North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Just wondering if anyone uses jointed lures? and weather they had much luck with them? I've seen a few around the local tackle stores, but not many, kinda got my curiosity going

The old Nilsie broken-backs used to be absolute dyno-mite on Barra, don't seem them much any more, I still have a few kicking round somewhere................I'll have to give them another larrup.

Sam I have about 4 Nillsie broken backs left.. and blink is right they use to be the ducks nuts.. don't know why I stoped using them ??: Bit like all my nillsies... just don't use them much anymore..

The broken Back in 2" yellow with black stripes was the lure that I got my first ever Barra on in about 1992 in the Howard river at the old steel bridge.. I still have it but I don't think it has seen the water since that day when I got hooked on this Barra fishing gig.




2rods

don't know why I stoped using them

Same as Spearheads 2Rods, I can remember if you didn't have a Spearie on the business end you may as well go fish in your shitehouse!

Blinky we realy should get them out and give them another go... the barra might have forgoten what they look like and eat them again

I have a raft of old lures that never see the water anymore... and all of them catch fish... I draged out an old Darwin Dart (yes they are old a) on a trip last wet and it got nailed when nothing else was doing any good.. I was actually pulling the p..s out of the deckie when I put it on... told him they were a secret and they work every time.

If we used our old faithful lures more often instead of the new shiny one we would probably do a lot better. IMHO




2rods

Let us know how you go with your older lures guys....I've been searching around the net and I've noticed that there's a jointed bomber. Might have to get myself one of those and give it a whirl

We fished with Abu jointed lures in the Roper about 1980. Caught plenty of fish with them, mainly off snags as they were a sinking lure. Haven't seen one since.

Abu jointed lures

The old Abu HiLo, I have a few of them stashed somewhere, both broken backs and the normal sort (DT's)

I rummaged through a mates tackle box one morning at shady camp, it was jointed bomber, first cast metre + fish swam off with it then the joint snapped.....lost fish.....weeks of therapy ensued......thats why I dont bother with them any more.

oh snap! that doesen't sound good, well had a friend that had the end of his bomber pulled out on a nice fish, so he went from having a 3 hooked bomber to a 2 hooked bomber, needless to say, the lure lives in his glovebox now. You gotta wonder about the quality of bombers.

I was doing some rigging of the back verandah and pulled a new green bomber out of the packet and dropped it on the concrete. Broke a little bit off the tail and the treble and hardware fell out of it. That was a waste of $15. Never had one fail on a fish luckily.

I got into this thread because of the jointed lures heading and replied re Roper river. Looking at it I thought that was a fairly sterile reply. This is a road trip yarn and probably not the right forum, but stick with me men cause its a ripping good yarn. I am one of the lucky people who got introduced to Barra fishing, lure fishing and the NT all in one go, and all on a beautifull river. It was in the early eighties and I was working in Brisabane as an apprentice. My Dad told me what he had in mind and even though my main focus was motorbikes and young women, I said I'll be in it, mainly due to the fact that all my life I liked putting in time with the old fella. We dusted out of home, in central Qld on a Wednesday arvo and just drove. Dad had an old Falcon sedan as a knockabout car and that's what we took. We had that much gear stacked over, on and about it, it was just about dragging its arse. I know for a fact we had a spare radiator cause if you climbed over into the back seat for a snooze you had to cuddle up to the bastard. Rumour had it we also had a spare alternator but I don't recall seeing it. Guess what, we didn't have a spare starter motor, and after Mt Isa we pushed the bastard. We rolled up to the Roper turn off in the wee hours of Friday morning and just went to sleep, pretty much where we happened to be sitting. Went into Mataranka in the morning, picked up some fresh tucker and went back out and met my Uncle at what was called I think Roper Valley Station.
He had been a head stockman/overseer there in the past and could pretty much go when and where he pleased. Took us to a place he called Rocky Bar, not to be confused with Roper Bar, and that's where we camped. Beautifull spot. Two huge clean clear waterholes either side of the bar which was basically a set of rapids. Where we had come from, people drive twenty miles just to see running water, and don't give a cr.p what colour it is. To me it was paradise. If you've liked this, I can tell you more about the gear we used, the people we met and the murderer we met on this trip. Even about the ute we delivered to the goldmine on the way home. I told you, its a road trip yarn, and its all true.

Ian... do tell all... you have my attention now... incase you didn't pick it up I love a good yarn


2rods

Ok. There was a large freshie that lived in the hole above the bar. He was about 6-7 feet long. Apparently he had been there a long time, and was known to my Father and Uncle as 'George'. I was told he was harmless but beyond taking his photo I never felt the need to get to know him better. We would see him most days and he never bothered us. I never saw him on land, he was always floating around just on the top side of the bar. We took a bag of yabbies up with us to use as live baits. Now that was probably a bad idea environmentally, but in the end it didn't matter as none of them saw the river. They survived the trip in the wet bag in the Falcon boot ok but they were tipped out into an old esky and a couple of inches of water was added. That didn't seem to bother them either. Sad to say, someone decided they were probably feeling a bit hungry and dropped a bit of meat in there for them. From memory that killed them in about 4 hours and they became ant food as opposed to Barra food. This is why we had the live bait hunt. On the top side of the bar around the rocks and timber, the water was lousy with freshwater prawns. We didn't have any gear to trap them with beyond our hands. They were easy to spot with a torch but we were trying to catch them just before dark. If you've ever tried this, you'll know how hard this is. They'll sit fairly still for you, but trying to dodge their waving feelers is the hard bit. Basically you need the reflexes of a startled prawn to catch them. Apparently my Uncle had them, because he caught his prawn. I didn't and had to resort to grubbing a yabbie out of a hollow branch. More about that yabbie later. My Dad, bless his heart, was still baitless. It had pretty much gone dark by then and Uncle and I walked back up to the camp, leaving Dad down there in no mood to quit. In hindsight, that was a fairly silly thing to do but I don't think the saltie population was as high as it is now. It was probably 5-10 minutes later that we heard some choice language followed by an almighty splash. The call "You right Mate" was given and we got back "Yeah". It wasn't much later that the old fella came back into the camp and gave us the story . It turned out he was head down, bum up stalking a prawn when George popped up about three feet from him and either drew or blew out a breath. Dad discovered two things immediately, that his undies were in peril and that he could in fact walk on water. When he hit the bank and realised what had happened, he picked up the biggest rock he could manage and chucked it at George. Pretty much explained the sound effects. Don't know much about crocs but if George had ears, its a safe bet they were burning. Cooking spare ribs and got to hit the stove so that's all for the moment. I'll tell you what happened to my yabbie if you're still interested 2 Rods

Ian

I can only speak for my self but i reakon 2rods isnt the only one that would be interested. i am enjoying the yarn so far

Pagey