It’s not by coincidence that the Top End Barra Series held its fifth round for the
year inside and around the Adelaide River mouth.
This is a great area for targeting bigger barra during the build-up season, and a
combination of neap tides and favourable weather only added to expectations.
According to Morris Pizzutto from TEBS, this is the business end of the year and
it proved to be extremely competitive at the top of the leader board.
“Anglers spread out from Leaders Creek, through to the Wiltshires inside the
Adelaide and beyond,” Morris said.
“The traditional approach of trolling likely runs produced the odd fish but most
of the anglers in the top 10 were using live imaging and targeting barra moving
up the middle of the creeks.
“Top 10 anglers mostly had fish in the 60s, with the odd bigger one to split the
difference.
“Tristan Christie persisted fishing with Live Scope around Wiltshire 3 to find a
bag of fish measuring 62-79cm and scoring 575 points to secure third place,”
Morris reported.
“Jack Oswald and Peter ‘Cuddles’ Cooper stood out from the pack with over
double the score of the nearest competitors, going blow to blow with ever
bigger and better fish.
“Jack fished hard all weekend and was still struggling with only a bunch of fish
in the 50s and 60s.
“Overall he said he caught 30-40 fish in the 50s and 60s with only a couple of
70s which sounds fantastic to us mere mortals.
“It took until Sunday for him to land his first 80cm barra and, as the tide eased
and the water cleared, he began to find the bigger fish, ending the day with an
80, 84, 86, 87 and an absolute horse at 111cm and 1595 points for the win,”
Morris said.
“It took putting a suspending hard-body on a fish’s nose and waiting for the
slightest of taps which were difficult to detect – tough fishing but he managed
to crack the code.
“One would think the secret to success here is staying with the fish and waiting
for the bite but Cuddles fished the round quite differently, moving around
most of the weekend and catching most of his bigger fish in the main river.
“He also found 30-odd fish in the 50s-60s in the creeks.
“The bigger fish turned up on Sunday as the water cleared and his bag ended
up a very respectable 65, 81, 83, 83 and a big 107cm barra caught near the
mouth of Castle Creek.
“Cuddles came second with 1305 points but he reported dropping a swag of
fish including four in the 80s and another metery which he lost at the boat,”
Morris reported.
Morris owes a debt of gratitude to Wade and Caleb Johnstone for performing
some nice surgical work to extract a fully-embedded big B52 treble from his
hand.
The next TEBS round will be on the billabongs.
Currently, it’s a two horse race between Jack Oswald and Cuddles Cooper.
“The consistency of these two is ridiculous,” Morris said.
Jack has three wins and a second in the five rounds to date, and Cuddles has
one win and three second places.
“The billabongs will be the ‘Rumble in Jungle’ round between these lads… only
one can emerge victorious,” Morris commented.
Jack Oswald’s 111cm stonker from the Adelaide River helped him win
the fifth round of the Top End Barra Series.
Morris Pizzutto with one of his TEBS barra from round five.
Regis Martin’s tasty golden snapper bycatch in the TEBs round sadly left
him with a one-piece rod in two pieces.
