I never thought I'd ever go barramundi fishing on a Yankee tarpon boat! Captain Ross Finlayson from Cairns purchased his 5.7m Hewes Redfisher from the US a little while back for use in his fly-fishing charter business.
Although designed for the flats around the Florida Keys, it's also the ideal rig for chasing the elusive barra!
I caught up with Ross and his 'punt deluxe' during a recent trip with Paul Caughlan and Brian Felton to the Archer River, just south of Weipa in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Many Aussie anglers would know Ross Finlayson for his marlin fishing exploits on the famous Sea Baby IV, but when his not chasing giant blacks, he's usually fly fishing the rivers, dams and creeks around far-north Queensland.
He's had a soft spot for one of these Redfishers for quite some time and he knew the rig would work well for his specialty inshore and river fishing.
When the boat arrived in Cairns, he had a heavy-duty custom trailer built to give him the flexibility to work all the various rivers and dams from Cairns to the Cape.
The adventures to the distant Archer River all started through his mate and owner of the mothership De Ja Vu II, Ross Fenn.
Fenn has been fishing the Archer River for a number of years now and uses the mothership to accommodate anglers keen on doing extended liveaboard barra trips.
FISH GALORE
Ross was lured across to the Archer last year and was more than impressed with the place. This huge river has more different species to offer the would-be fly or lure fisherman than you can poke a stick at!
Ross knew the Hewes would be right at home plying the vast expanse of the mighty Archer, but getting the boat over there from Cairns was going to be a bit of a chore.
The only way to avoid most of the rugged roads across the Cape was to tow the boat up to Karumba and put the whole rig on the big commercial barge that services Weipa.
From Weipa, it's only a 80km run down the coast to the Archer. Even when the trade winds are blowing, the picturesque western side of the Gulf is pretty much protected. The plan worked perfectly!
When we flew across from Cairns to the Aboriginal town of Arukun on the banks of the Archer, we had no idea this special boat even existed. We thought we'd be doing the norm and fishing out of 4.2m aluminium punts which we've done many times in the past.
SURPRISE SURPRISE
When Ross Finlayson and Ross Fenn's son, Ty, greeted us at the boat ramp in this long sleek beast of a boat, we were absolutely stunned. It was the last thing we expected to see out in the sticks!
Even ferrying five of us and all our gear out to the De Ja Vu, you could feel the smoothness and stability of the hull. A combination of waterline length and the shallow draft design is quite apparent.
That first afternoon out fishing it didn't take long to find out the real advantages of this amazing boat. As a casting platform for chucking lures around the snags, it can comfortably handle three or four guys without the danger of hooking your mate in the ear with a sharp treble.
The forward and aft deck areas are enormous and although we weren't into fly-fishing, you could see the boat's great advantages for this style of fishing.
The general layout of the boat is also well thought-out, with lots of dry storage compartments for tackle boxes and even a dry locker to hold a bunch of fully-rigged rods.
A large, livewell complete with pump was ideal to hold a load of large mullet when we wanted to livebait.
When it wasn't full of bait, we used it as a killbox to bleed the mangrove jacks and fingermark we kept for the table.
The powerplant is a thumping 130hp Yamaha outboard. At first I thought it a bit of an overkill however I found it really is the ideal horsepower for the boat.
Only a touch of the throttle is needed to get the boat straight up on the plane and the hull runs sweetly with the big donk ticking over at around 3000rpm. Considering all the ground we covered during the week's fishing, I couldn't believe the rig was so economical.
The boat is also fitted out with a 9hp outboard for slow trolling the rock bars and an electric motor just for manoeuvring around the snags and drains.
We had some memorable fishing and the river holds a good supply of barra, mangrove jacks, fingermark, as well as plenty of enormous queenfish.
TAILING QUEENIES
Nearly every morning these big queenies could be seen tailing and feeding in the current right near the motherboat. Even the cook would be out there chucking poppers when these queenies appeared and the surface strikes and spectacular jumps were awesome to watch.
Most of the queenfish we released averaged around the 7-8kg mark, but there were plenty much bigger than that. These fish are certainly a real attraction for the fly-fishing buffs.
A couple of mornings we concentrated on live baiting around a few of the boys' favourite deep holes right up against the mangroves. Every bait was eaten by a decent-sized barra or a big hungry mangrove jack. The size of the baits these ferocious jacks have a go at is quite amazing and at times the mullet were half as big as the fish we caught.
We trolled a number of rock bars most afternoons in anticipation of a real big mother barra and whilst we caught some nice ones up to 10kg or so, the real thumpers avoided us.
UPPER REACHES
The amazing thing was the biggest barra we caught for the trip came from a little shallow freshwater stream about as wide as a two-way street.
This came about when we spent an unforgettable day fishing the stunning upper reaches of the river where the white sandy banks are lined with miles of magnificent paperbark trees.
When we couldn't go upstream any further by boat, we walked by several rapids and cast small lures to the hoards of grunter, saratoga and small barra in the adjacent pools.
One of these pools was the last place I expected to see a metre-long barra.
This particular spot was hardly wide enough to make a full-length cast, so I feathered the spool on the little Shimano Calcutta to stop the lure from hitting the opposite bank.
A couple of twitches on the rod tip was enough to get the lure moving and the big barra engulfed it before it had gone a metre or so.
My eyes nearly fell out of my head when I saw the size of the fish and when it came tailwalking out of the water, it quickly caught the attention of the rest of the guys either casting or removing hooks from other critters nearby.
The barra took off downstream towards the rapids and I had no chance of stopping it or changing its direction on the light 6kg tackle.
There was one damn snag in the whole pool, which was a lone stick protruding out of the water just near the opposite bank. Of course, the fish ran round it.
All I could do was back off the drag pressure and hope the barra would swim back up current - but it didn't.
A seesawing, tug-a-war developed around the snag and how the light line stood up to the torture was quite amazing. After several minutes I was somehow still attached to the fish and Ty suggested if he climbed up on a high limb with the rod, he might be able to clear the line.
It was worth a shot, but the angle still wasn't good enough to pull the line off the stick.
The only other chance we had was to try and snag the line between the stick and the fish. Just as the barra came to the surface trying to shake the lure, Ross fired a cast and picked up the line with his lure.
I free-spooled the reel as Ross carefully pulled in the line with the fish still attached and I eventually hand-lined the big tired fish to the bank.
After a couple of quick photos, we released her back to the pool. It was a bizarre team capture and one I'll never forget.
GULF GAMES
The last couple of days of the trip we fished the mornings around the rocky headlands out in the Gulf proper and this was where the Hewes really came into its own.
The boat lapped up the choppy conditions over the long open stretches of water we had to cover. Yet it was still able to get right in around the shallow rocks where the salty barras lay in droves.
We had a ball casting light tackle to a bunch of 3-4kg chrome-plated fish that were full of spirit. Around most of the rocky outcrops it was near a fish a cast.
The clean turquoise water just wide of the headlands was also alive with fish. Everywhere you looked, terns were working bait schools and the odd silver flash from either longtail tuna or queenies could be seen.
At one stage a ball of bait erupted right behind the boat and Brian had a couple of casts to the melee and hooked a giant herring and a longtail tuna in succession.
The herring was one of the most spectacular fish I've ever seen in shallow water and it jumped and sped off with incredible speed and power - near spooling the baitcaster.
We kept the tuna for sashimi and released the herring to fight another day. It was a damn nice way to wind up a great trip.
Charter details
- De Ja Vu II Charters
Contact: Ross or Ty Fenn
tel. (07) 4055 1597 or 0408 187 341 - Australian Saltwater Fly
Fishing Adventures
Contact: Captain Ross Finlayson
tel. (07) 4055 2490 or 0418 183 565