Barra & beer

Wheeew! I'm worn out...and so would you be if you were lucky enough to fish the XXXX GOLD Alligator Fishing Club Challenge at the weekend. I jumped aboard the Team XXXX boat accompanied by the man himself Scott Simpson and Wilson Fishing Tackle's Michael Bell for a weekend to remember. We were loaded to the hilt with Live Fibre rods, Slapper and Bling lures and enough XXXX Gold to cause a 115hp outboard to almost suffer a hernia trying to get us up on the plane.

Down the South we went with all intentions of a smooth trip ... turn three, all our gear made a forced landing forward including Tinker (Michael Bell) as we mounted a dreaded sandbar that for some stupid reason formed itself on the outside of a bend! Luckily for us, the tide was rising and following a short session on the receiving end of much laughter we were again under way. The rest of the trip downstream went without incident as we rocked like teenagers to AC/DC's Highway to Hell - quite fitting really.

Talk about wind....it must have been blowing 25 knots straight down the gunwales as we sighted the islands, enough to convince us to stay protected between Barron and Field for the night. This area looked a bit like a christmas tree that night, nav lights everywhere with a number of crews fishing the drop offs for goldies and jew. The sounds of cheer and vocal cameraderie confirmed some good catches around the change of tide that night and we blew our opportunity early dropping some beauties; 60lb leader just didn't cut the mustard.
One solid hookup initially called as a jewie, got the heart pumping and after 15 minutes I had to hand over to Tinker for a break. We saw the leader six times before the big fish, (in hindsight most likely a lemon shark) again buried in and headed for the depths eventually busting off. I must say, and this is no sales pitch ... I had the pleasure of testing some pretty serious gear that night, a Tiburon lever drag overhead coupled with a PE2-5 Live Fibre sportsfishing rod that I could not break - and I seriously tried! I've seen serious fishos watch in disbelief as we've loaded these things up at Got One, these boys were that concerned that they put their sunnies on for protection, I'm yet to see a busted one and yes they are graphite.

The rest of our trip returned barra, although nothing real big, and a string of goldies from a secret little spot marked on my OceanMaster's Garmin GPS by my late brother, Mark. I'd heard stories that he had something special going on down there, and the waypoint marked 'BigSnap' gave it away. Bingo, thanks bro.

Although salmon weren't a scoring fish, there were oodles of big blues about and they slammed lures as well as bait. We then perched up on Pocock Beach for a little landbased session and Scotty grabbed a few fish in quick succession by casting the sticks close to shore.

Many teams must have checked the forecasts, as they headed to the inland billabongs to escape the winds, doing quite well with barras up to 85cm however the biggest barra went 94cm and was caught casting the rocks at the South Alligator mouth. The Pocock reefs delivered the best jewfish at tide changes during the night.

All in all, a memorable few days away where a fish was actually a bonus...nothing too serious, just plain and simple good fun with a heap of good mates. How good is that?! The Alligator Fishing Club can hold its head high. It's full of great people out for a good time, only too willing to help where ever required. And that folks is what a fishing club is all about. I vaguely remember the after party...

In other reports, the Town Hall Hole has produced jewfish this week and Lorna Shoals returned moonies, snapper and cod. Inland, I've heard in freshwater the Finniss is going quite well; Tilsan Barra 80's must've been on the barra menu.

Good luck on the water folks.

Brad Polain with a healthy Finniss River barra taken on a Tilsan Barra 80.

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