First Barramundi Of The Year.

Hi there,

Yes, I finally got my first Barramundi for the year.

• We fished on the Adelaide river.
• We got all our fish on soft plastic lures.
• We got all our fish on the cast.

Jason had asked me if I wanted to go for a bit of Barramundi fishing on the Adelaide river.

Of course I said yes!

It is still early in the season, a bit too early in fact, but who could resist a fishing trip, instead of staying home doing some cleaning and other important stuff?

So we were on the road very early, and it was still dark by the time we launched the boat:

Launching in the dark.

But as opposed to all the other trips that I had done on the Adelaide river, this time we had decided to go down river, instead of upstream. This to me was a first, and I was excited to go to discover some new territories.

We stopped as the day had started, to a little creek and started to flick our lures across the little stream flowing in the river. We were using large hard body lures, and didn't register any hits, but who could hear and sometimes see little boof here and there around us.

One fish was rather constant on our left.

We casted many time in it's direction but couldn't get anything to have a go at our lures.

I even tried a fizzer, in the hope that it would provoke a strike.

Just as we decided to drift past a bit lower, we changed lures and both of us had now soft plastic lures on our lines.

I made my first cast with it towards the spot where the little Barramundi had been repeatedly boofing.

That was not the best cast in the world, and my lure ended in the weed bordering the water. I gave a sharp jerk on the line to get it off the weed, the lure dropped in the water, I gave one turn of the handle, and said: Oh! I just got a hit!

But it wasn't just a hit I was on! in fact the fish had then been swimming parallel to the boat and it did take me a few seconds to realise that I was on.

The fight wasn't very long, as the fish was no monster, and once at the boat, I just grabbed the leader line by hand, and pulled the fish in the boat. I had just boated my first Barramundi of the year!

First little Barramundi of the year.

This little run off Barramundi, made me very happy, it is alway nice to catch the first one of the year.

And lets be honest, this happen only once a year...

I had caught it on the first cast of the day with a soft plastic, surely this was going to be the lure of the day ... Well yes and no... Yes, because it caught me my best fish of the day, but no, because that was also going to be my last Barramundi of the day, for me.

But not long after that, as we arrived to another little run off, Jason was on!

And his fish was better than mine:

Jason and his Barramundi.

This fish too was caught on a soft plastic and on the cast.

From there on, the long desert crossing started...

No more Barramundi were to be caught for the day...

We did try every little colour change that we saw, like this one:

Colour change on the Adelaide river.

But to no avail.

So we went back up the river, as far as Beatrice creek. First as we arrived we had the place for ourselves. But it must have taken about all of ten short minutes, to have at least five or six other boats around us, all casting or even anchoring about where we were flicking our lures ten minutes before...

The junction of Beatrice and Adelaide, with a few boats.

Some of the boats even had stereo blasting some night club music...

I might start to be an old fashioned kind of guy, but when fishing, I still prefer the sound of nature and the birds than the Duff Duff music...

Anyway we persisted there for a while, and Jason got two very good hits, but none stayed connected.

The sky was starting to grow darker and more menacing by the minute, and a few lightning started to be seen in the cloudy sky.

Dark sky.

So we made it back towards the ramp, and turned in one last little creek to see if we could get lucky, one more time.

We got lucky with the rain, that is for sure, as it fell upon us like there was no tomorrow.

The positive in it, is that it was refreshing.

And then the rain stopped... For a few minutes and restarted... And stopped again, and started again, a few time.

Flood plain from the last little creek.

In this little creek I actually got a fish, but it was either a Garfish or a Long Tom, not sure which one of them.

It was of the same colour than a Barramundi that would have spend the winter in a billabong. Never I had seen one of this colour before.

But between the intermittent rain and the lack of Barramundi, we decided to call it a day and to head home.

The sky was still full of rain:

Clouds over the Adelaide river.

when we arrived at the ramp, we saw that a lot of people had the same idea than us, and it was a bit busy.

Waiting next to the ramp.

But it wasn't that long before we were able to put the boat back on the trailer, and on the road again, home bounds.

Thanks again to Jason for inviting me fishing, it was great to finally get my first little Barra of the year.

In this trip I used 18 different hard body lures, and four different soft plastics, for a grand total of two fish caught...

I think that this is the absolute proof that I needs more fishing lure...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.