Day 207

22 August 2013

We got up early to start heading back to Cairns. We had organized to have dinner with Joel's grandparents so we were driving back and maybe doing a few stops at Mossman Gorge etc on the way.

We had noticed a barra farm on the way up to the cape and decided to pull in here to have a look on the way back. It is just outside of Mossman and called Hook a Barra and we were determined that surely we could hook a barra here!

It is quite costly at $45 each per person for an hour of fishing, but it is one of those things that sounds expensive but once you do it (and as long as you catch something) it is worth it.

They provide the rod, reels and lures to get you started and give you advice if you need it. They start off by showing you a tank with some albino barramundi in it. I did not realise there was albino barramundi and also black skinned ones! Apparently also there is an aboriginal family in Mossman that had two albino kids... How weird would that be! Anyway off the subject....they have a pool at the very front which houses 1500 barramundi ranging in size from 3kg to 9kg!

Started off on a popper and early signs were really good! Few fish had a go at it but for some reason they kept spitting it out. Started to get frustrated after a while as they went quiet but the lady running the show said we should try a white soft plastic and she would berley up too just to increase the activity. Within the first couple of casts with the new lure Joel was on! The barra was jumping and carrying on and putting up a great fight! Eventually pulled it in and it would have been about 4kg.

Released this one and put lure back in the water...bang another one...this fish was awesome, jumped out of the water...(look closely I did actually capture it in this photo!)

Gave up a good fight but Joel pulled him in too, he would have been 80cm and probably about 6-7kg. Was a whopper! Even though it was at a farm and obviously our chances were highly increased it was so much fun! We then wanted to catch one to take home so we were taken to a production pond with 1-3kg fish in it and I caught a 2 kg barra which we ended up taking home with us. $14 a kilo for any you want to take home.

A guy in Port Douglas fillets them for you for $5 so we went in to see him and had lunch at the marina while waiting for our fillets.

Made it back to cairns and set up again at our regular big 4 and headed to Joel's grandparents for dinner. Had a beautiful dinner of rissoles and potato bake which Joel was very happy with! Spent the night chatting about old times and travelling, was really nice to catch up with family we don't see very often!

Carly & Joel

 

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