Bad_Bubby
27-08-2006, 10:43 PM
Hey guys. Just returned from a weekend at Tinaroo. The plan was to meet my brother who had prepared the boat and supplies. Then once on the lake, load up on redclaw and go for a session of lure casting with appropriately named member 'Tinarrotriumph' (Theo). We had heard the fish were hanging deep and trolling was the way to go. So most of Friday night was spent shivering away in the centre of the dam trying to navigate in pure darkness. This wasn't much fun so we pulled the pin and got stuck into some beers.
I arranged to meet Theo Saturday arvo after my brother and I had done some more fruitless trolling. The upside was our redclaw catch increasing each time we dropped the pots off. I didnt realise how much fuel we had used so when I began fishing with Theo it was a bad feeling when the engine conked out. Amazingly a road was about 30m away (very lucky), my brother was on the way with fuel and we set off again. Once again, no results but Theo mentioned the fishing was often slow in the section we fished. This morning we planned to concentrate on casting in the Yungaburra side of the dam as trolling was really not giving me much hope. We set off about 9am after another good redclaw gathering (this time with a full fuel tank). Theo and I cast some shallow divers to a patch of rubble/timber in 4m of water when we had finally traversed the bulk of the dam from Kairi. It was a great looking day with clear weather. It only took 20 minutes before my rod loaded up. I began loosing drag into some open water behind the boat before an chunky fat barra exploded. We could not believe our luck. The fish hugged the bottom early then did some surface headshakes while slowly creeping towards structure. Thankfully it ran out of steam about 1m before a patch of timber and I turned it boatside. Once on board it was a triumphant feeling to have nabbed another nice sized barra in my new boat (2nd one in past 3 weeks).
We talked about taking a couple of quick snaps and a quick release until I saw where it was hooked. All three sets of trebles were deeply embedded in the gills with about 500ml of blood already on the deck. It was nearly impossible to lift past knee height but we managed to get some pics. We thought it would be worthwhile to do a weigh in at the Holiday Park afterwards as Theo would not mind keeping the fish for the table. Once there we eventually (after some considerable effort) carried it from the Kairi pontoon to the scales. It weighed 30.2kg and measured 123cm. A dream result as I had already had an enjoyable time in the good weather before the barra. We went back on the Dam about an hour later but could not repeat our earlier effort. In all we got 40 redclaw to compliment the barra. Hope you like the pics.
I arranged to meet Theo Saturday arvo after my brother and I had done some more fruitless trolling. The upside was our redclaw catch increasing each time we dropped the pots off. I didnt realise how much fuel we had used so when I began fishing with Theo it was a bad feeling when the engine conked out. Amazingly a road was about 30m away (very lucky), my brother was on the way with fuel and we set off again. Once again, no results but Theo mentioned the fishing was often slow in the section we fished. This morning we planned to concentrate on casting in the Yungaburra side of the dam as trolling was really not giving me much hope. We set off about 9am after another good redclaw gathering (this time with a full fuel tank). Theo and I cast some shallow divers to a patch of rubble/timber in 4m of water when we had finally traversed the bulk of the dam from Kairi. It was a great looking day with clear weather. It only took 20 minutes before my rod loaded up. I began loosing drag into some open water behind the boat before an chunky fat barra exploded. We could not believe our luck. The fish hugged the bottom early then did some surface headshakes while slowly creeping towards structure. Thankfully it ran out of steam about 1m before a patch of timber and I turned it boatside. Once on board it was a triumphant feeling to have nabbed another nice sized barra in my new boat (2nd one in past 3 weeks).
We talked about taking a couple of quick snaps and a quick release until I saw where it was hooked. All three sets of trebles were deeply embedded in the gills with about 500ml of blood already on the deck. It was nearly impossible to lift past knee height but we managed to get some pics. We thought it would be worthwhile to do a weigh in at the Holiday Park afterwards as Theo would not mind keeping the fish for the table. Once there we eventually (after some considerable effort) carried it from the Kairi pontoon to the scales. It weighed 30.2kg and measured 123cm. A dream result as I had already had an enjoyable time in the good weather before the barra. We went back on the Dam about an hour later but could not repeat our earlier effort. In all we got 40 redclaw to compliment the barra. Hope you like the pics.