A tick off the bucket list

Hi all,
This year I took a 7 day break from gold detecting holiday in WA and flew to PNG exchanging the cold and rain around Kalgoorlie for tropical warmth. A very understanding wife and caravan & car was left at Perth.
It's always been my dream to catch a metre plus barra by lure casting and this has been at times a frustrating target.
After making several trips to the NT, 93 cms was the longest barra I had ever landed.
Friends returning from Bensbach spoke highly of the excellent fishing including many fish over the magical I metre mark. Bensbach is on the southern side of PNG, very very close to the West Papua border.
My first time to Bensbach two years ago, saw plenty of fish coming in including PB's for Saratoga but no XXL Barra. I did stuff up one blistering run and it probably was a very big fish, but inexperience by jamming my thumb on the spool for extra drag resulting not only in pulled lure but also a sorely blistered thumb.
This year, fishing was again good with barra each day but on day 4 it all came together. A 1.21 metre barra took my soft plastic and all 125 metres of braid leaving only a few turns of nylon backing on the bait-caster. Thankfully the indigenous guides showed exceptional boat handling skills in the strong current and amongst the snags to allow me to slowly recover line and 20 minutes later she was netted, photographed and released.
For the rest of the afternoon, a very happy angler just sat in the boat watching others fishing and looking forward to shouting the bar that night.
What's next on the bucket list, a 1 oz. gold nugget, hopefully this trip?

Beautiful barra Bobh. Congrats mate.

A Monster, well done that man.

Bloody Ripper mate, good on ya !! That's on my bucket list too!!

GT

Hi Bobh,

It's always good to see someone catching good barra up there. I passed thru there back in 1988 and my friend and I cast the same type and colour lure (6" nilsmaster) into the same spot at the same time and he got a 30lb barra at I think was no 7 hole . I see they are still using the 17ft punts. Was Bok still working there? Wish I could get back there sometime.

Cheers

Doug

Hi Rockhunter62,
I caught the big lady about 1 km south of spot 5 & 5-1/2. The guides didn't tell me the name of the spot but my fishing buddy Greg got a 116cm very close by next day. Mine was on a 1/4oz jig head with a Zman 5-1/2" Grubz in Fluoro green. Greg's was on one of my lures, a Reidys Judge, green sides, black back and black side stripes.
The guides love the Judges especially if green or gold but especially green. You can "walk" them thru snags really well.
I think northern Australian Barra guides would be absolutely amazed at how well the Bensbach guides recover lures from snags and tree barra's. The guides take massive pride in recovering lures and I learnt a few different techniques to what I usually have been doing in the NT.
The WW2 punts are getting very tired and frequent bailing needed. Not dangerous leaks though. They are all using Yamaha 4 stroke 40HP; very good bush mechanics.
I don't recall Bok, my guides were Neme and his nephews Isaac & Catryn. Neme's two brothers were also guides but one of them, Isaacs dad had retired.
The lodge manager is Copi or Kepi.
The Indonesian lodge a few clicks downstream has never been used by indo's; locals use it sparingly as a meeting house.
There are still lots of problems with Indonesian fish poachers who locals say have some protection from indo naval patrol boats.
That 17' croc is still down around number 3 and the locals have great respect for it and will not hunt it.
Cheers
Bobh