Fishing: Barron River 3rd October.

Decided to have a crack in the Barron River for some prawns; left home at just after 5:00am and got to the boat ramp rigging lane at about 5:20am.  I was launched and on my way by 5:30am.

I spent about an hour casting for prawns with no success, that being said, I didn’t expect to get anything great as it was a high tide and that expectation followed through.  After an hour of no joy, I decided to have a cast around the highway bridge and ended up with a few mullet.

Moving down to the second bridge, I anchored up and let the incoming tide move the boat back closer to the pylons.  I made another 7 to 10 casts and had scored the jackpot; in about 30 minutes I had close to 20 live mullet which given that I intended to be home by 10:00am, more than I could use in all reality.

After settling into a likely looking spot near some mangroves, the mullet on the end of the line started to panic.  A few seconds later, there was a small cod boated and then returned to the water to grow larger for next time.  These things are absolute pigs, the cod took a mullet that was a third of the size of the cod.

This was the end of the fish being caught as the tide was pretty much on the turn and there was no movement at all and there had been no bait getting hit for over 45 minutes, so headed home.

Just before I emptied out the remaining live bait and pulled up the anchor, I turned around and saw a bird that decided to perch himself on the bow of the boat; he let me get within 30cm of him before he flew off.  I tossed him the live mullet that I reeled in and he gratefully accepted – I figured that the others had earned their freedom and set them free over the side of the boat, much to the disappointment of my “feathered friend”.

Yep, it is a messy boat but when using a cast net for live bait, that happens.  I can assure you that it was cleaned up and that there are no further traces of mud left