hours, but I had left the thermo-cell in the car, and the mozzies got the better of us. They were fierce.
Back at the car, we set up our swags, and settled in for a few more beers. At about 9, it started to rain and was fairly constant for most of the night. It turns out my swag isn't very waterproof anymore, and I spent most of the night in the passenger seat of the Navara. I have definitely had better night sleeps.
Somehow I managed to be asleep as it got light, so we were on the water a bit later than planned but we were only fishing for matter of minutes before the first hook up. We got another six barra on Sunday morning, before pulling stumps at about 11 and heading home.
We ended up with 15 Barra in the boat over the two days. 11 were over 55cm. We also lost probably another 15 or 20, and some of them were very decent fish.
A couple of the fish that we lost, were due to lures failing. I had 2 of the old style lucifers' bibs break off whilst hooked up. Tony also lost what would have been his best barra due to a bib breaking off a brand new rapala lure. I also had the bib break off the lure that I got my 84cm whilst landing the fish, but I have both pieces of that, so hopefully a bit of glue and it'll be good to go again next week.
I'm still loving the Minn Kota Ipilot. That thing is magic. I was using the record function for a troll run we were doing and was able to troll at much slower speeds that I can with the yammie and it is perfect for cruising along flicking at snags and weed beds. The battery was a bit dead by the time we left on Sunday, but we would have travelled many kilometres under electric power over the weekend.

Cheers

Ando

Nice session mate. That 84 hd big shoulders on her. Well done.

Nice work, have to have a talk about what you upto on the weekend and thursday arvo

Cheers Steve. I've lost a few good ones out there now, so it was nice to get a good fish in the boat. It was a pretty soild Bazza.

Golf Thursday Tis, but i'll be up for it on the weekend.

Top effort, looks like you did better than most people in the comp

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Good informative post and good fishing in my favourite billabong...Cheers

Nice write up Ando sounds like a pretty good couple of days, apart from the mozzies and rain but thats life up hear.

Great post, can't wait to get out again, working 12 days straight!

Sounds like you smashed 'em.
Pity you didnt go in the comp, you may have taken it out. Good prizes

Cheers Guys.

nomad. We planned on fishing the comp right up to Thursday arvo, when I read that you must be present for the weigh in. Would have loved to hang around, but it would have meant sitting at a pub, and not having a beer (driving), and thats just not on. When we started getting fish, we kinda regretted not entering. I seen today that someone got a 92 out of Corrobberee anyway, so all good I guess.

Boom! Smacking em Ando! Some cracking fish there brus, good to see. From all the likely spots too by the looks of things. Good tomput old mate onto a fish and share in the spoils. Keep the posts coming bud.

Lucky

Good write up Ando1001

We were there Sunday morning in the Savage runabout, got a few, best was 83, not bad either, big and solid, my best from there, and the young feller cleaned up.

None of our fish were big enough to take a prize though, we were there for the presentation, it was great!!

doing a post

cheers

Hey Lucky.

I'm all done for the mid week trips now (damn work). Gotta contend with the crowds on the weekends. It was those trips on the quiet days that let me get to know the place and get onto the fish. Good to meet you out there. I'm sure that you're still slayen' em on the mid-week solo trips.

Ando