Barra at Mackay in December

[paul.kenny]

Hi Raiders,

Bassboy and I are currently visiting relatives in Mackay and decided to drag the boat from Sydney to Mackay to give the Barra impoundments another crack. The extra effort to drag the boat 2000km was looking like an expensive gamble as the first three trips to Teemburra Dam had resulted in no Barra . We tried the trees, weeded points, weed banks, wind blown bays and creeks for a big fat donut. We had a couple big fish follow the lures but they were reluctant to hit the lures. I mixed up the Barra lures with a couple of casts with my Bass spin gear into likely Sooty snags. This resulted in a lonely 40cm Sooty Grunter (equalling my PB).....pretty grim for three trips onto Teemburra, including an overnight venture (total of 30hrs on the Dam) .

With such disappointment from Teemburra we sought advice from the local tackle shops. Their advice was that Teemburra Dam was not producing any Barra as there was too much water, whereas Kinchant Dam was experiencing a hot bite period with Barra taking lures throughout the day and night. With this advice we headed out to Kinchant Dam very early Fri 30 Dec to try the Barra on surface lures at dusk…..this required a 3am start to drive out to the Dam and be on a weed bed at first light (4:15am). This was also an opportunity to get my younger brother onto his first impoundment Barra.

The change of location to Kinchant Dam immediately paid dividends with Bassboy hooking up with large Barra on his fifth cast of his surface lure....the explosive strike of this fish in the darkness startled all of us and unfortunately this fish spat the lure after a brief but intense battle. Despite the loss of this fish we were very encouraged as we had seen more fish action in the first 15 minutes of this trip than in the previous 30hrs spent on Teemburra Dam.

Bassboy continued to persist with his Cultiva Tango Dancer and within 10 minutes he hooked onto another decent Barra. This feisty 76cm Barra aggressively stuck the lure and provided a fantastic but clean fight.

We continued to work the weed beds with surface lures and SPs for a couple of strikes but no hookups. As the sun rose further we moved deeper into the expansive weed beds casting our lightly weighted SPs and surface lures onto the weed beds, which were standing 8 feet deep with only 1 2 feet of water above the top of the weeds. We continued to disturb large Barra in these weed beds and numerous half hearted strikes. These strikes felt like bream taps as the Barra inhaled and quickly spat out the lures before we could set our weedless hooks. Our perseverance eventually paid off as we found Barra actively feeding in a 14 foot channel between the weed beds.

I was the first to strike silver with a 96cm Barra aggressively striking my jointed hard body Lucky Craft lure . I had to fight this fish with my rod held high to keep it from diving back into the weed bed fortunately the Barra had completely engulfed the lure and did not throw the lure during its many leaps for freedom. This fish improved my hard-body Barra PB by 2cm:

......and before you make comment the 'high-vis' yellow shirt was a Christmas present .

We continued to fish the same area so that my brother could get his first impoundment Barra and within 10 minutes he hooked onto and landed a feisty little 74cm Barra. As you can see in the photo he was absolutely rapt with this result.

With only six days left in Mackay I will be hitting Kinchant Dam at least another 3 or 4 times.....I will keep you posted.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Basscatcher

[Heath R]

Way to go fellas

Barra off the surface, couldn't think of anything else I would rather be doing. Hope you get a few more fish you deserve it after towing the boat that far. Nice sooty as well. So so jealous keep the reports coming

[Chris 55]

nice fish guys and good to see that the locals gave you

the good oil for some Barra

Hope the rest of your trip is as productive

Chris

[mark brown]

Nice barra Boys and a great report

[brendong]

Looks like a world of awesome!!! can't wait to hit a barra impoundment sometime in the coming year....

[paul.kenny]

Way to go fellas

Barra off the surface, couldn't think of anything else I would rather be doing. Hope you get a few more fish you deserve it after towing the boat that far. Nice sooty as well. So so jealous keep the reports coming

Thanks Heath, the drive is a real challenge but generally worthwhile. Unfortunately the wind has been strong in Mackay over the last week so I have only had two more successfull sessions....I will post the report shortly.

nice fish guys and good to see that the locals gave you

the good oil for some Barra

Hope the rest of your trip is as productive

Chris

Chris, thanks mate. The trip has been good and I have just finished my last session on Kinchant Dam (report will be submitted soon). I am now packing the car & boat ready for the long drive home .

Looks like a world of awesome!!! can't wait to hit a barra impoundment sometime in the coming year....

Thanks mate. I would encourage you to seek local advice well before a trip to a barra impoundment. I have fished three different dams during 2011 and each was completely different. In each case it took advice from the local tackle shops to get me onto fish (ie location and types of lures the fish are taking).

[fishermandan123]

Nice fish, now i have the barra bug again in a few years i will make the trek back up there.

regards daniel.