queensland Noosa River Kayak Barra On Surface

[kmcrosby78]

Staying at Noosaville for a few days so launched my kayak at Woods Bay around 5:50am this morning with hopes of coming across some tailor or trevally.  Not a good start as I turned the sounder on and realised it wasn't working properly - black and white lines with random numbers so I'll need to fix that before tomorrow's lunchtime session. Anyway, decided I'd need to focus on surface, and second cast in landed a nice cast close to a rockwall with overhanging mangroves (after a dud first cast ....), couple of bloops of the small popper and wam, surface strikes, woohooo!!!  I haven't done much of this and can see how it could become addictive - assumed it would be a bream, then after running around my yak towards the open water then seeing it launch into the air in the corner of my eye, thought perhaps a barra (they're known to be in the system), then second guessed myself and thought perhaps tailor as they sometimes jump, then brought it up close to the yak ready to net and realised it was a barra after all ........

and a solid little barra(cuda) at that ..........  Realised I forgot to bring a rag for handling fish (out of practice as haven't used the yak since last Easter) so between that and trying to get a photo, it flipped back in the water but I managed to recapture it. With the hooks removed, a decision was to be made, and with recent words of wisdom from this forum from the ever-ravenous @Drop Bear, I decided to take it home to eat it (figured it had to be at least as good as pike ..... , and it was, had it tonight and glad I kept it).

Fish dispatched it was time to get back into it - unfortunately my kayak had kept moving forward after I hooked up and ended up near the rocks where I'd hooked up while I was fighting the fish, so I think that basically spoilt this little cove so after working it over I moved on.  As I moved around I realised there wasn't a heap of structure near the banks in both Woods Bays and the wind was around 15knots so I had to pick spots out of the wind and ended up around near the sandbags before working my way back to where I had started. I had tied on a deep diver and picked up one bream along the way.

Would like to explore this area further with a functioning sounder to see what was below me but two fish is better than none and the barracuda on surface was a cool capture and I got a bit of exercise, so it's a win in my books  Planning to head to Goat Island while the boys have a daytime sleep tomorrow in search of a flattie and then we'll see for Sat morning. Will put up a separate report regarding the land-based adventures with my wife and two boys once our trip is over (Sunday) - we've been ticking off a few species and having a ball.

[ellicat]

That sounds like a good day, mate. Congrats on the captures. Would've been fun off the surface.

[Drop Bear]

Woohoo! great report thanks. Congratulations on the barra!

I am heading to Noosa at Christmas so will follow any reports you do closely. I am keen to troll through old reports too. Any suggestions are welcome.

Good on you for eating the Barra. They go well and I have no idea why they are so frowned upon. 

[Old Scaley]

Good to see you getting out and getting amongst them, Kelvin. Does your sounder battery need a charge?

[kmcrosby78]

Cheers fellas. It's a good spot for a kayak Rob with plenty of options - haven't used mine in Weyba Creek yet but that would be good to do and also haven't taken it over to the Frying Pan yet. Would really like to tangle with some of the trevally that hang around the Woods Bay/Noosa Sound area. Hit @Luke Landrunner up for some advice as he's a local and much more tuned in than I  

@Old Scaley - the battery shouldn't be the issue as I charged it before our trip BUT I did realise at the time that I doubt I charged it after our trip last year and the battery isn't getting any younger (I got it with the previous kayak I had bought) so I'll have to check that out to confirm if it's the issue.

Went out for a quick session around Goat Island this arvo while the boys were asleep but it was around low tide and the water was VERY murky. Managed one bream to save myself from a donut. Will see if I can slip one more session in tomorrow - been full on days with the boys so we'll see.