Top End Barra Series Round 6

Round 6, the final round for 2014 was held at the mouth of the Adelaide River.

I had fished this system a few times over the last couple of months so had worked out a plan of attack for the weekend.
Headed out on the Friday mid morning and as expected the Gunn Point road was in its usual rough condition, luckily arrived at Salt Water Arm and launched boat with no damage to trailer.
I expected most competitors would be fishing the Wilshire Creeks, so headed straight there to check out a couple of spots that had held fish on previous trips.
Friday afternoon proved to be successful, resulting in 3 barra in the 60's landed and 4 similar size dropped, so things were looking good for the weekend.

 

 As in previous trips the lures of choice were Reidys B52 and Classic F18, with the Classic producing most hits. Well it had been a pretty tiring day so headed to the mouth of W2 to set up camp and retire for the night.
Saturday morning woke to smooth seas and another beautiful Territory day, packed up headed back to SWA to pick up James. When he arrived he had one of his daughters in his arms, so assumed things were not going to be as planned. Seems he had a really bad toothache and was going to try find a dentist and get some pain killers so would not be fishing today. Organised to pick him up the next morning and headed back to the Wilshires.

I had decided to concentrate on one stretch of the creek for the entire day and this proved to be the right decision, landing 8 barra over the day on F18 lures, the Chartreuse Bling being the stand out lure. This gave me a full score card of 5 fish being 51,55,62,64 and 70cm with the following day to hopefully upgrade some of these.

   

 

 

Decided to camp in Salt Water Arm overnight as I was picking up James early next morning. Seven am found me at the ramp and once James was on board we headed for the Wilshires again.

 

This morning we tried trolling up one of the other creeks first as the day before the bite didn't really come on until the incoming tide.

Not quite as successful, however I did manage to upgrade a couple before heading back to the stretch I had fished the preceding day.

Managed another 3 fish to give me 5 in the 60's and a 70, with James scoring a 56 and a 62 before it went quiet, fished for another hour with no results and so decided to head back to the ramp.

 

This last fish must have had a hard but lucky life, his back had suffered trauma quite some time ago and his tail had a piece missing which had been very recent, had not healed yet, so I returned him to the water to live on, who knows, maybe I will catch him again one day should be reasonably easy to recognise.

 

After two days of heavy traffic the road back was even worse and unfortunately just before the end of the dirt a u-bolt holding axle to springs gave way and front axle shifted back to jam tyres together.

Luckily there was a similar u-bolt on my extendable drawbar and so a temporary fix was possible to get me home, heard later that at least 3 other trailers and 1 car also suffered damage on the road.

 

Results came back and surprisingly I had won the round, beating second place by 10 points, in fact there were only 30 points between 1st and 5th.

Approximately 120 scoring barra were entered and no doubt quite a few others which were upgraded during the round, so the area is in pretty good condition.

 

Once the overall results were tallied for the whole year and every one dropped their worse round James finished up 11th with 577 points and I finished 12th with 560 points so a successful year for me, beating my placing last year.

 

This was my third year competing in TEBS,

 2012 I managed 29th with 187 points,

 2013 was 17th with 468 points and winning the Daly River round,

 2014 was 12th with 560 points and winning the Adelaide River round.

 

Already entered in TEBS 2015, can't wait to see what the following year has in store.

 

Until next time,

Tight lines.

 

 



Top End Barra Series Round 5

Round 5 was held in Bynoe Harbour.
I headed down late Friday to have a quick look around and then joined up with Craig and Dan for an enjoyable night.
Up Sat morning and back to ramp to pick up James who due to a slight miscommunication arrived late after checking out a couple of the other Bynoe boat ramps.
Fished a few places where I had caught fish on other trips, but it wasn't until we headed into Phoenix Inlet that we started to find some fish.
By the end of the day I had a 67cm scorer and James a 57cm.

After along day, we headed out to the mouth of Phoenix and dropped anchor for the night.
What followed was an epic 15 boat raft up with music, tall tales, copious amounts of alcohol, someone falling out of their boat only to get back in , fall over and end up with a lure attached to their rear end and lots of laughter.

The next day was much the same as before except I could not land a barra. James increased his tally with a 53cm and a 51cm.

Over the round 95 scoring barra were landed.
Overall results placed James at 13th and myself at 23rd.
One more round to go, the Adelaide River mouth, one of my favourite spots, so hopefully I can do well and better my last year placing of 17th overall for the year.

Until next time,
Tight lines every one.

Top End Barra Series Round 4

Round 4 Darwin Harbour.
James and I had decided to fish West arm for this round and unfortunately it turned out to be a hard round with few fish for us.
James ended up with 2 scorers, a 68cm and a 50cm, but although I caught 3 barramundi they were all smaller than the 50cm required to score.

68 cm

James had organised to go to a rodeo that night so I dropped him off at the ramp and headed to the raft up for the night.

 

 

After a relatively quiet but enjoyable night, I picked James up and headed back to West Arm, but despite all our efforts could not land any scorers.

 

Over the weekend 87 scoring fish were landed.

After all the scores were tallied up James ended up 14th in the overall series and I dropped to 32nd, so I will have to pick up the pace in the final 2 rounds. 

 

Until next time,

Tight lines all.