First Barramundi Of The Year.

Hi there,

Here comes the tale, of my first caught Barramund this year.

• I hooked up five fish and boated only two.
• It was my first ride in Brett's new boat.
• Brett caught more fish than I, once again.
• All our fish were caught casting lures, soft plastics and hard bodies.
• I caught my first Barramundi on a Cultiva Tango Dancer.

I had not really had the possibility to go and do some serious fishing yet this year.

So when Brett invited me to have a go at fishing on Darwin harbour in his new boat, I jumped on the offer and said yes in no time.

And has usual, serious fishing with Brett, was full of laughter and it was a very good day on the water.

Brett picked me up from my home a bit before 11:00am, and we were soon launching the new boat from a ramp not very far from my place, nearly at the heart of the city.

The plan was to go at the top of Sandgroves Creek, and to be locked for the low tide, behind the rock bar.

And this is pretty much what we did, after having a look around in some mangrove first to see if we could sight cast a fish or two. But the water conditions, certainly due to the previous rain, was not in our favour,  so we went back to plan A and up Sandgroves Creek we headed.

We arrived a bit before the tide started to recess, and already we could hear a little boof here and there. I started to get excited, with the anticipation of catching my first Barramundi of the year.

Sandgroves Creek at low tide.

As we arrived I started to cast on the right hand side corner and just after a few cast, as my lure was passing the corner, I felt like if I was hitting the mud or a snag. So I gave it a very soft pull, to make sure that I had not encounter any timber. The line suddenly tensed and a little Barramundi started to show us how good it was at aerial acrobatic.

Yes I was on!

It was no monster but it was in my eyes, legal nonetheless and I started to get in the "I am more excited than I should" mode.

But it was not to be, as this feisty little fish was not only good at acrobatics, but it wasn't too bad either at spitting lures.

I didn't like this demonstration as much as the jumping one...

But hey, now we were sure to be in the right spot, fish were around.

This one had been hooked and lost on a soft plastic, rigged with a single hook.

Not discouraged, I continued to cast in the same spot, hoping that it would have a few brother, or maybe even a big sister hanging around the same ambush point.

And yes it took just a few casts to be on again, same lure, same trajectory, slightly smaller Barramundi... And same result...

A few jumps, and an award in lure spitting/escaping 101 for the fish.

Red card for me...

Well I tried to think that there is always another round, and that I would get my revenge.

It took a bit of time but it eventually happened.

We had moved to another arm of the creek and we could see the Barramundi boofing around us, but we couldn't manage to tempt them with our offering.

Having already lost two fish with soft plastic and single hook, I decided to try a hard body with trebles, as a way to turn the odds in my favour.

So I elected to use a little Tango Dancer.

I had heard by many people that this was a great surface lure, and this is no secret that love fishing with surface lures. At the moment my favourite walk the dog type of lure is with no doubt the DUO Realis Pencil 110, but I was afraid that it would be too big compared to the bait that the Barramundi were feeding on, this early in the season. This is why I choose the small Tango Dancer, as I don't have any of the smaller DUO Realis Pencil.

Well truth to be told, I now also really like the Tango Dancer in small size.

Why?

Because it got me my two fish of the day! And got boofed a few other times, where I lost the fish.

Brett, told me to look where the bait was shimmering on the surface of the creek, and to cast straight on it or just behind it.

So I did it.

We saw a school of bait being very nervous on the surface, next to a couple of trees standing on the mud, and we both casted in the direction of it.

Brett a soft plastic and me my surface hard body lure.

We couldn't see Brett's lure but I was attentively looking at my little lure, walking like a puppy on the surface through the bait school who got even more agitated. 

The lure going right, left, right, left, ri Boof!

No more lure on the surface! Where is my lure?

The straight line pulling away from me, and a Barramundi jumping at the end of it told me quick smart where was my lure, and with whom...

Oh I didn't want to loose a third fish, it wasn't very big, but I really wanted to finally land my first Barramundi of the year.

Because of the smallish hooks on the lure, I had my drag rather loose, and the fish was able to take a few nice run, and even when it was close to the boat, it dived again, and made me turn around the boat to know where it was going.

finally, with the fish boat side, I grabbed my leader line, and pulled it inside.

First Barramundi for 2015!

First Barramundi of the year.

It was not very big at only 57cm (22.440945 inch), but it was also my first legal Barramundi on my new combo and I decided to keep it. My little family was going to have some fresh fish to eat.

After that, I was happy, and the day could have gone without another fish for me, that it would have been the same... Yet, being a fisherman, I could not stand there, and not cast a lure, while Barra were boofing around us. So I did a cast in the same direction of where I got my fish, and didn't got another fish.

I then saw at least three simultaneous boof just at the back of the boat, so as quick as could be I flicked my lure in the middle of all this foaming watery commotion. This was literally my second cast after my first fish, and I was on again!

It gave a better fight and jumped more, but was in fact a smaller fish, by one centimetre.

Second little Barramundi.

At 56cm (22.047244 inch) it was just one centimetre over the minimum size, so we decided to let him grow a bit more, and in the creek it went again.

Brett was starting to say that it was very impolite to out fish your skipper, and I couldn't help to smile at that. As any fisherman would do, when the skipper is a good mate and you know that you can laugh about this kind of thing. I even pretended that I knew and that this is why from now on, I would just miss all the fish that would gobble my lure...

I shouldn't have said it, because this is just what happened for the rest of the afternoon. 

(Karma anyone?)

Brett would reel in fishes, and I would loose them, either boat side, or just after the hit...

I became good at that.

By example we were just about to move from a spot, when my lure got boofed on the surface, just a few feet from the boat. It made me jump in my shoes! I love seeing the sudden attack of a Barramundi on a surface lure. It always brings jitters to me, it is hard to beat.

As This Barra boofed the lure, it missed the hook and swam away, none the wiser that it might have just avoided capture by the people from above...

Seeing this, we decided to persevere a bit longer on the spot.

And of course, another Barra took my lure with gusto, and of course, I lost it too!

But this one gave me a bit of a fright, because once boat side I realised that the lure had lodged itself under the gill of the fish. Now, it is never a good place to have one's line, as the gills have razor sharp edge, and I started to get afraid that I would loose my lure.

Brett even got the net to try and quickly net this strangely hooked fish.

We could see the fish swimming with one of the gill wide open, and the lure inside of it. 

Even if it had been cold weather I would have started to sweat looking down at that.

Just as the net was ready and the fish close to the boat, it dived another time and made a funny kind of twist, which freed the lure and he swam away.

The line had very small damage from the adventure, which surprised me.

But by now Brett had spotted just opposite of us on the other side of the creek, some Barramundi boofing their head off, so we silently made our way in their direction with the electric motor.

Once there, it didn't take long for Brett to hook is first Barra of the day:

Brett first Barramundi of the day.

Yes it does look like the both of them are poking their tongue to me, as to teach me to show more respect to my skipper... Lesson learned.

The fish was in the 70s cm (27.559055 inch) and was going to be the biggest of the day.

Even if I think that Brett missed a much bigger one on a big Tango Dancer.

Brett missed a few fish there, I didn't even get a half hearted hit. Obviously, my lure was not the one to entice this bunch.

So we moved back to our first spot, where I had missed two fish earlier on, at the start of our fishing day.

On the way there, as I was saying that maybe my lure was good earlier but not anymore, and that maybe I should change it. As we were slowly moving with the electric and casting around, a fish boofed my lure, but once again didn't hook. I need bigger hooks!

So I kept the same lure on.

Brett then got his second fish, and it was a keeper too:

Brett second Barramundi.

Yes it was a keeper too, but we didn't measure this one, as it was obviously a fish of legal size.

Not long after Brett got his third fish, and because he already had two fish for himself in the esky, he decided to let it go.

Yes that was now three fish for him, and two for me, I had been defeated.

And yes, we did laugh about that too.

Which is a thing that I like about fishing with mates, the good camaraderie that enable us to laugh and relax about simple thing. A way to forgot about all of the world insanities, and to keep a good mental health.

Thank you Brett for inviting me on your new boat.

Now how big was this lure that got me my two fish?

As a fisherman would say: It was big like this!

My small Tango Dancer.

Yes a lure rather on the small size, when we think about Barramundi fishing.

But it seemed to match the hatch on the day, and I think that I will keep it in the tackle box, ready to use for my next fishing excursion.

Even if I do think that I should definitively change the hook on this little lure.

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

My Sunday Fish.

Hi there,

Yes last Sunday, I went fishing with my good old mate Double Haul.
It was a long time since we fished together, and I was very happy when he called me to go fishing on Darwin Harbour, to try for some Barramundi.
After all, Double Haul, is the man who put me back on the Barramundi fishing, after I had spend a few year not catching any of them, and concentrating on getting some other prey from the rocks around town. It is also with him, that I have caught, my biggest Barramundi so far, and it was the first one I got after my previously mentioned, few year long Barra drought.
The fish was 91cm, and I still remember it.
So this little fishing trip promised to be a good one, filled with laugh and maybe a few fish...

Double Haul picked me at 9:00am, and we were in the water not long after that.
The plan for the day, was to go not very far from the boat ramp, and to try to get some Barra and Salmon, casting small lure against the mangroves and snake drains.
With the morning high tide, the place looked promising, despite a relative lack of bait fish in the water.
But in a very short time, my little Hell Raiser lure had a hit. I had casted just against a tree, and a nice drop off was sitting in front of it. Just as the lure arrived above the drop off, a flash of silver, and I was on. The fish pulled the line, came quickly back to the surface, made a little jump, it was a small Barramundi, it showed us his back fins, and gave a good head shake, and was gone...
I had lost this little guy.
But we hadn't fished for very long, and this made us think that this was going to be a great day full of fish...

Well, nothing much happened, for a little while, some half cooked hits here and there, but no real action.
So we finally decided to move further away, and to go in a creek nearby.
Upon arriving at the creek mouth, we found that the water had already dropped and had to find the channel to get in.
Once in there, we saw some pelicans gorging themselves on fish.
If they were able to get some fish, we would do the same!
Well, that was the plan anyway...
We casted a few thousand times, for not much.
So I changed lure, and put a Little B52's at the end of my line, explaining that I really liked this lure. As I once had a great session with this very one.
And to prove it, on the third or fourth cast with it, I was on!
But the fish didn't fight like a Barramundi, and Double Haul started to have a funny smile on his face...
When the fish came to the surface, I understand why: I had a little catfish.
He had totally engulfed the lure, and just the  head and eyes of it were coming out of its mouth. Both treble had found their marks. This was a two pliers job to unhook and release the little critter. And this is only once it was gone that I realised that I had not taken a photo of it.
This made Double Haul laugh, asking me why on earth I would want a picture of a small catfish?

We moved a bit further, and at a little creek/ big drain mouth, we saw some jelly prawns being harassed by some big Threadfin salmons.
Here was something that we wanted to catch!
So we casted left, right and centre, to no avail.
So we changed our hard body lures for some soft plastic ones.
I choose a little green Zman, that was given to me by Arrabmundi.
We were looking where the prawns were starting to show on the surface, and before they really started to go berserk we would flick our lures among them and hope to get a hook up.
This was very shallow water, and we could at time see the Salmon, rolling just under the surface, their sides breaking the water, feeding on the tiny prawns. It was exciting and frustrating at the same time, as we couldn't get them to take our offering.
Then as I had sent my lure to what I was thinking would be a great spot to catch a salmon, it finally happened.
I had left the little soft plastic drop to the bottom, and was just making it skip on the creek's bed, just slowly, a little bit at a time, with pause in between. Suddenly, a little bump on the line, just as I was to give the lure another skip, and the line start to head towards the centre of the creek.
I am on! You got him! Said Double Haul, and I started to get all excited.
The fish was taking line, and I thought that the drag on my reel was free, but no, so I started to hope for a massive Threadfin... Then the line seemed to come near the surface, and in one nice jump, a few feet above water level, the fish revealed itself.
And it was not what I was thinking it was, no.
As we had finally switched off from chasing Barra and were gunning for some Threadies, I got an interesting by catch... It was a Barramundi!
Off course, I then wanted this fish even more, and begin to stress that with just a single hook from a weedless lure, the odds were more in favour of the fish than I.
And yes salt water Barra from the harbour, have great force and stamina. I was surprise at how easily he would take some line. when it finally came close to the net, I started to be more confident. But just on eyeing the net, it put the back burners on, and dived straight under it and went back for the creek. Ha!
Second attempt was rewarded with success and the fish was boated.
I still wasn't sure that it was legal, and Double Haul laughed and said to put it on the brag mat: it went 62cm and some dust (24.409449 inches).
And here it is:

My Sunday fish.

This fish made me very happy, has it was my first legal Barramundi in a few months.

It was going to be good food.

We could have stayed there a bit longer, but a storm was on it's way.

Storm over the creek.

So we decided to get out of the creek, before we got locked in by the falling tide, and to try and get refuge closer to the boat ramp. On our way out of the creek, we saw some poor fellas who didn't negotiated the mud flat very well, and were stranded high and dry.

Waiting for the tide.

They had missed the channel and would have to wait for the tide to get back up, and might have had to weather the storm up there.

This was bad luck for them.

On our way back to the ramp, we saw what the storm really looked like and tried to rush past it.

Here comes the rain again.

But we got rained on and got soaking wet.

To keep warm, and because we saw some splash in the water, I casted a popper with all the vigour I could find. But didn't got any fish game enough to have a go at it.

We then moved closer to the ramp, but had to wait for the tide to be high enough to be able to get to it.

So we cruised up and down the creek casting as we went, as some big Queenfish kept busting all around us.

Then they stopped, and we hadn't got any of them...

The water was high enough, and we felt a bit cold, so we decided to call it a day.

To me that had been a great day, of catching up with a friend, and fishing under the sun, and the rain too, yes. Thanks for the invitation Double Haul.

Now, what happened to this Barramundi I caught?

Well some of it was turned into a delicious fish soup:

Barramundi fish soup.

This was the first time I had a Barramundi fish soup, and now I want some more!

So I guess, that I will have to go fishing again...

And no, we didn't caught any Salmon.

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

No Billfish but a small Tuna.

Hi there,

So during the week I had a message from my good mate Double Haul from the FFF forum, asking if I wanted to go and try to get something very big over the weekend.
The plan was to hit Fenton patch and North Gutter to hopefully raise some Black Marlin and some Sailfish.
Him and Brooksy set up for the Marlins and I for the Sailfishes...
Guess what I would answer to that?
I am sure that you know by now that I replied: YES!

You see I am yet to boat any billfish. Three times already I had one on the line but every time I lost them before we could tag them.
Billfish is on my fishing bucket list, since a very long time, and even more since I first tried for them onboard Double Haul's boat; about a year ago.

So early we left and we took Brooksy's boat, which is nearly the same as Double Haul's one, but with a centre console instead of a side one.
Also, it is a bright red boat, made me feel a bit like if I was getting in the fire truck...
Another kid's dream.

On my way to work on the Friday morning, I had stopped near the boat ramp from the Ski Club, and the ocean looked beautiful, flat and invinting.
I spend half of the night of Friday not sleeping and hoping for the same condition, and on Saturday morning the weather was just perfect.

We launched from the Night Cliff boat ramp, with not much water, and no wind.
Very quickly we zoomed to the first mark, with the three of us commenting on how the condition seemed perfect. We even saw a booby which is usually a good sign.
Even if we were surprised by the very small amount of Tuna school that we saw on the way.
I was most impressed by the auto-pilot which enabled Brooksy to just type in where we wanted to go, and then we were able to have a chat while the boat took us to our destination, nice and easy.

And soon enough we started to deploy the lines, teaser and outrigger.
They both had these large overhead reel with a swimming queenfish at the end of their lines, while I had and eggbeater with a skipping garfish on the line.
They explained to me that the plan was that my skipping garfish was to distract these pesky Sailfish from the Marlin baits, that they both had at the end of their lines.
Now when they told me that, I started to be pretty confident that we would see some serious billfish action during this trip.
Well as any seasoned angler would know, over confidence is the mother of all deception...
We didn't raise a single billfish for the day, not even a Mac.
Yet I still had a great day, yes as far as fishing goes, I am an easy date...
And unlike a lot of people, I actually enjoy keeping an eye on the baits during the long trolls.

Double Haul and Brooksy.

The long troll started, under a build up sky, hot weather and big clouds in the distance.

We would at time pass a school of Tuna feeding on the surface and would circle around them a few times to see if by any chance a billfish would be with them.

Every time I looked at them Tuna splashing around, and I would think that it would be very cool to throw a chrome slice in the mist of them all... But every time I would as bravely as I could try to remind me that we were not here for the Tunas, but for these fishes with a stick in front of them, the billfish.

I was impressed by the coral spawn that we saw on the surface, it seemed to be immense and in the middle of nowhere. and some little jelly fish like creature swimming in there.

Then out of nowhere, like a bunch of torpedoes some big things came around us, overtook the the boat, and started swimming just in front of it...

They were Dolphins.

Playing in front of the boat.

They did not stay with us for very long, but this was really enjoyable. It is interesting how something as simple as a pod of Dolphin swimming around the boat can bring a smile to everybody on board.

Not long after that we spotted a sea snake on the surface, he was big but dived back before I could take a photo.

A bit further away we spotted a sea turtle that was so big that for a second we were wondering if that was a billfish. 

And no, no one had drank any alcohol on the boat...

When it started to be hot on our head, we put the canopy on, and used the shower/hose to refresh ourself, and we felt renewed and ready for some action. 

Alas, not much was going to happen on the billies front.

Yet the trolling condition were perfect, we could see the storm brewing faraway but the sea was glass.

Some dreams are made of this.

And this glassy sea was about 40 km (24.854848 miles) from the boat ramp.

But with the storm starting to head our way, and the afternoon winds picking up, we decided to turn back and go home.

As we were zipping back we saw some birds diving and sure enough under them was a school of Tuna in feeding mode. 

Brooksy turned to me and said: "Do you want to have a go at them?"

I tried to stay composed and detached, and to give a very calm, posed and intelligent reply: Ho Yes!, in less than half a second.

Didn't even need to think about it.

I was with my spin stick in hands on the front deck before we were even close enough to cast.

First cast: I was thinking that this was a blind cast as nothing seemed to happen but when the lure was close enough to be seen, I could see a few Tunas swimming behind it.

But none were hooked.

Second cast: A few Tunas swiped at the lure on the surface and that was very exciting to see, till one actually got hooked! But I lost it at the boat...

Third cast: a little Tuna hit the lure and got hooked far from the boat, and a few times I believed that I had lost it, because he would regularly swim straight at the boat, and then blot away from it.

In the end it was close enough for Double Haul to grab the leader, and drag the fish in the boat. Where he was quickly put in the esky, and of we went back on our way to shore.

In fact all of this happened so fast, that I realised only once I was cooking this Tuna that I had totally forgotten to make a photo of it....

So here is what it looked like in our plate in the evening, after going through the magic wok.

Yummy fresh Tuna.

And we were in fact right in doing all this fast, as the wind was picking up and we didn't want the storm to catch up with us.

Once back on Terra firma I was once again surprised that the time had flew by us so fast, it felt like we had just left the ramp heading for the horizon a few minutes earlier. In fact we had just spend most of the day on the water.

And even without billfish, this in my book, was still a great day, and I am very grateful For Double Haul and Brooksy to have invited me.

So yes, there is still some serious blank on my fishing bucket list, and Billfish is one of them...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.