A Sunday afternoon fish

Waz-in-Oz · February 29, 2012

With the Hewes in the shop getting a fuel issue sorted I decided I would throw my tinnie in at the Haughton River (about 20 mile south)after lunch on Sunday as I thought most would be heading home or left for the afternoon.

I got away about 1.30 pm and didn't even bother to check the radar or the weather as most days it is hot, possible showers or thunderstorm and with blue skies and high humidity I really thought a bit of trolling or lure throwing was more stress relief and didn't car if I even saw a fish or not.

Arrived at the boat ramp to see just a car or two so launched, parked the 4wd ute and proceeded to head down the creek to troll and throw a few lures.

The weather was perfect, with light winds and the creek empty of boats and boat wash and as it calmed out I decided to throw a few lures and caught some baby barras which I released. Thinking that a troll was a better chance of a bigger fish I was watching the sounder as i found a nice deep section with tree's underwater when I felt the tempeture drop a notch or two.

At this stage I had a nice big heavy hit which failed to hook up and a couple of twitches saw another, I turned around and headed back through with no luck and then came past the same way when I hooked up to a nice weight and steered it clear of the tree's to land a nice 60 cm Barra.

By the time I looked up the weather had rolled in from a few sides and the Thunder and Lightning was a bit scary towards where I had to head back to the boat ramp, at least out towards the mouth of the creek I could see blue skies. Another troll past saw a nice big barra in the 90's hook up and come to the surface with a big head shake and half body jump out of the water to throw the lure clean back at me. How three razor sharp trebles does that still amazes me even with tight braid line - bet if it was a snag it would have stayed in. By now white caps were appearing and a 8 to 10 degree drop was being felt.

Decided with the lightning and graphite rods in my possession that this may not be a good place so decided to run back to the ramp with tail bewteen my legs. Some serious lightning strikes were hitting around me on the banks and the rain that came with it was tolerable as 24 mph was close to my top speed in the tinnie.

By the time I got to the ramp it was bucketing down and with no rain coat in the boat I had a laugh but being middle of Summer it was still about 24 degrees with the tempeture drop so bearable. The dirt road which was dry to get there had some water over it by the time I got out and the township of Giru which you go through to get to the highway had about 150 mm of rain (6 inches) in an hour so there was water everywhere through the streets and yards of the houses of this small community.

I was home by 5.00 pm so was a good afternoon of stress relief while it lasted and had the tinnie cleaned up and in the shed before we copped a m***ive drenching that afternoon from a big storm cell and saw another 200 mm (8 inches)of rain fall with some nasty house shaking thunder and lightning to show who's boss.

Here is some of the panic photos while I was scooting for the ramp and some nice placid ones in the mix.

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