The KOWANYAMA rag, March 2012 - The Barrumundi Special. By Shane Fixter.

As the manager of the ABFT I am proud to congratulate the recent engagements of fellow ABFT Skyringville ‘2001’ founding farther/originals, Ryan ‘JEMO’ Jamieson and Terry ‘WINGNUT’ Castelli. Best of luck for the future to both couples. A congratulation also goes out the big unit, Brendan ‘B’ Gray, who has recently had a beautiful baby boy. The looks obviously have come from the old girl as our B has a head like a rot wheeler chewing a wasp, and nipples, that if not taped, could slice Enrique Iglesias’s smooth, sensual and sexual tongue right from his mouth. “Let me be your hero”

I would also like to show appreciation to JEMO, KIRKY and JIMBO for their unparalleled standards in fishing blog excellence. Their incomparable local knowledge of Australia’s most sought after fishing hotspots never seizes to amaze me. Just reading our ABFT blog makes you a better fishermen and gives those other ABFT blue collar members a taste of what real fishing is like.

Over the last year and a bit I have had the opportunity to fish perhaps Australia’s most lucrative Barra and Salmon River, the mighty Mitchell River. The river begins on the Atherton Tableland about 50 kilometres northwest of Cairns, and flows about 750 kilometres northwest across Cape York Peninsula from Mareeba to the Gulf of Carpentaria emptying out 5km north of the aboriginal community of Kowanyama. The river's watershed covers an area of 71,757 km² , the largest in QLD!

Kowanyama boasts a kaleidoscope of fishing options. Head just 30-40mins south west to flick a line in the abundant Topsy Creek, travel 30-40mins NW to the mighty Mitchell River, walk 50 metres to fish the plentiful freshwaters of the Magnificent River or take a local out and fish any one of the hundreds of local freshwater homeland waters which are only a stone’s throw away from my front doorstep.

Before coming to Kowanyama I had never caught a Barra. Well haven’t times changed! Last year I reckon that between myself and the many different deckies I’ve had aboard my boat “BUST YA UP” I’ve probably pulled in over 100 Barra. Not to mention the many barra that have been caught fishing the banks of freshwater billabongs!

It has been one of my greatest experiences and accomplishments teaching in an aboriginal community and look forward to the day when the ABFT ventures this way whether it is soon or later I think it is a must! 7 hours drive from cairns!

I have added a couple of photos below to talk you through some of my wonderful fishing adventures that Kowanyama has provided me with. I hope you enjoy the pictures and the stories

This is my second 1+ Barra. This one weighed in at 20.5kg and 1.10 meters. My first meter + Barra was caught in Bundaberg on my birthday 9/04/2012. So how did I catch this fuckin monster? Well I’ll let you in on a little secret. I have probably over $1000 dollars worth of the latest and greatest lures under sun. But this bohemath was caught on a piece of shit $3 lure from China. It was nailed in about 12 foot of water on a very rocky bottom. The bottom has sections of depth ranging from 9-15 foot. Very jagged. This bad boy got airborne twice and took about 30mins to get in the boat. I was using 35lb power line and a 50lbs black magic monofilament leader. I was using the Albright and uni knots to tie my leader and lure off. I’m currently running a 200E7 Shimano Chronarch complemented by a Ian Miller 2 Barra Mauler. The second picture is of a 92 cm Barra caught in the same session. We caught about 60 odd that session (8 hours). This day was easily the best Barra fishing I have ever had.

I caught a 65cm Barra that got swallowed by another barra that day which I believe to be bigger than the one in the photo. I saw the monster twice as it came to the boat. It had a head on it as big as a basketball! I battled the moster for about 45 mins before it spat the original 65cm Barra out. When I landed the 65er’ in the boat it had zero scales left on its entire body..... Crazy day of angling! We also had a barra shop at my outboard.... They were thick.... Oh and by the way we were fishing in the wet part of the water! heheheh.