HARDIES IS OPEN

Dry is almost here – Hardies is open.

Hardies Billabong opened Monday afternoon so took a trip out to give it a go. Arrived at the ramp at 6.30am and was the only vehicle there. The road in was like a highway and had obviously been graded a day or two earlier. There is plenty of water around in the low lying areas with a good flow coming from the creek right of the boat ramp.

Made my way down the billabong fishing the edges without much success on the Barra stakes but was kept busy with Tarpon and heaps of Catfish. Currently the water is still dirty, to find clear water you need to find some drains coming out of the floodplains through the floating grass which lines the edges. Wherever you find this clearer water you can hear and see the grass moving as the Barra boof deep in the grass. Could not entice any out, just too deep in there.

From the grass tussocks in the trees it looks like there was a good flush after Easter with the level through Hardies being 7 – 8 foot higher than current level.

On the way back to the ramp I pushed my way into Jim’s secret billabong through a lot of dead timber left from the high water. The area looks very fishy, although I could not get through Tarpon and Catfish. Should anyone venture into this area just beware a HUGE croc has taken up residence and was a little bit too curious for my liking. My boat was not big enough to be in the same area!

From the lower end of the billabong I could hear heavy equipment working on the road into Coroborree so this should not be long opening. Spoke with John from Mary River Houseboats and he told me that the water had got as high as halfway up the toilet block walls, lilies had been thinned out leaving dead leaves and stalks (as per photo), road inspection expected today. The other news was that a 92 cms Barra was caught in Hardies yesterday.

Same old story, “should have been here yesterday”.

Jim