A Billabong In The Middle Of Nowhere.

Hi there,

Seano gave me a phone call early in the morning and asked me if I wanted to go fishing in a billabong in the middle of nowhere...
I said yes!

• It was in the middle of nowhere.
• We did get some fish.
• We got all of our fish on weedless soft plastic lures.
• it was a great day.

Want to read the full story?

Here it is then:

On a face book group Seano said that he was thinking of going fishing if he could find a deckie.

I said: "Pick Me!"

He called me and it went a bit like this:

Are you ready, can I come to pick you up now?

No! I haven't had a shower yet!

Ok, then, I will be at your place to pick you up in half an hour, we are going billabong fishing.

Quick quick, a shower, getting the tackle bag ready with gear for billabong fishing.

The phone rang again: "Hey Mate, I am in from of your place"

I walk out, with my fishing gear, and a plate with two toast and scramble eggs on it.

And off we go for a new fishing adventure. 

Eating my breakfast on the way.

In the bush, in the middle of nowhere we drove.

Don't ask me where exactly. I would honestly not be able to answer, I was too busy looking at the landscape. Half dreaming about all the fish we were going to catch, to be able to notice any direction that were were taking.

Driving through the bush to go fishing.

We finally arrived at about midday to our chosen location and launched the boat.

Boat ramp?

What boat ramp?

Launch site.

The billabong was beautiful, and not another boat in sight:

A billabong just for us.

It was the middle of the day, and experience would have dictated the use of diver lures, not surface lures...

But once again, being who I am, I decided to just have a few cast with the cool looking surface lure that Brett gave me a few week ago. You know, just to see how it swims and all...

Second cast with it, a little Barramundi boofed my surface lure, I jumped in surprise, but the fish didn't connect.

Now that was a promising sign if ever there had been any.

We were going to catch some fish! Was the thing that we started to think...

Well yes we did, maybe not cricket score of them, but enough to have a great day on the water.

Any way, after a few more cast of the surface lure, I decided to fish in earnest, and to put a weedless soft plastic, to cast at the snags.

We got a few hits, saw a few fish, and...

I was on! 

After an average cast toward some Pandanus roots, I can suddenly feel and see my line tense, I strike and it begins.

The fish quickly came to the surface, jumped and I can see that it is a Saratoga, a beautiful fish that I really like to fish for.

It start to do all the things that Saratoga are known for. It move in a snake like fashion, it jump and try to bury me in the snags. Luckily for me this one is not too big and I get it to the boat.

First fish of the day.

After a quick snap, it was released, healthy and strong.

As you can see by the size of the lure compared to the fish, they were hungry in this billabong.

Just wait a bit for the weather to warm up a bit, and it might turn crazy in there.

We then both got a few miss, dropsy all around.

Then Seano cast between some submerged branches and got a hit, but failed to connect.

So I sent my lure in roughly the same spot, and I am on!

Once again, the fish hit the lure on the drop.

Simple technic really: cast your soft plastic, let it drop to the bottom. Give it a few flick rewind a bit of line, let it drop to the bottom, and repeat. It is on the drop, while the line is slightly slack, that I see it suddenly going straight and changing direction. I quickly raise my rod tip, start to smile, and be happy.

As we were working some rather short distance cast, the tussle is not too long, but still very exciting, and I find myself with another Saratoga in my hands.

Second Saratoga for the day.

This was a better fish than the first one, and it made me very happy.

Which is good, as it was going to be my last one for the day!

I was just starting to feel bad, that I was on Seano's boat and catching more fish than him...

I should not have worried, because from now on he was going to shine, and get all the fish.

The first fish that Seano got, was a Sooty Grunter.

I had read and heard a lot about the Sooty Grunter, but was yet to see one in the flesh.

Sometimes it the simple things in life,  for me, finally seeing one made the day even better.

The Sooty Grunter.

This one was as fat as a footy, and it went back in the drink, to get even fatter.

And hopefully we will meet again one day.

It then became Barra Time!

Seano got two of them in a row, little ones some of you might say, but a fish is a fish, especially when it is a Barramundi.

First little Barramundi of the day.

Last Barramundi for the day.

I think that by then Seano was a bit tired of me alway wanting to take pictures of fish that he would consider not worthy. But hey, it was a Barra!

After Barra time, it didn't become Hammer Time, but it went full circle, and we, or I should say, Seano, got back in the Saratoga. While I got back at taking pictures.

Seano's first Saratoga for the day.

And it didn't take long after that for the last Saratoga, and last fish, of the day to come onboard.

Last fish of the day: Saratoga!

We were happy anglers, we had spend a few hours catching fish on an isolated billabong, far from the crowds that you sometimes find on the popular billabongs. The shadows were starting to grow longer, and we decided that it was time to go home.

End of the day on the billabong.

We did run ingot some trouble to get out of the billabong.

The trailer got stuck against a step in the mud. We had to actually skull drag the boat on the bank and then put the trailer under it.

One of the hand rail from the boat got ripped off the gunwale while the boat was dragged out of the water, but luckily, no one was injured, which is the most important.

Driving throughout the bush, we made a quick stop, so I could make a photograph of the sunset:

Australia, you are beautiful!

Sunset over the Australian bush.

To recap, it was a great day, discovering some new fishing location. Seeing a new specie of fish that I had never seen yet. Good company, good laugh, good fishing, what else could make a great Sunday?

Thank you for the invitation Seano.

Oh yes, I did get totally out fished once again...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

2013 Top End Barra Series Round 5.

Hi there,

Not long ago the fifth round of the 2013 Top End Barra Series took place on the very picturesque Corroboree Billabong, not very far from Darwin.

Nomad was not sure if his boat would be fixed in time for the round, so I was very lucky to be offered a spot on Peter's boat.
It was still dark when Muntzy picked me up, and on the road to the billabong we went, To catch up with Peter and Dingo at the boat ramp, picking up Dean on the way.

Last year round at Corroboree, had been an absolute fishing failure for me.
With just a minuscule Catfish caught in two days of very heavy fishing. I had not hooked a single Barramundi, and had been hit by countless Saratoga, but could not stay connected to a single one of them. For a full year, I had been waiting, to take my revenge... And more than anything else, I wanted to catch a few Saratoga, and if possible a good one.
Well, yes, for me during this round, it was going to be the year of the Saratoga.

Arrived at the ramp, before we launched the boats, in the morning light, Dingo gave me the Tonic Sunglasses that I had won for a photograph that I had made in the previous round.
The sunglasses, were going to prove themselves to be very helpful during the weekend.
They are great,  simply the best fishing sunglasses I ever had.

We went straight to the Rock Hole, to do a bit of trolling first thing.

The Rock Hole in the morning.

I love the place, it is beautiful, with always a lot of wildlife to look at.

Other competitors were doing the same thing:

Trolling along the Pandanus.

Trolling a hard body lure along the pandanus, is a great way to get into some good Barramundi.

The technic worked fort the boat in the above photograph, as it caught the biggest Barramundi of the weekend.

It even worked for us, but not on the Barramundi front...

Peter and the first fish of the weekend for our boat.

In no time Peter got a hit and we got excited... He reeled in a little Catfish, yes, there is a lot of them in the waters of the billabong. But a fish is a fish, and we, or at least I was very happy, as I believed that this was proof that we were onto a fishy patch.

Well it would be a bit of time before the next fish.

Between the first one and the second one, we were lucky enough to spot a rather large buffalo, having a bit of a bath at the water edge.

Water Buffalo having a chill out time.

And not long after, Peter got a Tarpon:

Peter's first Tarpon.

This was Peter first ever Tarpon, and it is alway very satisfying to catch a new specie.

The mood was on the happy side of things.

Then, one more time, it was going to be a few hours before we get some fish on boards again.

To the extant, that we had a mini raft up with three or four other boats, chatting away, talking fishing and general fisher people's banter. All the while most of us were flicking lures towards the bank. Many of my friends, got hit by fishes, but none of them boated a fish on this occasion. I was the only one, to not get a single hit, this seemed very wrong to me. Most of them had already earlier in the day, caught either a Saratoga, a Barramundi or any other fishes that live in these landlocked waters.

But not me, I was yet to get a single hit, and was starting to question my choice of lure.

After spending so long thinking of a technic that would help me to have a better hookup rate than last year, I decided to stick to it a bit longer. 

That may have been my wisest move of the weekend.

As the raft up disintegrated itself, with everyone going in opposite directions, to get on with the business of catching some fish. Just our boat and Nomad's boat, which had been fixed just in time to enter the round, were still tied together, and as we drifted to the other side of the billabong. Peter, Nomad and I exchanging jokes about anything and everything, with me being the only one still casting my fishing lure around.

This is when I got my first Barramundi of the weekend, while I was targeting the mighty Saratoga:

My first Barramundi of the weekend.

They both said that it was rude of me, to catch a fish while we were having a deep and meaningful conversation... Of course I did not share their point of view...

The fish was 61cm (24.015748 inches), not really a giant, but it was one of the mystery sizes of the event. So it won me a prize!

Seeing that I had caught a fish, both Nomad and Peter started to fish too, and Nomad got a Saratoga!

This was a nice fish, and made us think that it was time to take things a bit more seriously, so we untied the boats and fished in earnest.

I got another hit, I hooked up and I then reeled in a new personal best for me. But it was not a Barramundi or a Saratoga. No, it was the biggest Archerfish I had ever caught.

A rather nice Archerfish.

I don't know if it was pure greed, or territorial or familial protection that pushed this fish to hit my lure, but seeing the size of the lure, compared to the size of the fish, I was in admiration for it's determination.

After three fishes had been caught in the same area, we though that we were on the right spot at the right time, and decided to work it a bit longer. This resulted in a fish that made me very happy, my first Saratoga of the weekend.

My first Saratoga of the weekend.

Yes it was a Barramundi competition, but I really wanted a Saratoga. And in fact, there was also prizes for the best Saratoga of the round. Secretly, I hoped to get one of the top three Saratoga of the event.

The first one was a good one, but I thought that I needed better for that.

So I persevered, and got a second one! Albeit a bit smaller.

A smaller Saratoga.

This one was smaller, but started to make me think that I might be able to catch another one, that would hopefully be better. Still casting in the lilies, I got a hit, it connected and it pulled stronger. Was this the big Saratoga that I was pinning for? It jumped out of the water, and I could see that it wasn't, yet it was exciting nonetheless: it was a Barra!

A little Corroboree Billabong Barramundi.

At only 48cm (18.897638 inches), it was 2cm short to be a point scorer... I felt a bit like sitting on it, to see if that would make it longer, but instead, released it to grow a bit more for the next time.

This was fun fishing, getting the fish out of the lilies, on a soft plastic lure. I am more of a hard bodies lures type of guy. But flicking a lure among the lilies and Pandanus roots, I felt a lot more comfortable with a weedless soft plastic lure.

By then it was late in the afternoon, nearly evening and we decided to catch up with other people participating in the round, to see where the night raft up would be. With the time that it took us to find them, and to join the ones who had already started to raft up, it was night time.

Food was eaten, tales were told, and the party started.

All I will say, is that some loud music was played, and some multi-coloured  disco lights were seen. 

it must have been past midnight by the time I fell asleep. And the music was still going strong, lucky, there is not too many neighbours on the water...

It was a good raft-up, with enough boats to keep it alive.

Some coming and leaving as the night progressed.

But soon enough, it was morning, and the call for action sent some very tired fisherman, in search of their prey.

The morning on the billabong is always a sight to admire.

View from the boats before the rising sun.

DUO pocopoco  and sunrise over Corroboree Billabong.

With its matinal warmth, the sun finally came up, before grilling us for the rest of the day.

Quickly, I rigged my line, with the same lure that had worked on the previous day, a weedless Gulp soft plastic.

Weedless Gulp soft plastic.

Not only I usually prefer to fish with hard bodies than soft plastics, but to top it up, the Gulp really stinks. From all the soft plastic that I have ever used, they are certainly the ones with the worst smell. Yet  one of the main reason I wanted to used them, is that they are biodegradable. Having read about the destructive power of the Saratoga bony mouths, I thought that if they were to destroy my lures these ones would left less, if none pollution in the billabong water.

As a bonus, they proved to be very effective, for me on this occasion.

On the Sunday morning, we started to troll, on the edge of the water lilies. I could not resist and stepped   on the cast deck at the front of the boat, and began to flick again, straight in the lilies and other snags. 

While I had a rod trolling a hard body at the back of the boat.

As my trolling lure from the Saturday had not produced any results, I changed and put a little lure that had been offered to me by Peter Z.

And it worked I got a fish! it is just that, it was another Catfish...

Catfish on the Tilsan.

This was going to be the only fish I caught on a hard body and on the troll for the full weekend. All my other fish had been caught on a soft plastic, casting towards the Pandanus roots or in the lilies.

It was definitively exciting fishing.

And yes the Saratoga were on again:

I love fishing for Saratoga.

Double portrait.

We saw a few very large crocodiles during the weekend, and tried to alway be on the lookout for them.

One of them swam past not very far from the boat, but by the time I got my camera ready it was well past us.

Corroboree Billabong crocodile.

Then I got one of these little fish that I really like.

A Mouth Almighty, this is a rather small fish, but with great character.

It is a mouth brooder, the male keep the eggs in it mouth to protect them.

When Barramundi are very young and small, it is one of their worst nightmare, but as soon as the Barramundi become bigger, the roles changes, and Mr Barra then feast on the poor little Mouth Almighty.

And here is mine:

Mouth Almighty or Glossamia aprion.

Despite their small size, they are considered a very good table fish. But I let him go, he was a nice little fella.

Peter, had decided that he didn't want to fish anymore, and was very happy to just steer the boat around, driving me to the best spot, so I could fish, enjoy the moment, and hopefully get to upgrade my fish from Saturday to a better one. This was very kind of him, and I asked him a few time if he wanted us to go back to Darwin. To which he alway replied that no, he was having a great time too, just sailing the billabong. It is true that it is a very beautiful place.

Then I got another Saratoga:

Little Saratoga.

And I finally caught a better Saratoga, which I was hoping would get me in the top three biggest Saratoga of the weekend:

My biggest Saratoga so far.

This was my personal best Saratoga, at 72cm (28.346457 inches).

I know that they can grow much bigger, but this one was in fact going to be big enough to be the biggest of the round! It won me a prize too, this was two prizes for the round. It was a long time that I had won a prize for catching a fish, so two in the same weekend made me more than happy.

And also the fact that I finally had a revenge on the Saratoga that had proven so elusive to me last year.

I was indeed, very happy.

As a little extra, I then managed to catch a little Sleepy Cod:

Sleepy Cod from the Billabong.

This is another excellent eating fish, but I let it go too.

It made me happy that between Peter and I we had caught such a mixed bag of fishes. It shows that the system is very healthy, with a wide variety of fish living in it.

But by then, it was nearly mid afternoon, so we decided to catch up with other participants, for a little chat, and see what they had caught. We saw Moz, who had caught all his fish of the weekend, with his home made fishing lures. This was a great effort, and demonstrated the quality of his work.

We then left them fishing and headed for the ramp, then the road towards home.

On the road again.

This in my books, will stay as a great weekend. 

Thank you Peter, for the invitation to fish from your boat, I had a ball!

Even if, yes I know, I have done the rude thing of out fishing my skipper...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

2012 Top End Barra Series Round 6.

Hi there,

Not long ago was the 2012 Top End Barra Series round 6, the grand finale, the round where the champions would rise.
The round was taking place on Corroborre Billabong, a very beautiful place.

Sunrise and flying geese on the billabong.

For this bout I was not to fish with Arrabmundi, my usual skipper, as he was in the process of moving interstate, and was a few thousands kilometres away when the event took place.
Instead I was fishing with Moz, with whom I had already fished on the Adelaide River earlier in the year.

Full of anticipation.

As we launched in the cold early morning of the first day of competition, we were full of hope and anticipation.

Corroboree Billabong is truly a beautiful place, and having fished there only twice in the past, I couldn't get enough of the stunning sunrise.

Sunrise at Corroboree Billabong.

Being originally a big city boy, this is the kind of show that make me appreciate the move to the slower paced life style that I now live.

We quickly motored to a spot called The Rock Hole, where we started to troll some small lures.

And it didn't take too long for Moz to catch a nice Barramundi.

Moz and a nice Billabong Barramundi.

He was on the board, and a first fish in the boat is alway a relief, we were in for some good action.

Or so we thought...

Because the rest of the weekend was going to be spent catching the wrong fishes, and missing the right ones...

I did miss a few Saratoga not very far from there, I just couldn't stay connected to them.

Yet it was still going to be a great warm weekend on the water.

When I say warm, I could say hot, or even stinking hot.

The first day saw a temperature of 37 degrees celsius  and the second day of 39 ( 98.6 and 102.2 fahrenheit ).

Not much breeze, and not that much shade, made it for what we would call a warm weekend on the water.

Even the crocodile were getting a bit cranky with the heat.

As we were doing a slow troll along a bank of water lilies, a big one surfaced just at the green edge of the aquatic vegetation and aimed straight for our boat. We didn't ask for anything, we just increased the speed of the outboard and moved along, out of there.

We did went fishing in a little canal, where we saw two young guys coming and fishing just next to us. 

They explained that they were new to the territory, and that this was only their second time fishing here.

Seeing us stoping there they thought that it must be a good stop and had decided to stop too...

You guessed it, beginers luck was on their side, as the guy who was the closer to us was explaing all of this to us suddenly hooked on what seemed to be a nice fish.

It was a nice fight in the narrow canal, and the fish was finally netted, with the young angler shooting: "It is a metery it is a metery!" 

To wich Moz replied: No, it is 87cm long. (34.251969 inches).

So the lucky guy went and got his tape. 

The fish was 87cm long on the dot!

Now if this is not a good guess estimate, I don't know what is...

We left not long after thinking that we should have got this fish, but hey, this is fishing.

And the joy on this guy's face was still a great thing to see, this was his biggest Barramundi to date.

Water lilies near the little canal.

Then we saw what was like the start of a bush fire, just along the bank of the waterway. We wondered what could have started a fire in this isolated and dry place, and continued our troll. On turning back wa saw that the fire was now full on and that two chopper had started to try extinguished it.

This was the first time that I saw some helicopters water bomb a fire, and what a show it was. I nearly emptied my camera's battery taking pictures of it.

Big smoke on the river.

Filling up the water bucket.

Water bombing the fire.

In the heat of the day, this was a very impressive display.

But off course, this was not very good fore the fishing, so we moved a few kilometres away, to try our luck a bit more.

And Moz got a catfish...

First catfish of the weekend.

By then it was starting to be the end of the day, so we decided that our best luck would be to cast some weedless soft plastic in the lilies.

There instead of the targeted Saratoga we started to land a plague of little fresh water Tarpon.

Tarpon on the frog.

Another little Tarpon.

We couldn't get a Saratoga, Yet a bot that must have been about 200 meters from us was catching them with no problems...

The boat that was catching them.

Yes this boat was catching them and not us...

So when they left, in our grand wisdom, we decided to go just where they were, and to catch some ourselves...

Well, we went there, and didn't caught any... We got a few nice hits, but nothing stayed hooked.

So being human, we did what most humans would do: we decided to have dinner.

Moz stormed a great curry, spicy and all.

Yummy Curry.

Yes this was a delicious and well earned meal after a long day under the sun.

We were starting to relax in the relative dark freshness of the evening when we heard a sound that makes anyone standing on the water edge, or in a boat think quick about his or her next move.

Our hair raised and our senses started to work in overdrive.

It was the sound of a big salt water crocodile snapping his jaws in a clear warning that it wanted us out of its territory.

We didn't argue about who was going to put his hands in the water to wash the dishes, we just pulled up the anchor and moved a few kilometres away from that nice little spot.

We found a nice spot not very far from a house boat, and decided to set up camp just there.

In the morning we woke up to a fantastic scenery.

First light of the day on the billabong.

The light was just beautiful, and with the day rising we could start to see the mist on the water around the houseboats. 

Morning mist and houseboat on Corroboree Billabong.

Not long after this photo was taken, and not very far from it, I started to cast a plastic frog in the lilies, hopping to snare a nice Saratoga... I did get plety of hits, but lost all the fish. All on surface action, one of the most exciting form of fishing.

Then Moonman arrive in his boat, and told me that this is because I have the wrong lure...

He told me that his lure is better and do a cast to show me. And on his first cast, he got hit, hook up and landed a Saratoga...

This was not my day.

He then gave me a lure similar to the one he had just used in front of us.

I tied it up on my line... And didn't got a single hit on this very rod for the rest of the day...

No, not my day, not my weekend.

Later on, one of the competitor in the Top End Barra Series got the propeller of his electric motor chomped up by a big crocodile.

So yes we knew that the crocodiles were starting to become a bit aggro at this time of the year.

We then went back to the little canal from the previous day, and there we caught up with Peter and his deckie fishing the canal land based.

The deckie and Peter, fishing from the land.

Peter knowing that I love advertising lures, had one for my small collection that he gave me.

Thanks Peter.

The Bacardi Rums lure.

The gift from Peter was a lure with the logo of Bacardi Rums, one that I didn't have yet.

This is a very welcome addition to my little accumulation of advertising fishing lures.

We then moved around trying to find the fish, but couldn't get a thing to stay connected.

Then, I got a hit, and the hookup seemed to be strong.

Reeling the fish, I was just hopping that the fit would be of legal size.

Then it came to the boat, and I realised that its size didn't really matter, it was of the wrong specie. It was a catfish.

My last fish of the weekend.

This was going to be my last fish for the weekend.

It was starting to be late and we decided to get back to the ramp and then home.

The dirt road, on the way back to civilisation.

When we dropped the boat back at Moz's place, he gave me a big Jack Fruit that grew on a tree on his property. At least, I would still have something to feed my family once back home.

That was the first time in over two year, that I went fishing a full weekend for Barramundi, and didn't landed a single one of them. 

Every rounds of the 2012 Top End Barra Series, I had climbed a bit more on the overall score board.

This time I was to go down.

I started the finale round in the fourth position, and finished it in six.

I was slightly disappointed but was still in the top ten, which was my aim at the beginning of the year. And I still had a great time on the water, with many good laugh, and in a fantastic place. Thank you Moz for having me on your boat for this round.

Now, I can't wait for the 2013 Top End Barra Series to start.

It will be even more difficult to finish in the top ten next year, as the number of participant in the competition will be higher than this year. This is a great testament to the success of the Top End Barra Series and how much people enjoy fishing it. So I am not really sure that I would be able to do as good next year...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

P.S: And don't forget the fishing lure giveaway...