Tim and I took the weekend and journeyed up with a canoe to Pigeon Creek – about a 15-20km hike upstream of the Gorge. Very clearly not many people venture up this way because the barra were plentiful and the barra were hungry! I went from 11 barra for the year to 20! I managed 9 in two days and Tim finished with 5 – pretty good, considering we caught them all from a canoe.
Of the 14 we caught, only four were undersize – my biggest were 89cm and 83cm, and Tim’s 76cm – although with nearly the last cast of the trip Tim hooked and lost a monster – maybe 90-100cm! It smashed the lure so hard, it took a treble hook off and completely bent the eyelet of a second treble.
Highlight of the trip was watching a barra sit literally next to the boat as it eyed Tim’s floating, stationary lure for what seemed an eternity… before it absolutely smashed it took off. At 68cm, it was a fair sight. We enjoyed the trip!
Kununurra and will remain here until we feel recovered enough to hit the road again. Since it is now Week 4 of the school term, I have to think back to what we got up to since I last posted anything……
From Mt Barnett, we back-tracked a little then headed South to Mornington Wildlife Conservation Centre, near the headwaters of the Fitzroy. This one-time station turned nature -lovers retreat caters for campers to luxury safari tents. As we worked our way along bumpy tracks to Dimond Gorge, the map told us we were only 90kms from Fitzroy Crossing, but nearly 400kms by road. One look at the King Leopold Ranges towering over us told us why the roads don’t exist.
Mark gave us a whistle stop tour of the local beaches after school on Monday and had notified the community of our presence so all was clear to explore the environs. Unfortunatley, the tides were not at all favourable for after-school fishing and the one attempt we made was greeted by a hungry horde of sandflies.
The Thorsby family also arrived in Fitzroy to take in the annual rodeo. None of us had ever been to a rodeo before and it proved to be really entertaining. The sight of huge bulls throwing cowboys around is a lot better than I thought it would be. The most entertaining part is actually the superb horsemanship displayed by the organisers who are left with the job of getting the bulls back into the enclosures. The Thorsbys camped overnight out at the rodeo and headed back to Derby on Monday morning.
With Ron and Dorothy at Fitzroy, we launched into a busy schedule of sight seeing and fishing. We made a trip up to Tunnel Creek and Winjana Gorge. It has been a while seen any of us had visited these beautiful spots and not much has changed except the crowds of tourists. The road from the Highway to the Gibb River Rd was badly in need of a grade and heavily corrugated on the Southern end. After a walk through the gorge and a lot of crocodile spotting, we cooked up a terrific BBQ of chops and snags.
This time she got the fish alongside and I was staggered by the size of it. I seriously doubted our ability to get it into the boat. It solved the problem by itself by tearing off down river, jumping a bit then breaking off. At least we got a good look at it. Definitely a metre plus fish.
Crabbing was just as good as a few weeks before. We managed 12 good sized “muddies”. This was followed up by a huge meal at Thorsby’s where we did major damage to the stockpile of mud crabs. When I think about the hours we have put in further South to catch a few crabs, Derby makes everything else look like a waste of effort. The Derby tides are difficult to manage, however, and all boating and fishing is governed by access to the water and avoiding getting stranded on the extensive mud flats.
She had knitted him a most attractive woollen G String, equipped with white lacey straps. With a Geelong Football Club emblem on the front, it looked just like one that Gary Ablett might wear. Chris refued to model it for the camera so we had to get Gary to fly over and put on a show for us.
Tim and I tackled Donkey Crossing yesterday on the quest of catching a barra on a kayak. And we were successful! Three altogether, with Tim finally breaking his duck and landing two, along with my one. Mine was pretty small, around 40cm, with Tim’s first around the same size. It was probably good that they were this small – we were fishing different sides of the river, and landed them within five minutes of each other. I had my landing net and Tim had his Fish Grapple. Because mine was small, it wasn’t too difficult to play the fish close enough to the kayak and net it. Tim’s second one was more interesting.
Tim and I decided we needed to get a fish in before the school holidays finished – and it was worth it (for me anyway)! Casting a beady eye on the no less than 11 boat trailers at the gorge carpark, we launched around midday and were off. We decided to go for a troll through the Graveyard before heading further up river for a bit of a flick.
After another 10 minutes of trolling, we took off further up river, catching nothing for the next 3 hours. Time for home (and a return troll through the Graveyard ). Bang! Another 10 minutes into trolling, and I was on again! Another good fight, and another barra at 60cm. We didn’t want to be greedy, so this one was returned to the water.
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