well its been a while between barra post for me, not from lack of trying either mind you.

have finally worked out a few spot down here and we are getting barra more often then not these days.

people dont give much away down here so it has been suck and see for a while

most of the fish we have caught have been within 3 kms of the main boat ramp in the middle of rockhampton or land based in the same areas. can see the city in the background of some pics.

cant work out why there is not a 1000 people fishing the area???? flat out seeing another boat??

the fitzroy has water constantly running flatout through the barrage and looks a bit like the daly in full flood, so imagine the daly in the middle of darwin!!!!

have a few photos from the phone but not the best

between us we have probably got 40 odd legal barra on lures and live bait in the last few weeks. biggest has only been 86 but have dropped a few pushing a M.

cheers Harmsey

Some nice silver barra there Harmsey! Good to see ya starting to get the place sussed out.

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Well done Harmsey ,stick it too em

Encouraging to see good fishing so close to a big town, and netted too, now we have no excuses here for dud trips

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Good to see you amongst them Harmsey

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Well done mate... Suss it out for my visit

Great stuff Harmsey! Been wondering when we would hear from u again! Some nice looking fish there and the phone takes pretty good shots. I've heard of some big barra comming out of that river in the past....

great pics Harmsey might see you on the water on day. Have you been down to the boyne we smashed six last week see how go tommorow. cheer rushy.

Harmsey,

You Lucky, Lucky . Lucky Bugger !

Tried chasing barra down here but not too many biting in the Murrumbuidgee....

Hope you new place has plenty of spare beds !

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Hi - first time poster here. Coming up to Seaforth, just past Mackay for 2 - 3 months beginning mid June. Have a small tinnie and intend fishing mainly in Victor Creek, probably using live herring. Have fished this area previously and done pretty well including a 23 lb barra out of Constant Creek. Given the colder weather at this time of year I would imagine that the barra are off the chew. Any ideas as to what I should target? cheers and thanks Pete

Hi all
Harmsie's photos are mainly taken in the town reach of the river. The bottom daylight one is at the end of Main St on the north bank.

The name Rockhampton comes from an amalgum of the words "rock" and "hampton". Rock is pretty obvious and hampton is an old english term for village by the water. Hence, the "village by the water near the rocks".

In the 1850s the pioneers' first supply boat (the Alida) came 70km up the river until it couldn't go any further because of the extensive rock bars. Then it dumped its supplies on the southern river bank for the first settlers who had previously arrived over land.

The river was the main communication link with the outside world until the railway in the early 1900s. Safe and easy navigation of the river was most important and mile after mile of both banks of the Fizroy were lined with rock training walls. The purpose of the rock walls was to "train" the river into self-scouring by containing the main flowing into a narrow channel.

Old training walls are a common sight on Qld rivers. The Burnett River at Bundaberg has smaller versions.

With the advent of rail and later the motorcar, the importance of the river declined and no maintenance was carried out on the rock walls.

They have largely been bypassed and eroded over the years and fallen into disrepair.

The legacy is miles of artificial "rock bars" which offer excellent ambush points for foraging fish. Barra just love it.

In addition a barrage was built in the mid-seventies just on the northern outskirts of Rocky to separate the fresh from the salt. There is a permanently running slot-type fish ladder. Don't think that its been particularly successful wrt barramundi but most seems happy with it. It also offers a freshwater supply for the local crocs who pass through the city reaches of the river to reach it. It acts as a barrier to barra migration under normal river flows so fish tend to congregate in the city reaches.

Right in the CBD are the remains of the old traffic bridge which was dropped into the river in the 50s when the new bridge was opened. These remains look like rocks but are old pavement and pylons which also over excellent barra fishing. Brother and I have caught some big barra there (right in the middle of the CBD) up to 1.35 metres and I know of a 1.4 there also.

All-in-all about 1.5km of natural rockbars, a complete bridge dropped into the river as an artificial reef and 70 odd km of rock training walls on each bank combined with a huge tidal delta system of mangrove creeks at the mouth. One of the mangrove islands (Casaurina Is) is 94km in circumference. At the southern end of the delta is Curtis Is which offers more breeding habitat in the waterway between it and the mainland ( The Narrows). Matts latest bi-annual FFF shows it in detail. A huge breeding ground.

The nearby floodplain on the southern side has numerous lagoons holding barra which migrate into them from the river during flood events. Growing and departing after next flood.

Be good to have just 1 km of the Daly's timber snags or the Roper's pandanus in the Fitzroy.

Been a bit cool lately (12-14 degree maximums on a couple of days which has slowed the barra down a bit. However, the shallower lagoons tend to be a bit warmer from the sun and tend to be a bit better in winter.

regards
Ronj

Good summary Ron, well done Harmsey with all your hard work mate..

Mud i know a few people that reckon the biggest barra in the country reside in that region. They do have a big
strain of fish in the area that's for sure. Fish between 1.30 - 1.40m are caught. Biggest i heard of is an unofficial 1.50 as the biggest ever out of the river by an old wise fella. Definately 1.40 fish around. Johnny Mitchell has 7 i think over 1.30m with 1.37m the best and Sharpy his mate with a 1.4m. Johnny has told me of countless trips over the years where saltwater Barra Trips averaged 1m. Ya gotta be happy with that anyday. These fish are known as brutal fighters and it's the biggest gear i've seen Mitchell use on barra even his tournament mates were flat out hanging onto these big brutes with their tournament gear which needed beefing up...

They do get netted heavily so it would be one of the best fisheries in the whole country if it wasn't. There is talk that the fish are very wise because of the netting pressure, especially the bigger ones. Crocs up the Fitzroy as well, plus sharks also have the barra keeping their witts about them.

Cheers Lyndon.

Hi Pete,

Welcome to FFF.

Nice Barra in that shot mate.

Mate soak some livies, flick lures , softies and explore that system for yourself to see if you can crack a pattern.

Good luck.

Cheers Lyndon.

Water temperatures.

Well, its nearly Sept. Water temperatures can be expected to rise steadily.

Its frustrating though.

The water surface temp in the floodplain lagoons has gone from 19 degrees to 20 degress.

The overnight minimums have gone from the 8-10 degree mark up to a consistent 14 degrees. That's slowed down the overnight drawdons a bit.

Problem at the moment is that the daytime maximums haven't gotten above 25 degrees for any length of time due to consistently high cloud and more lately rain obscuring the sun.

Basically winter is over and we can expect water temperatures to start rising. bl..dy frustrating though as the high levels of water in the lagoons prevents landbase access into the shallower parts where the barra mainly are.

Give it 2 weeks and I reckon they'll be on the chew a bit.

Was talking to a Yeppoon based professional fisherman the other day. He was telling me about the big pro catches in the Boyne River (near Gladstone) of late. Mainly fish that went over the dam wall at Awoonga in the floods.

Catches of up to 5 tonnes are being reported with the resulting glut on the southern markets resulting in the fishermen getting as little as $5 / kg. Haven't seen any corresponding drop in retail prices though.

If u all promise not to make it public, I'll confess to buying some the other day. I've probably eaten worse tasting barra when really desperate but its hard to recall when.

regards
Ron J

yep it should heat up from here on out. thank god the cold is over!!

anyone fishing the Barrabounty??

Cheers Harmsey