Now that’s a very bold statement and one that is often made by
fishing scribes of repute or otherwise..….but the Aurukun Wetland System
(comprising the Archer, False Archer, Watson, Ward and the Love Rivers) IS THE
REAL DEAL!
How does 790 barra in 7 days fishing sound?
Now read it again, yes, I was there………seven hundred and ninety
barramundi in seven days of fishing with a group of Orthodontists and Dentists
from Ingham / Townsville / Brisbane & Wagga Wagga (who let him in?) We had an
absolute blast……..quality fishing with a great bunch of blokes, all hell bent
on having a good time and keen to learn new things about barra fishing in remote
Cape York.
New things like
a) If you want to have success in the upper reaches of the Archer River
you MUST have a green lure.
b) And down in the Love, you need one with “stripes”……some needed a
little more convincing!
c) You must learn to “read the water” and think three dimensionally – imagine
the bankside snag and its features below the water line and cast appropriately
d) Understand that barra don’t like the sun……they will prefer the shady
side in the river
e) And in open water, they will often just mooch along, head down, tail
up, waving tantalizing just below the
surface
f) And sometimes……….just sometimes, a very slow direct retrieve works
better than the more practiced and fancied twitch, twitch, pause technique. Try
it one day, we did and it worked a treat!
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| Live Aboard mothership - the Pikkuw |
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| Pikkuw at anchor - Archer Bay |
This story is not going to be a day by day, blow by blow of events;
this has been done before and I’m too tired to do it actually. I just got back
to Cairns from a 7 day, 8 night guiding gig up at the Archer River with AurukunFishing Charters onboard the mothership, the Pikkuw, and I wanted to give
readers something to ponder rather than just a chronological essay of my trip.
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| Aurukun Landing - Archer Bay |
Aurukun sits on the junction of several tropical rivers that flow
into Archer Bay. It is serviced 6 days a week by Skytrans regional airlines and
by charter flights ex Weipa. Vehicular access is also available for the
adventurous. This is an aborigine community and as such does not cater to
tourists per se. There is no accommodation and is also a restricted alcohol
area. Respect for the indigenous people and the traditional owners is expected
and practiced.
So, this makes the region quite remote as far as fishing pressure
goes and hence, the quality of the fishery is amazing. During our trip we not
only landed all those barra but other species included black jew, threadfin
salmon, estuary cod, Queensland grouper,
fingermark, queenfish, mangrove jack, golden trevally, brassy trevally, archer
fish, bream, catfish, barracuda and tarpon (there are others). Even the
flathead gets a mention.
We fished many diverse systems from the mangrove flats of Archer
Bay, the intertidal zones of a couple of rivers, to way upstream into the
sandy, melaleuca forest of the fresh water rivers, to the wide open expanse of
the tidal “lake” in the Love River. We
had varying success in most environments, but the pick of the bunch boils down
to two distinct locations.
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| Casting to the snags - upper Archer River - how cool is this! |
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| Barra at the boat! |
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| One happy angler - good on you Neil |
Upper Archer:
Leaving the salt water mangroves you travel past a myriad of
islands; the main channel can change from year to year as shifting sands are
washed down with successive wet season floods. This can make navigation very
tricky for the unfamiliar and it was here that I had my greatest difficulty in
navigating the vast system. Even by following closely in the wake of another
guide did not guarantee a clean upstream passage as different vessels have
varying depth requirements….darn!
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| "Walking" the dories over the shallow sand bars - Upper Archer River |
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| "Super" Mario - we did let him fish too! |
Anyway, we had “Super Mario” onboard our boat and he gladly jumped
over the side and dragged us across the shallows until deeper water was found.
It was not long before we were on our way again, switching from side to side in
the river bed as we looked for the tell-tale darker water indicating a safer
passage was available.
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| Rick with a nice barra - note that lure! |
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| And again! |
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| And again! |
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| And again - he actually stopped whinging after landing 6 consecutive barra on this lure! |
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| "Super" Mario - he could catch em too! |
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| Beautiful river barra - upper Archer |
And when we came to appropriate deeper channels we just plonked the
anchor down and cast to the snags and structure. In many cases the hit was
instantaneous as hungry barra hit our lures with gusto. Two, three, four,
five………the score was mounting and the anglers were having a ball. When all went
quiet we would simply up anchor, put upstream to the next likely looking snag,
often leapfrogging our comrades and do it all over again. These were not the
monster barra we encountered back in May, but still quality fishing in anyone’s
language and many above the legal size limit.
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| Casting to the snags - upper Archer |
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| Your typical barra snag! |
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| Lunch in the upper Archer |
Once we hit the deeper water, the fishing slowed markedly so it did
not take much convincing to head back downstream and concentrate on the
slightly deeper “channels” in the broad water shallow areas……….does that make
sense?
Upwards of 30-40 barra were caught per boat during these sessions.
Now that’s quality fresh water fishing all undertaken in the magnificent
surroundings of the fresh water reaches
with white sandy banks and shady melaleuca trees….very comfortable
indeed.
NOTE – it had to be the shady side of the river and the most
successful lures were green!
The Love River:
This system is located approx. 1 hours cruise down the coast from
the main Archer River. In fact, during the “wet” season, it is fed from the
same vast basin and the Archer proper, the waters just going overland to the
Love on the western side, while the main Archer River travels north. This would
be a spectacular sight and one day I’ll do it!
By departing early, before any prevailing wind picks up, it is quite
a pleasant journey down the coast to the shallow, sandy entrance. This entrance
must be navigated with care as the sands are constantly shifting with the severity
of successive wets and tides. Shallow
draft is a must to avoid clogging your outboard’s water intake. Once inside the
river however, its plain sailing until you head up to the infamous “Lake”.
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| A beautifully marked golden trevally from the mangroves - Love River |
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| Typical salt water barra from the Love - Well done Peter! |
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| Peter again with a lovely Love barra |
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| Colin with a beautifully marked juvenile Queensland grouper |
Fishing this system is really divided into two parts – the mangrove
lined downstream section and the broad expanse of the wide open, featureless
lake. What a contrast………but as they say in the classics, well worth the drive!
We managed to fish the Love on three occasions on our recent trip
and on each occasions we had absolutely world class fishing. The tides were in
our favor however and this was a real bonus.
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| Paul with a nice Love barra |
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| Well done Pete! |
Casting shallow running lures like bombers, hijackers and Halco laser pro’s to the shady mangrove edges certainly paid dividends, as did the
trolling of similar shallow running lures out a bit wider. To see three dories
all putting along behind each other and all hooking up regularly to barra was a
pleasure. We also caught cod, trevally, queenfish and the not so welcome, lure
stealing, barracuda by this method.
As the tides pushed back up the system we would head out into the featureless lake in search or some of the most mind blowing barra action you could see.
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| Neil with a barra from "the lake" - Love River |
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| "Super" Marion - how desolate does this look? |
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| "Super" again - just not your typical barra country is it!!!!! |
Imagine a huge expansive salt water basin, edged by fringing
mangroves, but with not a single feature appearing above the water apart from a
few mud banks at low tide. The main channel, through which all the “life forms”
that inhabit this place must pass, cuts up the middle of the lake and it is
here that the concentration of that life produces a feeding frenzy only
witnessed by the very few and very lucky. You see, time is of the essence
here……..get it wrong, as far as the tide / or season for that matter goes, and
you miss out completely. Get it right and you have three dories all anchored up
in this featureless “salt water desert” with all anglers whooping and hollering
in excitement as one after another, barra boof your lure from the surface.
You see tailing barra swim lazily past, their scalloped black tail a
signal in the dirty water……..cast a metre in front of them and twitch, twitch,
boof! Cast as far as you can out into the channel and just slowly crank your
lure back in a dead slow retrieve….and boof, you’re on. Do this all around the
boat for the same mind blowing action. Man it was great fun.
Upwards of 60 barra per boat per session was common!
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| Nice barra caught on the troll - Love River |
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| Returning to the Pikkuw |
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The boys, Peter, Paul, Mario, Dan, Les, Colin, Neil & Rick - Terry!?@#
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NOTE - we had some fun out on the northern rocks too!
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| Neil with a nice fingermark caught on the troll |
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Paul and a good queenie - note the scarring!
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The days seemed to blur together, friendships are reaffirmed and formed, the food is superb and the conversation jovial. And as we board the Skytrans plane at Aurukun for the journey home, Rick tells us that we had caught 790 barra in 7 days…………..now that’s fishing!
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| Our final trip to the landing |
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| Skytrans flight services - Aurukun Airport |
Catch you on the water, regards Les
www.fishingcairns.com.au
