Archive for River
Awesome day with Matt
Posted by: | CommentsMatt has been champing at the bit to go fishing again and with the first weekend with some decent weather for a while, today was our chance. Considering that the boat really isn’t getting used due to either:
- the weather
- Jacinda’s shifts
- work
I’m sort of getting keen to start using it as the main outing has been the trip to Karumba back in late June and that saw it in the water more during that week than the whole year so far for any of the reasons above.
As the tide was on the run up through to about 12:00pm today, I wasn’t in any hurry and wanted to be leaving by about 10:30am to 11:00am allowing an hour or so to gather live bait and then settle into a spot in the Barron River. I was quite happy to target Bream or any other species that happened to cross our paths, but the main thing was to give Matt a good day on the water in his first serious trip.
We pulled up to my favourite spot to gather bait in the Barron and it didn’t disappoint, yielding some good size bananna prawns on the first cast. We cast for about 45 minutes and had more than enough prawns for the 3 hours maximum that I wanted to get Matt to stay out for. Some of the prawns were good eating size as well, I figured that we had enough for good feed of them as well.
So with a good stock of live bait we headed out to the sand flats at the mouth of the Barron River hoping to find some predators cruising the flats. The sounder showed nothing on it but we anchored up anyway as this is more of a transient area and with a 2m movement over the tide change, it could be worth a shot with live bait anyway. Not long after this Matt felt the need for the packet of Twisties that we brought along.
Hungry work this fishing...
After about 45 minutes there was nothing showing any real interest; I had some activity on my line with my live prawn being taken but nothing to write home about. After my bait got taken, Matt decided that a live prawn would be the go and asked that i get him one from the bucket. I grabbed one and placed it on the hook which he was quite pleased with:
Live Barron River prawn
We spent about another 20 minutes here with no success so we then moved to the mouth of a creek that I knew and sat there just off the mouth at the junction of the Barron and the creek. In the past I’ve had Bream, Salmon and it is supposed to be a good spot for Barra; not so for the latter today with a 23 degree water temperature, but the other two were a good chance if they were around.
We sat there for another hour and there was nothing doing so we decided to up anchor and move on. Matt was enjoying his time on the water and was still talking about the prawns that we caught earlier, he even had it down pat checking his live bait every 20 minutes to see if it was still there:
Getting into it like a pro!
He had seen other boats trolling up and down the river over the course of our time on the water and wanted to have a go at that as well. After I agreed to set him up with a lime green and orange Rapala minnow that I had in the tackle box, we pulled up anchor moved out closer to the mouth to troll back along the bank. He commented that his little rod was heavy and that he thought that there was a fish on it as the rod was bucking a bit; I told him that I had set the drag so that if he did get a hit it would let out line and he’d hear the ‘zzzzzz’ sound that all fishos love 
Matt, your on!!
After about 20 minutes of rolling, he agreed that it wasn’t working so we pulled up and he started reeling in the Rapala, then his mouth dropped and the reel screamed, “zzzzzzz” to which I yelled, Matt – you’re on, wind it in!.
He started winding in and then he said that it didn’t feel heavy again, so I told him to keep winding anyway, a second or so later, the drag took off again, the fish had come back for a second shot at the little Rapala. All of a sudden his line went limp and he’d lost the fish this time for good and my $20.00 Rapala 
Still it was worth the $20 to see the look on his face when the fish hit; I still think it was a cod that hammered the lure head first and inhaled the leader and it’s teeth cutting through his braid like a knife through butter. On the way back we decided that we would have another crack at the prawns as the tide seemed to be not too far off the levels that it had been previously.
We had a good time.
Good job that we did as we managed to get some more good size bananna prawns and at least we would go home with something for the day. Not counting the cost of the Rapala (not that I’m bitter about it, losing one of them hurts though), the day cost us about $20 including boat fuel for about 4 hours on the water away from computers and getting outdoors, the pair of us covered in mud from cast netting. At roughly $5 per hour; you can’t beat this and the photo above shows that Matt also had a good time, so that figure comes down to $2.50 per hour – simply priceless!
The prawns that we ended up catching, once I had chance to bag them up, we had managed just under 1Kg of fresh prawns and at around the $20 per kilogram mark, the day was pretty much break even give or take a few dollars; but the enjoyment that Matt had today you can’t put a dollar value on that.
Just under 1Kg of fresh bananna prawns
The prawns were mixed in their size and tomorrow I’ll go through them and size them for bait or food, but there should be a good selection for both.
Karumba 2010 – Day 3
Posted by: | CommentsDay three started with an intention to spend most of the day on the water chasing down fish.
Well, that was the intention, but it turned out much different. I launched the boat at 9:30 and was prepared for a day on the water till 4:00pm.
With tides being high all day, I had one objective to head out to the outer sand bars and fish some remote mangroves that have a reputation for Salmon and Barra. The latter was not expected however due to the temperature both water and physical; water was struggling to be more than 20 degrees and 30 was only hitting the thermometer by the afternoon.
With no further ado I headed out to the outer mangroves and navigated through them with no fish showing on the sounder and speaking to three other boats out there; they all confirmed that they were having no luck and I decided to head over to where another group of boats were situated.
View looking back towards Karumba Point
With no joy here, I decided to move to the first hole inside the mouth of the Norman River as there was no fish showing on the sounder; this last year yielded a black jew. No such luck this year as the sounder showed there was nothing in the area in this hole and after another 30 – 45 minutes, I decided to head up stream and to another hole which yesterday showed some promise with fish showing on the sounder.
Looking back toward the mouth of the Norman River
The hole was already being sat on by another boat so I didn’t get the chance to check this out, however the middle of the river at this point did show some promise; the sounder this day showed schools of decent sized fish moving through the area regularly.
What we like seeing on a sounder at regular intervals
I sat up here for over two hours and tried smaller baits and then larger full fillet mullet baits with no success. The baits were deployed using a float to keep the bait at around the 3m mark with no success
After this, I then tried moving over to a creek over the other side which had a huge amount of dirty water flowing out of it; this usually if placing a bait along the dirty / clean water line can result in a fish or two as they are waiting in the clear water looking to ambush fish coming out of the dirty stuff. Not this time and I also spent a good hour casting a Rapala X-Rap into all areas of the dirty water and working it back to the clean stuff; again with no results.
Check this line of dirty water and clean water, normally this SHOULD yield fish...
Earlier in the day I placed two crab pots in the hope of getting some crab for dinner; one in a creek and the other out in the mouth – now it was time to go and check these.
First up was the pot in the Norman mouth; this pulled up yielded a solitary sandcrab with one claw missing; although legal, it was small but took the tact that it was legal (11.5cm) at 12cm so tossed it into the esky; onto the other one.
The other pot was placed in a creek which is across the Karumba Point boat ramp; other post in here are owned by professional crabbers so I have it in the right place.
On coming up to the pot, I was able to turn around with no issues and positioned to collect the pot. The marker buoy was picked up with the gaff; something that is a must in waters where crocodiles are present. The boat continued to move forward and the rope for the pot pulled taut; the pot felt a good deal heavier which is a good thing and upon broaching the surface there were three crabs in the pot. one was definitely undersize and another around the 20cm mark; the other borderline for legal.
On anchoring up to check the crabs, the large one was a female, it had to go back; the other that was borderline was an agonising one centimetre under the legal limit. Al three crabs went back into the creek and I wen back to the ramp empty handed.
From there I resolved as the fish were very hard to find and live bait even harder, crabs would be what was getting chased for the remaining period.
Karumba 2010 – day 2
Posted by: | CommentsDay two started off at what I describe as “Gentlemans Hours” of a 9:00am launch at the ramp, and the first time that the boat had been in the water for close to 4 months; a testimony to the conflicts of weather and time to actually get out fishing.
The boat took a bit of time to get started, but not long after, the motor kicked in and there were no troubles with motoring up the river. The wind was at 15 to 20 knots blowing SSE making the trip upstream a bumpy one, but eventually I worked my way upstream into calmer waters and a nice big hole at 12m which was close to the bank.
12m hole in Norman River
This place showed up some good fish on the sounder but only were interested in mullet fillets; prawns were ignored and whole mullet was likewise ignored as well. The fishing we were told the previous day was not good at present, but I still had confidence that fish could be found if I looked hard enough and the sounder was giving good shows regularly. Still, it was time to head back to the ramp as the wind was picking up bit.
Back at the ramp, I beached the tinny and then went and grabbed the truck and trailer; on arrival back at the ramp, there was a queue up and the beach where the tinny was beached, was clear, so as it’s a 4×4 onto the sand we went. There’s just something special about a photo of a 4×4 with boat on trailer on the sand on a North Queensland beach, so check this out:
Ranger on the beach at Karumba Point
Once the boat was back, we found that we’d forgotten to lift any food out of the freezer; so it was over to the Sunset Tavern for dinner of roast beef and veges
Roast Beef dinner at the Sunset Tavern
Oh, did I mention that there were a few beers consumed as well while watching the famous Karumba sunset go down ?
A Sunset Tavern beer and Karumba sunset - does it get any better?
And just to top the day off; a photo of the Sunset Tavern bar with the Barra mural:
The bar at the Sunset Tavern Karumba
