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.