Thursday, January 10, 2013

The HellRaiser Worked.

Hi there,

Not long ago, I introduced you to a new little lure made by Reidy's, from Darwin Australia, who was yet to be named and released on the market. Well it isn't released yet, but has now been named and its name is the HellRaiser!
I gave it a swim on the first day of the year 2013... And it worked, it caught me some Barramundi.
Here comes the story of my fishing on the 1st of January 2013.

Once again, I was very lucky to be invited aboard Moz fine boat, for a day of fishing on Darwin harbour.
We launched at a very reasonable time, and Moz, tried to teach me how to steer the boat.
That was fun to drive between the moored yachts but I think that I must have been driving a bit slow, so he took back the helm and we quickly crossed the harbour toward the creeks where we wanted to spend the day, relaxing and fishing.

Crossing the harbour on Hard Gore.

As soon as we arrived we found a nice creek, with a lot of mangroves and some calm waters...
The place looked promising and in his second or third cast Moz got a nice little Golden Snapper on the line.
I started to wonder how he could be so fast at catching a fish, and looking at him I understood. He had a secret weapon, in the form of a remote control. That he must have used to direct the fish towards his own lure and away from mine... And yes I have the proof of that in picture:

Moz and his secret remote control.

Not long after that I sight casted to a school of bream and got one on the lure, but lost it not very far from the boat.
We then decided to move to another creek, the water was like glass.

Flat water.

In this new creek Moz repeated the trick and got on in no time, but this time to a little catfish.

Reeling in the kitten.

We moved in the creek, casting to every drain and colour change that we would come across. 
This is when Moz got the first Barramundi of the day.

First Barra of the day.

It was not a monster, but it is always nice to catch your targeted fish.
And he wasn't long before he got another one.
Then it was my turn! I finally got a fish in the boat, and it was a baby Barramundi, caught on the new lure made by Reidy's:

My first Barramundi on the Hell Raiser.

Once again, not much size to it, but the satisfaction to catch a Barra on a new lure totally made up for it.
And more importantly, this was my first Barramundi in a very long time, I was breaking the drought.
That made me really happy.
To celebrate, Moz opened a bottle of Barratastic ale, made by no one else than Doors Off.

Enjoying the Barratastic.

It was a hot day and I think that Moz enjoyed the fresh beer, nearly as much as I had enjoyed catching a  little Barramundi after being Barraless for so long.
And this was also a good way of thinking about our good friend Doors Off who is actually working overseas, you are not forgotten mate.
We moved to the other side of the river, to start to make our way back. Still casting to every good looking spot. Arriving to a place, where we found at the same time, an eddy, a little run off from a snake drain and a colour change, Moz said that this was a very fishy looking spot.
I casted my lure at the back of the eddy, and it had to cross the eddy, the little run off, and pass through the colour change before being back to the boat. This is finally in the colour change that I felt a sharp thug on my rod handle and that my line seemed to suddenly going away from the boat, instead of quietly coming back to me.
This was going to be my second little Barramundi of the day.

My last Barramundi for the day.

I was now convinced that this new little lure was working well.

From there we moved to a third creek, where once again, just on arrival, Moz got a new Barramundi.

Moz fourth Barramundi for the day.

It was like Moz, knew where to put his lure from the start, at each different location that we visited on the day.
Every times he got his fish in the first few casts, and this made me think that  need to learn how to read the creeks a bit better. Which to me is an exciting goal.
In this creek we saw some Barramundi feeding on jelly prawns, and one of them Barra, was a very big girl. We casted many times towards the drain in front of which she was feeding, but could not entice her with our offerings. I even changed my hard body lure for a soft plastic, but to no avail in the Barramundi department.
On the other hand, I did caught a small Star Gazer and this was the first time that I got one in a creek and not on the reef.

The little Star Gazer.

Not long after that, we decided that it had been a good day on the water and that we should head back to the ramp. And a good day it had been, with 5 different species of fish caught. Among them six Barramundi, despite the fact that they had started to feed on jelly prawns. So it is with the sense of  a well done job that we started to sail back to port.
Thanks again Moz, it was a great day.

For the people among you who love statistics...
The skipper got four Barramundi on soft plastic, and I got only two on hard body lure.
Yes maybe I should have see the sign earlier in the day, and changed to a soft plastic sooner than in the last twenty minutes of fishing...

But hey, it could be worse.
Have a good day,
Me.

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