Going to the barra farm at bli bli any tips

[elephrez1]

Hello there

I'm going to the barra farm at bli bli, Im just after any advice and any stories of success there.

thank you
elephrez.................

[63eh]

dont bother going till late afternoon
cheers dan

[aaron_gilmour]

elephrez,

Take you bream/plastics rod and fish with it. I rocked up a few yaers ago after spending christmas back home in darwin with all my barra gear,overhreads,lures etc and struggled. These fish see 1000's of lures a week so they can be difficult to catch using traditional methods. I had more success in the small fish pond with plastics as the fish are younger and havnt seen so many lures.

In the big fish dam the peelets out fish most. Some take live bait in to fish with. Have a look at the hook they give you when you buy a tub of pellets, more agarfish,bream hook at best!!!!

Also due to no snags ec you can let them run so fish light. They shop loan rods are all spining gear and light rods at that. You will also cast a peelet alot further using a spinning rod thus the need to take spin gear. I was flyfishing with my abu6500 trying to through the pellets out with my brother holding the rod and me with the slack line trying to cast the line out by hand(frigin rediculous)

Have fun

Cheers
Aaron

[Flyseyes]

I got a tip for ya, dont go during school holidays.

[Jeremy87]

Couple of friends did a trip and did quite well (8 fish in the large pond all on pellets caught in the late afternoon up to 88cm). Basically burley up with pellets and wack your out into the frenzy. #6 mustard suicides are stronger than there hooks and won't split the pellet so buy some of them before you go. You will need light spin gear to cast the pellet (4lb or 6lb line with an 8lb fluorocarbon leader tied straight to the hook as soon as the pellet becomes waterlogged and sinks you will need to replace it) don't worry about it not being heavy enough because the fish have nothing to run you in on and are fat and unfit 10-15minutes is the usual fight time in the big boys pond. if they are feeding to far out to cast to get a friend to walk you line round to the other side and then wind it into the middle (hows that for thinking). Plastics only seem to work in the small pond but the fish are very lure shy and unless they are really fired up will not take any lure.

[Dell]

i went 2 the farm bout a year ago with a couple of mates and caught a handful of barra and a garfish in 2 trips. got the barras and gar in barra creek. then i flopped the gar on as live bait and hurled it into the big boys pond wher nothing happened. maybe the farm is hopeless or maybe we just had a bad day.

[GrahamW]

Had the afternoon there yesterday (5th January) & had a good time !

Couple of small barra in the small fish pond on soft plastics early in the heat of the day. Then flogged the big boys pond with hard & soft lures for a couple of hours for nothing. However, saw a few good sized fish pulled in by people using bait. A few on pellets but more on live yabbies & frozen prawns.

So swallowed my pride, bought a packet of whitebait from the kiosk, & gave that a go for tha last couple of hours. Had a ball with several good sized barra which gave my light bream/bass gear a workout. Landed most but lost a few when the leader was cut by the sharp gill covers. 1/0 sized hooks didn't scare 'em in the whitebait.

The fish mostly hooked themselves but I loved the sound of the screaming drag ! I would happily go back again but figure it is a hot weather / late afternoon event. Given the better late afternoon fishing & that the same site stays open late for the "Ski & Skurf" pond I am surprised they don't go through to dark.

I saw a fair number of large fish caught & was upset to see the way a lot of these were handled with many held up by only their jaws or gills & with extended times out of the water. I would love to know the mortality rate in the big pond as it is only catch & release. I would also have thought the owners would want to make sure better care was taken of what are some of their major assets & drawcards - the fish. Compare this to the mega carp fisheries in the UK & the way they protect the fish there. This will include amongst other things rules about hooks (barbless of course) the use of special dehooking mats to protect scales & slime coatings... ...

Finally - one thing I really appreciated before the drive back to Brisbane was having a shower & changing out of smelly fishing gear at the end of the day using the facilities on the Ski & Skurf side !

Graham