Aurukun - Barra Heaven!

 

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!

Live Aboard mothership - the Pikkuw

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.

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.

 

Casting to the snags - upper Archer River - how cool is this!

Barra at the boat!

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!

"Walking" the dories over the shallow sand bars - Upper Archer River

"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.

 

Rick with a nice barra - note that lure!

And again!

And again!

And again - he actually stopped whinging after landing 6 consecutive barra on this lure!

"Super" Mario - he could catch em too!

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.

Casting to the snags - upper Archer

Your typical barra snag!

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”.

 

A beautifully marked golden trevally from the mangroves - Love River

Typical salt water barra from the Love - Well done Peter!

Peter again with a lovely Love barra

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.

Paul with a nice Love barra

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.

Neil with a barra from "the lake" - Love River

"Super" Marion - how desolate does this look?

"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!

 

Nice barra caught on the troll - Love River

Returning to the Pikkuw

The boys, Peter, Paul, Mario, Dan, Les, Colin, Neil & Rick - Terry!?@#
 

 















NOTE - we had some fun out on the northern rocks too!

Neil with a nice fingermark caught on the troll

Paul and a good queenie - note the scarring!



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!

Our final trip to the landing

Skytrans flight services - Aurukun Airport

Catch you on the water, regards Les
www.fishingcairns.com.au