Big Barra Buzz

A few kms outside Mossman, we visited the wonderfully named Hook-a-Barra fishing ponds on a clear windy day.

Barramundi are the big fish to catch in the north of Australia. Massive fighters, excellent eating, barras are it. Curiously they live in both freshwater, when they are brown, and in saltwater when they are silver. Starting out as all males, after a few years,they convert to being female. Gender bender barra.

After a peek at some young Barra and a massive cherubim (type of yabbie) in indoor tanks, Robert the novice picked up spinning rod, special rubber wiggly lure and spinning reel to do business with the Barra. After initially catching tufts of grass, robert got into the hang of flicking the lure out and slow retrieving. By now half a dozen of us were assembled round pond number one.


Somehow, having seen a coach load of anglers trying their luck earlier, I wasn't sure the fish would think a blizzard of plopping lures would get them excited. We did see some whopping albino Barra right at our feet, but my feeble attempt to tickle him with my lure at his chin seemed to disgust him...you won't tempt me with that rubber thing. So we all kept thrashing the first pond for nearly an hour. I had one Barra hit my lure at the surface, but missed.

Then the lovely lady in charge said we would all switch to pond eleven. Wow, suddenly first cast and the big beasts were all over our lures: hitting hard, boiling at the surface, launching out of the water in pirouettes. What adrenaline. I kept casting, kept hooking and losing fish either under the water or out of the water when the Barra would flick out the lure with furious head shaking. Then I got the hang of fishing with a barbless hook: the trick is to keep the pressure on lightly, keep pumping the rod, reeling in, keeping the rod tip up and a bend in it too.

A friendly young helper came over to help net my first Barra. Wonderful. He pointed out the fearsome spikes on dorsal and rear fins, plus razor sharp gill covers.

Unhooking with the barbless hook was quick. There I stood with my proud catch, time for a pic before gently letting him slide back, my silver Barra beauty. I caught and released one more, Gen did the honours with netting and pics after just as tough a tussle, then we headed home.

 I'm hooked!