, a mates's been kind enough to lend me his tinny to help ease the pain 
. It's a bit of old skool (for me anyway), the 13 footer with the thwart seats and smokey 2 stroke but it keeps our bums above water and was just the ticket for a family camping trip to one of the Kakadu billabongs early last week. We arrived mid afternoon and quickly had camp set up then it was straight onto the water for a quick recco. I was teaching my boys the words from Deep Purples finest as we BaDing Ding Ding Dinged our way along the first troll run and it wasn't long before Beau hooked the first fish of the trip, at 40cm it was no monster but still more than enough to put a big grin on a 4 year olds dial.A mate and his missus had joined us for the trip and they were trolling a few hundred metres away when not long after he hooked a better fish. In the high 60's it was fat and full of fight and very silver in colour. Nice! It looked like the fish were on the chew and we managed to land a few more before deciding to head back to camp before dark to settle in before the insects took over.
I was back on the water early next morning with my boys but we may as well have had a leisurely start like my missus and mates as the much anticipated early morning bite was a fizzer and the the fish didn't come on again until mid morning. With fish coming at pretty regular intervals during the bite it didn't take long to work out one section of the billabong was holding the juvenile fish, mostly hanging around a gravelly rock bar while the better fish were sitting on some deeper weed beds a few hundred meters away. A bit of focus on this area producing some nice fish over the next hour or 2 until the bite shut down. Time for us to have a bite too.......
Back on the water for the afternoon session and it was on again with nice fish coming at regular intervals for a couple of hours before it once again shut down just as quick as it fired up. Mid morning and mid afternoon seemed to be the prime times and it was nice to be getting amongst some better fish given the massive numbers of first year fish in a lot of the freshwater fisheries at the moment.
One more quick fish on the last morning and we managed to pluck a few more nice Barra and finished the trip with a quality Toga for Toby.
It was a cracker few days, we had the place to ourselves, the nights were cool, the days pleasantly breezy and the company good. Add a bit of
and 
and I reckon we'll be back sooner rather than later.
Melv
