Jeremy87
23-06-08, 11:58 AM
Mostly a fishing trip but also managed a bit of hunting aswell. here's a day by day account
Day 1. hop off the plane at 1:30 drive down to base camp, unpack, go for a quick hunt with the bows. Later that night we go out for a spotlight spotted a mob of pigs that included a massive tusker but they were off into the buffalo grass before i could get the rifle to my shoulder.
Day 2. Get up at gentlemans hours (about 8 ) gear up and head off the the skinny water river. First cast 20cm sooty, followed be another slightly larger specimen and a few swipes by a decent barra. kept moving and ended up with another half dozen sooties and three or four rat barra. The action was comparatively slow according to matt so we desided to move down the road to Tony's another less fished spot. We covered about 2 k's of the river catching a variety of barra between 30-45cm sotties from 25-35cm and heaps of rat tarpon. Matt scored a solid archer fish around the 30cm mark. One praticular bend was holding some really solid barra we had 3 fish around the 70-80cm mark smoke us in quick succussion, all in heavily timbered holes in water small enough the most places you could spit onto the other bank. awsome. We finished off the day by heading to another spot that held better quality barra, i landed one fish around the 70cm mark while matt had 3 fish either spit him out or bust him off. That night we went for another spotlight again finding the pigs in the same spot but too far into the buffalo grass to get a clear shot.
Day 3. We decided to go far a bow hunt. early start and we went for a bit of a drive to our hunting grounds, not much activity but i still managed to shaft a fairly solid boar, the only one we saw that day. headed back for lunch and then gave Tony's another fish picking up many more sooties tarpon and barra including a few better fish around the 50-55 mark. Ran out of small poppers.
Day 4. fished tony's again but we were running out of unfished water so the action was starting to slow (only caught about 30 fish that morning). Tried another spot off the main road, after cutting a fair way in for no result we reached some water with that hadn't been fishing for a long time, big sooty meka, heaps of fish over the 35 mark. We didn't brake the 40cm mark the whole trip biggest i caught went 39cm.
Day 5. Fished another spot downstream of Tony's place, lots of big sooties but the bank cover was too thick to get a cast in for most of it. We had a charter booked that afternoon at a big billabong on a cattle station. cleaned up on rat barra between 30-40cm (cracked a century in barra in fish caught) aswell a a single 67cm fish. Finished the day off with a couple of beers with the station owner.
Day 6. Very tired, slept in packed went home.
It was my first proper boar with atleast some sought of tusks so i was stoked. We're already talking about another trip up there just before the wet starts with a more hunting orientated aproach. Im sure all you guys like fishing aswell so i'll post some pics up.
Day 1. hop off the plane at 1:30 drive down to base camp, unpack, go for a quick hunt with the bows. Later that night we go out for a spotlight spotted a mob of pigs that included a massive tusker but they were off into the buffalo grass before i could get the rifle to my shoulder.
Day 2. Get up at gentlemans hours (about 8 ) gear up and head off the the skinny water river. First cast 20cm sooty, followed be another slightly larger specimen and a few swipes by a decent barra. kept moving and ended up with another half dozen sooties and three or four rat barra. The action was comparatively slow according to matt so we desided to move down the road to Tony's another less fished spot. We covered about 2 k's of the river catching a variety of barra between 30-45cm sotties from 25-35cm and heaps of rat tarpon. Matt scored a solid archer fish around the 30cm mark. One praticular bend was holding some really solid barra we had 3 fish around the 70-80cm mark smoke us in quick succussion, all in heavily timbered holes in water small enough the most places you could spit onto the other bank. awsome. We finished off the day by heading to another spot that held better quality barra, i landed one fish around the 70cm mark while matt had 3 fish either spit him out or bust him off. That night we went for another spotlight again finding the pigs in the same spot but too far into the buffalo grass to get a clear shot.
Day 3. We decided to go far a bow hunt. early start and we went for a bit of a drive to our hunting grounds, not much activity but i still managed to shaft a fairly solid boar, the only one we saw that day. headed back for lunch and then gave Tony's another fish picking up many more sooties tarpon and barra including a few better fish around the 50-55 mark. Ran out of small poppers.
Day 4. fished tony's again but we were running out of unfished water so the action was starting to slow (only caught about 30 fish that morning). Tried another spot off the main road, after cutting a fair way in for no result we reached some water with that hadn't been fishing for a long time, big sooty meka, heaps of fish over the 35 mark. We didn't brake the 40cm mark the whole trip biggest i caught went 39cm.
Day 5. Fished another spot downstream of Tony's place, lots of big sooties but the bank cover was too thick to get a cast in for most of it. We had a charter booked that afternoon at a big billabong on a cattle station. cleaned up on rat barra between 30-40cm (cracked a century in barra in fish caught) aswell a a single 67cm fish. Finished the day off with a couple of beers with the station owner.
Day 6. Very tired, slept in packed went home.
It was my first proper boar with atleast some sought of tusks so i was stoked. We're already talking about another trip up there just before the wet starts with a more hunting orientated aproach. Im sure all you guys like fishing aswell so i'll post some pics up.