The First Fresh Barra

The  flooded area I was fishing at

It was a cloudy weekend and raining on and off but I still decided to ride down to a land locked lagoon that is said to be full of Barra. For the first part of the day the fish weren’t on the bight with only a few tarpon taking lures. After a good long heavy shower of rain all the other fishos left but I decided that I’m better off to stick it out than ride 11km back home. When the rain stopped bugs must have been knocked out of trees because the surface lit up so I changed to a 52 mm Sebile splasher but it was once again only tarpon.

A Tarpon on a sebile splasher

 After that I swapped lures to a Koolie minnow another one of Sebiles fine lures but I only hooked up on a saltwater Barra but even this small just over legal salty put up its money’s worth by peeling line off my spool. When it’s a large high tide salt water Barra can swim up and have a feed on all the bony bream and perch. I decided to put on a rattsler in the same perch colour as the Koolie minnow and hooked up on what I though was a fresh water Barra… To my extreme happiness it was as I saw the beautiful bronze figure jump out of the water and decided to do a head thrash and pit my lure just as I put tension on the rod and I got my now prized rattsler snagged on a low hanging branch of no return. After that there were a few more saltwater Barra, a couple of tarpon and a catfish, it was just about time to go home but I did as every good fisherman does and have one last cast. My one last cast was my favourite picking up a 62 cm fat lump of a fresh water Barra on a Sebile Koolie minnow.



My First True Fresh Water Barra... beautiful bronze colour



The fish was over legal so it was good enough to put a grin on my face and decided to go against the rule and have a few more casts and picked up a smaller fresh water Barra... About 54cm I think it was measured at. All in all it was a good day with twelve Barra all up and a further nine that spat the hook.

the smaller 54cm one

 I Finally got a taste of what was rumoured to be the best Barra spot in our city. The fish weren’t huge but the fresh water ones were a lot fatter so it took a while longer to get them in. that being said even though they weren’t huge on 2-3kg spin gear they sure gave me a good time.