AS the Fisho office hadn’t heard much in the way of Queenland impoundment barra reports of late, it was timely to hear last week from Canberra-based fisho Matt Daniel who’s just returned from fishing Kinchant Dam near Mackay and Proserpine’s Peter Faust Dam.
Daniel reports it’s still very worthwhile doing an impoundment barra trip up that way for anyone contemplating doing so.
His groups tally for the trip was a respectable 29 barra including six over the magic metre mark – 100cm, 101cm, 105cm, 108cm, 116cm and 117cm – and a lot in the high 90s.
Daniel says “Not a bad result considering we didn’t catch any fish at night or on the troll. Kinchant was quite low and very weedy, all fish except for one were caught on weedless soft plastics or Stanley Ribbit Bullfrogs.”
He also said the thick weed beds made it difficult to manouvre their boat around, and understandably “difficult to get the fish out”.
“The surface strikes were pretty spectacular, the frogs have a poor hookup rate though. In the end I modified the frog by placing a plastic disk on the hook to keep the frog away from the point and exposed more gape which allowed a better hookup rate including a solid 99cm fish. We ended up with 14 barra out of Kinchant for the three days.”
Matt Daniel with a horse that took a sunset gallop.
In contrast, Daniel reports that Peter Faust Dam was almost full to capacity. He says the fishing though was fairly tough until the group worked out that all the fish were in the main basin.
“Fishing 130 Slick Rigs (with Area 51 inserts 1oz) down deep to barra suspended in 30m of water saw us do quite well. We ended up with 15 fish for the five days here.”
Stuart Sturgeon didn’t catch his namesake but was no doubt happy to settle for this big silver barra.
“Weather played a big part in the catch rates, small spikes in barometer seemed to bring the fish on for 15-20 minute windows. All in all, hard work some of the time but the rewards were worth it when you did hookup.”
Fishing surface lures like the Stanley Ribbit Bullfrog produced some nice fish at Kinchant Dam.
Thanks for the report Matt, anyone else been chasing impoundment barra?
