OK, it’s official – I am a self-confessed barra addict. After spending last Saturday morning at Kinchant with Birko, I thought my barra fishing would be on hold until April. Not so! Trev rang me on Thursday and said “How soon can you get here? The barra are biting in the Boyne River”. I checked my schedule, made a booking for accommodation and hit the Bruce Hwy with Kyle on Friday afternoon. After missing out on the barra bonanza in the Boyne after the 2011 floods we just had to go…
We were warned that only one method was catching fish and that was trolling! Kyle & I had some successful days trolling Monduran back in 2007 but we had done little since. We were about to learn that the art of trolling for barra is just as skilful and subtle as casting lures for these mighty fish.
Initially, the fish were only biting on a particular colour on each side of the low tide and at specific locations around the Boyne River mouth. These fish were a mixture of salties and Lake Awoonga escapees from the recent floods. Trev (Awoonga) and Scott (Vet) are locals that put a hell of a lot of time and effort into locating these fish and cracking the pattern to find out what will make them bite.
At dawn on Saturday morning we could be found on the famous purple skeeter gently trolling up and down a section of river under electric power. Trev had the flu and his condition worsened as the morning went on. His tips on what lures to use were spot on though and we managed 4 fish for the morning – an 80, 80 and 73 for me and an 83 to Kyle. Hey Nagg - my first two fish were caught on a viper – a great trolling lure! We also witnessed and assisted an older gentleman land a 115 that he hooked on a very basic rod and reel that had seen better days!
The afternoon was less successful and we were busted off a number of times as the barra hit our lures and the headed into the rocks. We lost 4 lures (including my viper) and we only managed one small barra (a 65 to me) for the session despite have around 7 or 8 hook-ups. Unfortunately Trev succumbed to the flu by nightfall but Scott volunteered to take us out for the morning low tide.
The Sunday morning session was a cracker! We managed 13 barra – 5 to me and 8 to Kyle with his first being a 103 and his last being the biggest fish of the day at 106. The water was distinctly clearer on Sunday and the lure colour wasn’t as important, though my replacement viper caught all 5 of my fish. What did matter was the depth at which the lures ran. The fish were sitting in around 3m (a metre or so off the bottom) at low tide. As the tide came in and the fishing pressure intensified, they hugged the bottom and would only strike at 4m or 5m lures dragged in front of them and often hitting the rocky bottom.
There were 5 or 6 boats copying our trolling run but we were the only boat consistently catching barra. At one point we had a stretch of 7 or 8 trolling runs for a fish or a hit each time, including two double hook-ups! Scott’s knowledge of their habits and holding positions were a huge advantage to us. The final fish (106) to Kyle came when we changed our run after Scott declared that the fish were moving wider as the water deepened with the incoming tide. The man is a guru and he was already contemplating how to change tactics and catch these fish on the cast in the coming weeks.
We cannot convey our thanks enough to both Trev and Scott who gave up their time, knowledge, boats and equipment to put a couple of Brisbane wannabees onto 18 quality barra. We had a hoot of a time!
Cheers
Pete & Kyle
