In search of Barra!

I took Fly Fisherman Ward and Richard out today in search of the Barramundi that Dad and I were targeting last weekend. The ideal tide for this location seems to be bottom and first of the run it. That happened to be at a nice early time this morning. So Ward picked me up about 5.30am and we headed off.

On arrival at our location the last of the run out tide was just dribbling by. But there was a bit of bait activity when we got started. We got a few Barracouda and small Trevalley, but the action was by no means fast!

Eventually the tide started running back in and I got a solid hit from a good fish. It hit hard and ran very fast on the light 8lb gear. Clearly not a Barra, it had me guessing for a minute. But soon the silver flanks of a nice health GT appeared. The fish was netted, photographed and let go.

The action went real quiet from here. Although I did get 'boofed' but a nice Barra. It hit hard, pulled drag fast, came up and shook its head and hooks parted. Probably a 50-60cm specimen.

After MANY more dead casts we decided to head into the fresh for a poke around in some new country. We found some beautiful looking water, but really struggle for a fish. We found this one set of snags that had a small Barra sitting under it. It came out time and time again looking at both my plastic and Wards fly. We persisted for quite a few casts but eventually gave up. A few mins later Richard managed to pull him out! Didn't get a pic as I had move some distance away.

After exploring numerous empty water holes we headed home about lunch time. A nice morning again, but not as successful on the Barra as we would have liked.