Mick
Have been thinking of Eurimbula Creek but was considering driving into the creek it's self on the National park track and camping a few days , how far is it up the coast from 1770 ? also what time of year is a good time to get there via the coast , I've noticed that some times the water is nice and flat and other times it's pretty much surf depending on the direction of the wind , my kayaks are for still water , not really suitable for surf , also want to give Middle creek and pancake creek a through going over as well , been to both Eurimbula Creek and Middle creek but only by car , only been down in this neck of the woods for about 8 months or so , was in Clermont for about 9 years before that and the Beachmere / Bribe Island area before that , Baffle Creek is another one I want to explore more from a kayak , was at Awoonga about a month ago and have never seen so many big fish landed , yeah have to agree on the eating quality , it's not bad when soaked in salt water for a few hours before cooking , on a par with saltwater barra but don't even compare with Mangrove jack , threadfin or fingermark , hell I prefer GT's and Pickhandles [ Queenfish to those in the far north [ USA ] ] to Barra
Just on my way out , got to go down to Bundaberg today so I'll just include a bit about my trip to Awoonga , Kayak Jack has already seen this as I sent it to him a day or so after I got back
I've been busy , Ron the mate from Beachmere come up last week to go fishing with me in Lake Awoonga , he's not really a keen fisherman and generally reckons to hate boats and fishing , but since he's going on a trip to Cape York in a few months he figured it may be handy to get a rod and reel and learn how to use it , since he only wanted to get one rod and reel to handle every thing he decided on a SFS Squidgy Barra Spin and a Penn Applause 4000 reel , he just wanted some thing light to handle , some thing better than a Big W combo deal but not too expensive , when the tackle shop guy heard he was going to try it out at lake Awoonga he insisted on putting 30 lb braid on it as well , the rig handled really well and over four days Ron managed to catch three barra , the first two were around 78 cm , including one fat bugger that weighed 8.1 kg , his last one was right on 1.1 metres , to say that he was stoked was a understatement , not bad for some one who hadn't fished before and couldn't even tie a knot a few days prior ,
This place is bloody great , the size of the gear that they are using there seems to be a bit of over kill but what do I know I'm new to all this impoundment stuff , talked to a number of guys who were using what I would have thought of as game fishing gear for trolling , 50 lb braid and 80 lb mono leaders , but they got more fish than me so maybe they are right , Bruce landed a 77 cm barra on 15 lb mono after jigging a large size Tsunami up and down in deep water , his Abu 5000C reel died just as he got it to the boat but the line held , the place was really firing , it wasn't unusual to see several boats hooked up at one time , saw some double hook-ups as well , it was all very educational , I don't suppose it's always that good but if it's even half that good most of the time it would be bloody brilliant , got a bit of a education about braid V's mono for trolling as well , Ron was using 30 lb braid and I was using 15 lb mono , same lure , same length of line out and his was way deeper , meant he got most all the strikes , my baitcaster died too after one hard strike ,
The fish were all hanging deep in the water and it took us a day or two to find the combination of deep diving lure and the right trolling speed ,this was all new to me as well , I really don't think I've ever seen so many big fish landed from one area before , it was just unreal , the atmosphere in the camping park was great too , every one shared information and gave advice freely ,
Every one in our party caught at least one Barra but even if we hadn't the company and scenery in the area would have made it all worth while anyway , the camping park at the top of the hill was full and I doubt that a shoe horn could have helped fit any more in , the carpark at the ramp was full as well , I was certainly getting sick of that walk up the hill to collect the car and trailer by the time we left , most times there was a line up of five or six cars waiting to put in or take out boats , but as pretty much every one had their act together it was only a minute or two to wait for each boat , never seen such a fast turn over time any where before , it was great seeing so many really tricked out boats , hell I don't even spend that sort of money on a new car , I got a lot of favourable comments about my boat and a number of people asked where they could get the plans for it , the only negative thing about the whole time is the lack of sleep , I'm just not used to having noise at night and the road to the dam just didn't stop , and the fishing schedule was full on , after two and a half days I had to go home to get some sleep , already planing another trip to Awoonga ASAP , will have to get some better gear first ,
When the Ron caught his first fish he thought he'd snagged up and was dragging a lump of timber off the bottom , I wasn't so sure , but he continued pumping it in totally convinced it was a snag , when he had most of his line in the fish jumped and it wasn't until I said " Ron your snag just jumped " that he finally realised it was a fish , it was all over by the time he knew what he had , his second fish was different , it was in deep water and it hit his line like a ton of bricks , really caught him by surprise , it was a fish of 78 cm but really fat and it must have been like playing a Billy lid , in all the excitement the mate thought that the fight took only a minute or two but he had the drag set pretty light and it took just under 10 minutes by my watch to bring it in , he had a grin from ear to ear , I wasn't there when he caught the 1.1 metre barra but the guy that was reckons you wouldn't have got the grin off him with a crowbar
Ron is now thinking about getting a boat
David
PS changed my profile and now can't log in
David Wallace AKA Dawallace45