Townsville Barra Season Finale

[happygilmour]

Hi All,

With the QLD barra season soon closing at the end of Oct I was determined to nail a few barra before the season close.
Instead of targeting the usual haunts for barra:- townsville's local creeks and river systems I was more keen to target barra around rocky headlands.
Why you might ask??
Barramundi are Euryhaline, that is, they can live in both fresh and saltwater. Barramindi eggs and larvaae only survive in saltwater and for this reason all breeding takes place in river mouths and bays near suitable nursary habitat.Barra are now starting to concentrate in these areas to breed over the next few months.

For this reason I decided to fish the rocky rocky headlands near Townsville.Accompaning me was my brother Bj who was keen to catch his first Townsville barra.

The morning started launching the boat at Townsville Casino ramp and running 20km or so over the paddock to Cape Cleavland.
The cape is that large finger of land to ther right of townville in the picture.It is a blend of rocky foreshore/beaches and mangroves.


To target barra around the rocky headlands normally requires a diferent approach than in the creeks:- in creeks generally the most productive times are the falling and first of the incoming tide(2hr before low and first 2 hr of the incoming). To fish the Cape you need a good hight tide to be able to reach the shallow flats and rocky banks that are flooded during the high. Its at these times that the bait move up with the tide and hug the rocky foreshores and flats.

We arrived at 7ish in a particular area that has some good rocky structure off the bank some 60m. Unfortunatly there was no bait in the area so the descision was made to move up the cape where there are some big flats that hold bait. The tide was an hour before high so the plan of attack was to target the edges of the mangrove/rocky banks in the area.

Casting shallow lures such as Bombers, b52 like lures was the prestenation of choice.Bait was active all over the flats and it was a matter of time before we were going to run into a apex predator.

As the tide ebbed around 9ish the first barra decided to nail a trolled Green Bomber while trolling over new country.
Tip: Trolling is a great way to explore new country and identifying area's to come back and concentrate casting at.Keep an eye on your souder looking for small dropoffs and isolated rocks that are prime ambush areas.

The beautiful chrome barra leaped on hookup before some good powerful runs and headshakes.After a spirited fight the 68cm barra was landed and high fives all round.Even better was the fact that I had christened my new Egrell B10 baitcaster and made short work of the fish. Well done Eric and Deb for a great rod!!!



We continued to troll and explore new country and find some good fishy water once the conditions were right. We found great rocky banks that had good structure for the barra as well as bait holding area close by in the form of muddy/sandy flats laiden with mangroves.

A few small trevally liked the look of our lures and kept us entertained until the tide starting to push out. With the tide now starting to fall , dirty water started to hug the rocky forshores provideing both the barra and bait shelter and a situation were both could move freely.

We continued to troll as there was plenty of good fish holding structure to fish with the conditions. Tip;- Use different lure colours to each other to work out what the fish want. ie. Bj was suing a metallic gold bomber and I a fluro green bomber.

Our second barra of the trip came near 11ish and nailed BJ's gold bomber. The barra made some strong runs but Bj was too good and landed the 82cm barra.This was Bj's Pb for the saltwater and first barra since moving to townsville this year. Well done buddy!!!


The conditions were getting better with the flats starting to empty making the bait move from the shallow flats and head for deeper water. Its this migration off bait that barra exploit and lay in wait to ambush. We focussed our efforts in the discoloured water that now extended 20m or so from the bank. Placing the boat further from the bank than on the incoming tide we continued to troll.

Tip:-When trolling make sure you work the lure hard, using your rod, work the rod in a flicking motion which imparts a injured /erratic action (plenty of vibtration)which fish find hard to resist. Dont just sit the rod in a holder and wait.

Our 3rd barra of the session came from a bank that we had seen earlier and had commented on how good it would fish on the outgoing. Within 50m of the troll run I was hooked up to a feisty barra that was not keen to come to the boat. The barra nailed my green bomber and the owner st66 firmly embedded into its jawbone.



30m further up the bank on a isolated rock that could be seen from the water surface that we had passed earler and casted at my brother hooked his 2nd barra- 4th for the session. Unfortunately it won its freedom after running Bj's braid over the oyster encrusted rock and keeping his gold bomber.

It was a fantastic session and 1 we could of kept fishing but due to working the lateshift and starting in the arvo we had to call it quits and run for home . I look forward to going back in the new year once the season opens and target a few more tasty barra.

CHECK OUT THE FOOTAGE:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH-PDdfcOSc[/YOUTUBE]

Cheers