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FNQ barra by-catch trip


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We headed  to Townsville again for another fishing trip this time a 2 day trip with a guide, it was a good deal basically landing at the airport with him there waiting to take us to the lodge catered for us for the  nights and transfered back at the end all we needed to do was concentrate on the fishing.

The first evening we wandered down to the water only 100m from the lodge for a cast didn't take long for Amy to hook-up to a pelican I'll give them one thing they fight hard. The locals were catching plenty of catish on baits and after awhile finally had a take resulting in a small gold-spot cod, a new species for me, then it was back for a restless night becase of anticipation for the next day.

 Day 1 we headed to Bowling green bay, water looked amazing and we were frothing at the mouth to get casting

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We started casting our first spot I had a couple of missed hits before Amy was onto a fish which took a B-line for the timber but she managed to get it back out and in the boat

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Her first black-spot a nice solid specimen

That turned into the story of day 1 we caught loads of cod both black spots and gold spots, I also pulled the hooks on an assumed fingermark on a rock bar and got blown away by an unstoppable beast what the guide thinks was a juvenile groper, the barra ust refused to bite there were hundreds on the sounder with a basic case of lock-jaw welcome to barra fishing,  still an awesome day and caught plenty of fish

Day 2 we had the option of fishing the upper Burdiken in the fresh and almost certainly catching barra or risk the salt and get the variety and hopefully bigger barra, we risked the salt

The wind was howling and it was cold.......... very cold!

We started casting a mud ledge and it actually didn't take long to get a bite the fish flew to the surface and right before me was a barra happily throwing my lure at me, I took that one fairly gracefully, the response to the second one that did the same thing was not so dignified 

After awhile the barra went back to lock jaw so our guide suggested we work some deeper trees which opens up the chance of some other species, again the bite was tough not even the species Queenslanders consider to be vermin would bite, after a few trees I finally had a hit and pulled out a flathead..... not a positive reaction, shortly after Amy got a small gold-spot then I was hit by something far bigger the fish put u a good fight and out came a much better Gold-spot  

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the bigger cod were one of the fish Id gone to QLD to catch

We moved to a new tree for the tide change and our guide was confidant the bite would happen we were casting for what seemed like a long time before the place seemed to liven up bait was nervously rushing around and sure enough a hit, at first I thought it was a fingermark but turned out to be a small GT

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Still happy with the GT desite them being considered vermin in FNQ

We kept casting the tree again and again and when it seemed like nothing was going to happen I had another take, it happened fast what I assumed was another small trev suddenly screamed towards the timber leaving me the only otion of grabbing the spool and going for broke feeling everyones tension I pumped the fish up as hard as I could and a fingermark was in the net,

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some dignity was lost with my reaction but this has been a bucket list fish for me since I was a kid. I think our poor guide took a breath of relief going by how happy I was to catch this fish because it was a tough session.

We kept fishing for a couple more small cod and some more barra hits but just couldn't get the barra to play the game. We ended up on the water for 12 hours on day 2.

Amy had a really tough 2nd day but she stuck it out and never gave up in true hardcore fisho style, also have to say our guide was awesome, a to bloke who never gave up trying to find active fish for us, I would recommend him to anyone and we'll definetely be back

cheers for reading

 Dave

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Envy that warmer weather having cancelled two trips north recently due to weather. Yes barra can be a tricky fish, especially in regards to water temp, to hot or cold and they just sit there frustrating you when you can plainly see lures almost jagging them. Shame about the one that got away, some of those estuary grouper can grow huge.

I like the idea of your guides job, looks like an interesting job.

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Great report Dave at least you 2 ticked a couple of fish off the bucket list.

I doesn't matter where you fish if the fish aren't biting they just don't bite the buggars.

Edited by Blackfish
can't spell
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