[styled_image image=”https://www.kekoa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_0446.jpg” w=”560″ h=”374″ link=”” alt=”Joe and his 85cm barra from the flats” rel=””]
Joe joined us barra fishing for the first time last year, and caught not only his first barramundi (or a hundred) but also the barra bug. This year he brought along his father Paul and younger brother Matthew to share the experience. This year we fished the Ducie River to the north and although we were hounded by some strong south-easterlies all week which made some of the drains fishing a challenge (casting up wind) we had some glamour (still) mornings, some incredible flats fishing and some unbelievable surface lure action (despite the wind). Joe estimates we finished the week with over 300 barra.
I was lucky enough to have been invited to fish along side Joe (hence the delay in posting as I’ve been fishing!) and we had some great days on the water and some great experiences. On the Wenlock River for two afternoons running on the tide we had the barra boofing all around us and some marlin-like explosions on the surface lures. Joe also hooked up to a couple of absolute stonkers in the snags in the morning which wiped him out in the tree roots, but managed to pull this 85cm (above) from out of a tree. And we got some great video footage (to come). One of Joe’s goals was to catch a barra on the surface and he worked hard to perfect the ‘walk the dog’ action and I watched as he did that and caught one after another, after another, after another on one particular drain in the afternoon. It was a great sight to see.
Meanwhile Paul preferred to live-bait but had his go at casting lures (on one tree/snag, they pulled off 22 barra, most of which were caught by Paul) while Matthew happily flitted between the two becoming more proficient on the lure action as the days went by. His best was 87cm on live bait and 73cm on the surface lures. Donny says that Matt was also the ‘big fish attractor’ in the snags losing his share of big ones there as well. On the second day, Paul and Matthew came back to the boat early surprising me with their arrival. As Paul told me, they’d already had a great day and caught so many, it was the perfect way to finish up!
