North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

I recently had my sisters up from south to the celebrate my eldest sister turning 40.

She and her partner are both mad keen fisho's and are currently travelling around the north and west coasts on their long service...

So we went and fished a number of landbased locations around town over several days for 2 hits & no fish.

I managed to score a couple of days off work and so the decision was made to go and at least feed some barra at Howard Springs, which was a bit of fun for the whole family (posted in the video forum but also here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXfRDd9F6R8

We then went and spent an afternoon watching the tide come in at various locations around town finishing up at fishermans wharf, where my 4 year old Zeke joined us and despite his usual form of showing up his old man, even HE failed to catch a fish. The following day we headed to one of the best places on earth for a bit of tourist boating - sight seeing on Hardies. Given the reports coming out from the Billabongs this year I didn't hold much hope but we thought that at least throwing lures around in a nice place was better than sitting at home.

I left home early and swung round to my parents place to pick up the southerner's, loaded in their gear (which had been upgraded to cope with northern fishing... or so I thought).

We were on the water just before sunrise and heading to spot no 1. We fished here for a while and there was a lot of activity, boofs could be heard and we had a few follows. I had one hit from a big toga but failed to hookup.

The wind started to pickup early and so I decided to put in a quick trolling run to see if we could pickup anything. About 50m into the run my bro-in-laws rod loads up... but the excitement was short lived as we soon realised that he was snagged. We back tracked to retrieve the lure and it was at this point that the spin rod that he was using shattered in 3 places (with little or no pressure on it). After switching some gear around we were back in action and moved onto spot 2.

On about the 5th cast my bro-in-law shouts "I'm On!!" and after a quick, jumpy fight a 43cm barra graced the deck and I had one happy camper! A few photos and back into the water it went. On my very next cast I had a hit but failed to hook on the first go... *twitch* *twitch* BANG! a little 40cm barra started dancing all over the shop, boated and photographed and off to catch another day. w00t! Things were looking up. About 10 minutes later, I had a much better hit and my load loaded up with a better fish... A few jumps and a few moments of trying to educate southerners on how to net a descent fish I had a 69cm on the deck. A few high fives and pics and then into the esky for a real NT dinner. We then spent the rest of the day drifting along on the wind, flicking at snags with the ocassional bump and follow. My sister who hadn't had much luck for the day suddenly gave a yell as she hooked up and another small barra launched into the air with it's classic headshake the lure went one way and the barra went the other.

Further along I had a nice hookup from a good sized toga which went 66cm (I think this might by my PB toga) which gave a good account for itself. My Bro-in-law then nabbed a smaller version a few minutes later. We fished until about 4pm when we had to pull the pin to be back in time for the evenings plans, but all in all a great day!

Love it!

Nice. I did Hardies crossing land based on Tuesday and managed a rat and a few hits. I sight casted to a legal fish and got half interested strike but no hook up. But the barra were there and did seem to be on the chew. Interesting to see the rest of river was active too.

Great guiding Kernal. Hope this is a good sign for the bongs starting to fire for the rest of the dry.

good read, ty

Great report much better result than my return 6weeks ago at hardies , yes another donut

Cheers
Craig

Well done Kernal

Good to read a fish story of late