(^30) FLYLIFE
the door to see it was raining heavier
than I had ever seen. The phrase for
the morning was, ARE YOU KEEN?
Hahaha.
After talking it over we decided to
sit it out for a few hours to see if it
would ease up, but when we headed
out to get bacon-and-egg rolls and cof-
fee a minute or so down the road we
realised that we were flooded in. The
road was five feet under fast running
water. That was that — we were going
to be stuck here for a few more days.
Luckily the Kinchant campgrounds
have a pub and serve good food.
After getting a fix of breakfast we
convinced ourselves to head out into
the unknown. One of the creeks was
really pouring into the dam and we
could see the barra just smashing bait
along the edge of the bank. My eyes
were about to drop out of my head.
Having anchored the boat we hit
the grass flats at the mouth of the
inflow. Pushing just a few metres up
towards some long grass on the side
of the creek we could see three big
barramundi creating absolute chaos.
We both sent a cast into the mix and,
bang, we were on like Donkey Kong.
The day only got better and bet-
ter as more and more rain fell. The
water was really starting to run off
the land into the dam and pushing
way up onto the grass, bringing the
fish out of the depths of the dam and
onto the flats. This was something
I’d only heard about, and to see the
fish behaving like this, first hand, was
mind blowing.
With all the rain we were finding it
hard to film the action, but by using
a jacket to cover the camera we were
able to record some of the mayhem in
between storms.
PERSONAL BEST
And it wasn’t over yet. We had a late
start the next morning as we’d spent
most of the night looking over the last
few days’ footage. After a quick bite to
eat we were back at it.
With the road flooded, other boats
couldn’t access the dam, so we really
had the place to ourselves and took
full advantage of this. Everything was
lining up, with the sun showing its
head and the wind now pushing bait
up onto the grass flats on the north
side of the dam. With a lot more
water over the grass than when we
had fished this spot a few days ear-
lier, we anchored the boat and started
to wade.
Within about an hour, Ben and I
both landed personal best fish. It was
a fairytale ending to one very wet trip.
With those magical moments replay-
ing in our minds we were ready to
pack up our rods and flies and face
the long drive back to reality.
First barra on fly.
Barramundi hit hard and fight hard
— having the right gear is a must.
Most of my barra flies are tied on
Gamakatsu SL12s or Owner Aki
hooks in sizes ranging from 4/0 up
to 8/0. As we found out, even the
4/0s just could not hold up to some
of the bigger fish.
These barra didn’t seem to be super
leader shy. Scientific Anglers new
fluorocarbon in 60 to 80 lb is super
robust and did an amazing job of
holding up to the pressure.
It always pays to have a few back-
up reels loaded with different
lines, ranging from floating and
intermediate all the way down to a
full sink 700 grain.
Arm yourself with 9 and 10-weight
rods for these big impoundment
barramundi.
BARRA GEAR
FL
A moonlight grip and grin.
Rain Dance... continued
lu
(lu)
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