In April this year the Menzies family went on a huge adventure to Maningrida to catch some big barramundi. Dad was the first to get out there and one night at 2 am he rescued a big boat sinking in the mangroves, saving a family of 5. The next day the rest of the Menzies family rocked up on a float plane. The float plane was epic during landing and taking off from the water with crocodiles swimming around. It dropped us off at our private mothership that we were going to spend the next week on.
The mothership we went on was pretty cool because when we have a full day fishing in the sun its always nice to come back to have a cold shower and proper toilet with dinner already served on the table. They cooked up some amazing dishes but the best dinner was the pizza that I made.
Before we went fishing on the first morning, we had a big breakfast and a cup of coffee and hot chocolate. Then we were straight off to go fish our first destination. In the first snag we flicked I straight caught a legal barramundi. We kept on fishing that day and caught up to 150 barramundi. The best part of that epic day was I caught my 13th 90cm barramundi sight casting a green and purple Jackle.
One of the rod and reels I was using, a Dobyns rod with a zillion reel, didn't make it to the end of the trip! While I was trolling, a big barra smashed my line and i was fighting it for 5-10 minuets. It jumped right next to the boat, about a 95-1m long barra, it leaped about 3-4 more times, did its final jump and my rod slipped out of my hand. If your ever fishing in Managrida look out for my rod and reel you might get lucky!
On a more positive note some other interesting things happened that day. First off, I caught a huge mud crab with a rod, that never really happens with fishermen and I was very surprised when I reeled it in. This big, full crab would have been an amazing taste but the little bugger escaped at night with all the other crabs when something knocked over the bucket. Later on that day, the Menzies family were just flicking all the edges catching heaps of barra. That is until I hooked a big fish that ran in the sticks and peeled me along the mangrove edge. When I had the chance to reel in this beast it was a huge mangrove jack. Early that day we caught some small jack but this one was next level! It hit 48cm which is a big jack in the territory and also very good eating. But for this one it was its lucky day.
This trip was one of the best of my life, it was an incredible adventure, we had some ups and downs and I will definitely never forget it.
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