bassboy888 Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Well raiders I have finally got around to writing my report for this chrissy. Flying up to Mackay Christmas day my first trip wasnt until boxing day, unfortunately Dad (basscatcher) was working over chrissy so couldnt come up which restricted my trips to being landbased. First trip took me to the salt up one of the creeks with the only bites being the hordes and hordes of mozzies (made the rookie error of forgetting the aeroguard) i called it quite pretty quick. After reading a few online blogs I decided to give a few of the small ponds a go fishing for small barra and tarpon with my light gear. Being all thick weed with pockets and channels to flick I used all surface lures. I was getting hits straight away on a small SP frog, but just couldnt set the hooks and out of frustration I switched to a jackall popper, still getting hits every 2nd cast it wasnt long until one of the 6 hook points were set and I finally landed my first tarpon, HOW FUN ARE THEY! jumping around all over the place really makes you practice keeping pressure on a fish after that first fish they were pretty keyed in on the popper so i switched to a more subtle approach and rigged up a weedless slider rolled on the surface, this proved to be very successful getting me another 3 fish. Next trip was down to the same location, same technique just earlier on in the afternoon and after rain. so I didnt have high hopes but as the previous session I was immediately rewarded with lots and lots of action and as soon as one weed "pool" went quiet I moved on. with that many hooks ups and hits i was thoroughly entertained for 3ish hours. unfortunately because of their(the tarpon) bony mouths it was hard punch the hooks into them but eventually one would stick and it was up to keeping pressure on as the fish flung themselves out of the water! By the end of this session I got another 4 tarpon and a massive smile on my face. The session after this was a bit of the spur of the moment down in another one of the rivers (remembered the aeroguard) to test out some new lures, in particular a smoking drags black swan. All I can say is that it has an awesome action and I cant wait to be trying them on the flatty and some pelagics down here. With my next session being the biggest of the trip to say I was keen was an understatement. I was heading out to Kinchant dam with a friend of a friend who competes in the ABT. We got to the dam around four and not 15 minutes I hooked up to a barra 70cm nut lost him boat side due to a tightened drag and small hooks. from then it too an amount of time to get another hook up and even find the fish with the lowrance HDS touch 12. So a change of tactics from casting hardbodies to trolling them to find where the fish were moving, and as it turns out they were pushing into the shallows. We found the fish swimming through on the side scan, once utilised this feature is outstanding while we were watching these schools Pete caught two fish a 90cm and an whopping 117cm which absolutely swallowed his lure. Even though I didnt end up catching anything I had a great time and learnt so much, some of which I cant wait to use on my next trip. After such a high with the big barra, I went back to the tarpon for one last session before I left. This time I got some much bigger hits, which unfortunately didnt stick and finished with 3 Sorry for such a long read but there hasnt been a report in a while Cheers Bassboy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmak Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Hey Bassboy. Sounds like a great experience with the tarpon. Show you've read the terrain well and adapted to the situation to get the bites and land the fish. Sorry about the missed barra but I guess seeing a monster landed in the boat would've been exciting enough. Learning to read the sounder is something the experts seem to do a lot of and is a skill I'll admit I have not developed at all. We spoke to a gun local at Windamere at our recent trip who was getting double digit captures at all hours of the day in the middle of the lake just by finding the deeper fish on his sounder. Definitely a useful skill to develop ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassboy888 Posted January 8, 2013 Author Share Posted January 8, 2013 Hey Bassboy. Sounds like a great experience with the tarpon. Show you've read the terrain well and adapted to the situation to get the bites and land the fish. Sorry about the missed barra but I guess seeing a monster landed in the boat would've been exciting enough. Learning to read the sounder is something the experts seem to do a lot of and is a skill I'll admit I have not developed at all. We spoke to a gun local at Windamere at our recent trip who was getting double digit captures at all hours of the day in the middle of the lake just by finding the deeper fish on his sounder. Definitely a useful skill to develop ... You're not wrong Pmak the sounders if used properly can be the most important tool while fishing these day. The best thing to do while practicing with the sounder is just play with it while on the water and it won't take long to understand it! And YouTube always helps. Can't wait to try the side scan on the jewies now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bharris Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Top fun tarpon would be good fun on light gear Sent from my GT-I9100T using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brendong Posted January 18, 2013 Share Posted January 18, 2013 Great report mate, tarpon look like fun, but anything in surface is.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arpie Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Shame you lost your barra, Bassboy - that's a beautie in the pic!! Well done on the tarpon tho - energetic fish on light gear! You'll get your whopper barra next time! Roberta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassboy888 Posted January 30, 2013 Author Share Posted January 30, 2013 Cheers all, are right though those little tarpon give a good show! I keep telling my self that Roberta.... Hope it happens soon its driving me insane haha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now