With our outback trip to the “WET” centre cancelled we changed our plans & headed to Lake Awonga for a week in search of a few Barra
We had just had a week of warm weather & heard reports a few barra where about in the margins. It was also the lead up to the full moon for those who follow that theory along with first week of school holiday – so we wouldn’t be alone.
We arrived at the Lake Awonga Camp Grounds around 1pm Sunday & quickly set up camp. First session was with my Nieces boyfriend Steve & it didn’t take us too long to find our first fish at 95cm. This was my first trip back to the lake since it had rose & it sure is a BIG body of water now !
A lot of the areas we had done well in previously still looked the goods & we managed to mark a few fish on the HDS to boost our confidence.
Did I mention the forecast was for heavy rain Monday onwards !!!! We’ll the bureau got it right this time & it poured Monday morning – luckily we are seasoned campers #@!
We fished Monday in the rain for nothing more than a cat fish & a very we a#$
Tuesday dawned wet & grey & slowly deteriorated ! I fished with my niece Jess in the afternoon both casting & trolling for nothing. Jess even offered me money to go back in early
Thursday afternoon we spent anchoring on points & casting after advice from Jason Wilhelm. Unfortunately our confidence was dented after three hours for nothing, but with plenty of boney’s flicking we decided on a troll run to finish off with. Running a couple of Classic Barra Pro’s we only went 15 minutes before we got out first bite – resulting in a FAT 98 cm fish
Next we tried a point we had previously cast which also held plenty of boney’s – with Steve getting hammered as we came around the corner ! This fish really played up with half a dozen gill rattling jumps boat side before falling into the enviro net. Steve was stoked with his first barra at 98cm – just short of the meter !
The weather did finally improve a little, but the fishing remained tough for our last two days at Awonga …………
We fished each afternoon from 2pm onwards in the hope of finding some warmer water in the shallow,windward bays. We’d anchor & cast each area for around an hour before moving to another area up until dark – then switch to trolling any area’s that showed promise. The wet weather didn’t put the catties off …………
Unfortunately we didn’t get any more bites from the barra & it rained just enough Saturday morning to wet everything as we packed up ! It was great to be back on the lake & we learnt plenty as usual – looking forward to our next trip already
