Monduran Winter Diary Part 1. Part 2 Now Added. A few 90-117cm Barra

[Peter4]

Man, I know quite a few of those bays.......great read.

Hey Lyndon, are you going to be around at the end of this month. Scott will be at Mondy from 29th August and we will be there for four days from 28th.

Regs

Pete

[BR65]

Good read Lyndon, I remember camping over at Moreton with the Main Roads Fishing Club when I was about 12, some old timer told me the wild pig story, scared the liven shit out of me. Anyways, about 1 in the morning I wake up to the sound of something snuffling and moveing just outside the tent, I start screaming "PIG PIG PIG", everyone jumps up out of their tents, turns out to be some old fart who had indulged a bit to much in the bundy and was trying to crawl back to his tent lol

cheers
brian

[Whitto]

Great read Lyndon.....I didn't recognise you in the photo ( you've got a shirt on)...love the photo of the Stacer....thats my next boat in the next year or sooner...keep up the reports always a good read......Whitto PS u need more lures

[SeekingBarradise]

Hi Nipsta all good mate a yarn and a fish with you would be great this summer.

Hi John yeah i thought the old yarns would jog a few memories!! Lots of good fun in a yarn or 2. Let us know when you are up Barra Fishing.

Hi Nagg good old whitey loves catfish hey!!!! And yes sfa bay we have been there few times as well mate.

Hi Steve yeah i thought you would remember a few hijinks with the Yowie. Thanks for adding some laughts to this thread mate.

[SeekingBarradise]

Hi Pete mate i can't make it up there then mate damn. Give scotty heaps he is good value. Let us know what you learn't up there mate have fun and good luck.

Hi Brian yeah old fellas love scaring people with those old aussie yarns ha. Hows the IBD going?

Whitto mate i tried to go the singlet and convince myself it was summer. I managed to play the night cricket game in one, but it just got too cold and i had to rug up...

[SeekingBarradise]

Back to the fishing trip

We all chatted long in to the night with hundreds of barra questions, answers and anecdotes flying around the campsite. It was awesome and I wouldn’t swap times like these around the campfire for anything. I’m sure we all went to sleep thinking of a new idea to try tomorrow!!! Like kids the day before Xmas..we couldn’t wait to wake up to see what tomorrow had installed. Though I was sure it would have something to do with fishing.

Wet Camping: My mates only had swags and were rained out so they slept in the camp kitchen area. The clowns didn’t bring a tent in case of rain…I used the saying “ U iiiiiidddddiiiiiiooootttttttssssss” (Ren & Stimpy) to describe their lack of planning.


Sunday

Breakfast

Happy Campers: We had an adventure bound crowd camped next to us and they were in the middle of bonding. They were singing row row row your boat while group hugging and standing on one leg. No that wasn’t a misprint. We all looked at each other around our campfire and quickly but silently decided this would be a no hug zone…. And definitely no row row row your boat singing. Kind of like the guys in the latest Toyota add, no words needed to be said, but all were in agreement….

Kids in camp: I met a couple of little tackers who were learning to cast a rod and reel in the campsite. This was golden and you could see they were as keen as mustard to get out on the water and chase a few fish. Questions like “ Dad when are we going fishing?” were common. About every 3 minutes!!!

The smiles on their faces tell the story better than my words can….Aussie Gold…

Local Wildlife: Kamikaze kookaburra’s. A local kookaburra was diving in a mad kamikaze like fashion with raids on our BBQ hotplate as we had Gin Gins finest sausages cooking up nicely. How good are sausages on bread with some dead horse smothered all over them for good measure? Aussie tucker at it’s best….The kookaburra’s thought so anyway. I guess it would taste better than bugs and worms….It might depend on who is cooking as my mate put a nice charcoal coat on Gin Gin’s finest snags. Needless to say I won’t be asking him to cook any marshmellows for the kids in the camp. He can stick to boiling water.

Back to the kookaburra. Well this first kookaburra was a little timid and it would only half dive at our food. When we got the camera out to get a photo it froze … we proceeded to demolish the snags then it’s mate decided to fly over…well old mate must have been a bit hungrier than the first one….It dove straight on to the hotplate on the flames and nabbed half a snag straight up. A pretty good opening shot I must say…. I wasn’t happy as I’d been preparing the fire to the perfect heat then I’d watched the mouth watering snags cook for 20 mins or so….by this time I was starving and in the middle of the big decision that everyone has to make when camping……what flavour of dead horse should I go for?. Tomato or BBQ sauce?

While I had the snags on my plate pondering the almighty sauce question kamikaze kookaburra number 2 dive bombed from behind and flew right past my ear nabbing a sausage off my plate…..I wasn’t happy Jan and decided to give this fella a bit of a razz with a few well placed one way boomerangs (sticks) flying in it’s direction… The kookaburra just looked at my futile efforts for a passing second to see if I was throwing sausages….then started eying off the hotplate again.…By this time I’d had enough and locked away all the snags in some alfoil then straight in to the esky…I thought if this bastard can open an esky he can have the bloody snags…thankfully he didn’t so I could get back to my sauce depletion exercise… I ended up rotating between bbq and tomato sauce as I couldn’t split them…..


Weather: Terrible, it was cold and raining and even worse the wind blew all night, never a good thing in winter in a southern based barra dam. We were still keen for a challenge so after a slow brekkie we launched the boats in gentlemen’s hours. That weather change was here and as the cycle goes in the last 10 days this was the wrong end of the stick…cold, wet and getting colder. I had 3 layers on but some of my mates didn’t even pack wet weather gear.

The clowns froze their backsides off in the boat fishing all day with showers every 15 mins which made for a trying day. I loaned them a pair of tracky dacks and jumper.

The fishing was hard and it reminded me of a time when a competition averaged 64 hours a fish = I thought to myself if I can nab one fish I’ll be really happy. As usual in fishing reports its’ really hard to describe how bad weather really is without sounding like you are making excuses……you just had to be there I guess. I hope the photos tell the story. I chatted to a few keen local fisho’s and they confirmed that we came at one of the worst times so far this year…Thanks for that guys!!!


Wildlife: While fishing I saw something move which looked like an echidna on the bank. on closer inspection it was…wow how cool is that so I got out of the boat and went over for a closer inspection….as I snuck up on him…well I had nothing he spotted and heard me a mile away and stuck his head under a log with spikes pointing upwards thinking that I might have been a dingoe that wanted to eat him…… I named him Eddy the Echidna….every time I left he would look up and every time I came back he did the same defensive routine passed down through hundreds of years….I left him alone feeling great just to see one of these prickly little tackers up close.

Fishing: I fished for a few hours in a couple of locations I thought would be ok and a couple of hours in areas that fish were caught in the day before. Late In the day after hours of racking my brains out I went & said gday to my mates Scotty and Shermo. I tagged along as they motored to a bay they liked to fish. The boys fished the bay slowly but had to go back to brissy so we said goodbye and I kept fishing the area. I didn’t have an electric going so I parked the boat and walked along the bank as I didn’t want to spook fish.

The bay was about 12 feet at it’s deepest with timber and lantana spread throughout it with a few gaps in between for casting. I’d been trying curly tails and modifying them lately so I went for this bait as my go to for the rest of the session then bangggg I was on…………… at first I thought I hit a snag, as it had been a couple of donut sessions since I had a bite. I struck hard anyway and saw a nice fish jump that looked like a mid 90’s model.

I had to put some hurt on the fish, my rod, reel, and line, all the time hoping nothing would give way…Luckily it didn’t and I was able to stop the barra several times just before it hit structure. I pulled it up on to the bank then grabbed the leader and walked it safely away from water. Wow I was so happy I was over the moon, how one fish for a travelling angler can make the whole trip….it was happy days and I had a smile a mile wide. Some quick pics and I filmed the fish on release then proceeded to call my mates who were back in the campsite packing up to go to brissy…they were over the moon and so was I…. the beers would go down even sweeter tonight. They were chilled at 4 degrees just sitting outside the esky it was that cold.

10 mins later: I walked over to my left and kept working the bay, but I was already happy and content that I had a nice fish caught and released for the day, anything else would be a bonus as the job was already done. I cast between some trees to my left which were standing about 5m out of the water and the trees on my right were submerged but you could see their branches menacingly sticking out of the water. I had about 2 metres to spare each side of where I cast and I thought to myself “ how the hell am I going to get a fish out of here”. But the old principal of “ you have to hook em first” sprung to mind and I was easily convinced on the merits of my crazy cast. You can justify anything!!!

A couple of metres in to the cast with a Johnny Mitchell special twitch thrown in then bang the fish hit like a Bud Spencer Overhead Sledgehammer Punch… I was on, I struck hard and didn’t miss which is very lucky as I hadn’t had much practise at striking in the last few days.. I’d even been practising striking every 15 mins or so on a normal retrieve to make sure I was awake and didn’t miss my rare opportunities. Either that or I was hoping to jag a fish!!!

Back to the fight: I put as much pressure as I could on this fish to turn it’s head as quick as possible. I basically tried to skull drag it to shore. I just kept the old pump and wind going till I thought the rod was going to snap as it’ made a few complaining noises!! I landed this barra like Dean Lukin landing a tuna – it was like hand to hand combat. I must have landed the fish in less than 30 seconds. It might have even been less than 30sec. Catching barra on this day was bloody great and i won't forget those 2 barra for a long time.

[NAGG]

What a good read Lyndon .... Love it
Skull dragged barra .... off the shore
Those Kookaburras are unbelievable ( & yes they love sausages - & cabanosi) ........ We would throw pieces in the air & they would catch it ! .......
Keep it up

Chris

[Obi _ Wan]

Good read again Lyndon, great stuff, thanks.

Your Kookaburra's remind me of the Buther birds that seem to have adopted me and my offsider when we are out on NPD, (WHEN WE HAD WATER IN IT).

They would fly in and perch on the rods, whether they be standing up or laying down and take pieces of shortbread biscuits out of our hands.

One day we were in their territory and we were busy with a good bass, we noticed the bird fly in, but being busy with the fish we didn't take much notice.

When we had landed and released the bass we looked for the Butcher bird, just picked him up flying away with a whole shortbread finger in his beak. I guess he just wanted to show us he didn't need any special attention.

I hope they are still around when we can get our boats back on NPD.

Cheers,
John.

[BR65]

good stuff mate, a hard earned fish in adverse weather is worth 10 on a sunny day I reckon

[SeekingBarradise]

Hi guys i've had a second trip since this first one.

It was a donut trip!!!

It was a funny trip with hot weather to start the trip, then cold very windy weather rolled in on the first night making things difficult. There were patches where it would warm up for a couple of hours around 10am-2pm then the wind would blow up and it would quickly get cold.

The wind with that change was incredible, i had to get up in the middle of the night and bolt down the tent. They are the strongest winds i've ever experienced in the middle of the night. It sounded like 40ft waves crashing through the surrounding trees, it was incredible and i couldn't sleep for ages.

In a small window of hotter weather i hooked up to a nice fish but stuffed up the fight, or it just wasn't hooked well because after a couple of head shakes it was gooonnnsssskkiiii. It was cool to see a fish jump so close to the boat again and i'm constantly amazed at how barra can shake their heads, work jaws and get their bodies in to all sorts of positions to get rid of our lures and plastics. At times they move like seals...

I had another bite but it was a timid one. After the excitement of a strike all i ended up hooking was a lantana bush which i thought was a fish....Damn.

I found AFA's (active fish areas) in sheltered sections out of the wind. I'll put up a couple of photo's of the areas. The fish seemed to be more interested in sunning than feeding. I reckon the hotter weather mid week had them feeding more and the cold weather on the weekend had digestion up there as a priority. No excuses you could still catch fish, it was just harder.

JM also seemed to think a few were sick as they behaved differently.
This later turned out to be correct with a few more dead fish turning up.

On this trip I was getting better at finding sweet fa bays where nothing was active...yeah i spent a few hundred casts in these locations on this trip ha and got a good dose of lure arm and back.

All in all it was an interesting trip with small windows of easier fishing missed by us. In one of these windows i should have put 5 fish in the boat in half an hour as the conditions just felt right.

I noticed that as soon as that cold windy change came in the fishing got a lot harder. As soon as it heated up again the fish were more responsive to presentations and you could see more activity when you got close to them in the shallows etc.

I had a few yarns to the grey nomads as usual and boy they have had a hard season, i can't remember the last time i met one that had caught a fish this winter, it's been bloody hard work for them and us at times as well.

I met crabman and geoff (stubby holder) both fellow ausfisho's on this trip which was awesome because ausfishos & sweetwater fisho's are usually a bunch of nice people who love the outdoors

I'll keep this donut report short and put up a few pics of the trip.

Don't forget to call in to sexy coffee for a cuppa to stay awake on your trip. Then call in to the peanut van at childers for the best nuts in the world. They go well with cold drinks

This wknd is a big one at our impoundments with a comp on at awoonga. I hear most of the caravan park is booked out!!!!

There's also a bunch of ausfisho's getting together at monduran. It looks like the spring/summer barra season has kicked off.

All the best on your next trip cheers lyndon & Kel.

[Peter4]

Another informative post, Lyndon.

Glad to hear my donut was not alone! I still think it will be a cracker of a season once the weather warms up a bit more.

Thanks again.

Pete

[BR65]

up on the week end Lyndon???

[Steve B]

Hey Lyndon, No fish bay lived up to its reputation that day.....and the next.......and about a week ago...might give it a miss for a while!! I think its had some visitors since!!

Steve

[NAGG]

Another good read Lyndon ........ Hopefully the Musterers can significantly improve on your result ( fingers crossed)

Cheers

Chris