Yakabout - Teemburra Dam #2

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Teemburra Dam #2

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Wednesday, 17 October 2007

Awesome spectacle of nature

Launch:	- 4:00 PM
Landed:	- 9.00 PM
Tide:	- N/A
Weather:	- Hot, 32 °C, calm
Caught:	- Nothing
Method:	- Livebaiting, trolling and casting soft plastic lures

I've never been terribly successful casting lures during night time but it was clear from the previous day's outing that Teemburra barramundi are sometimes much more active after the sun goes down. So I suggested that it might be worth trying out some livebaits for tonight's outing. Astro agreed it was well worth an effort, so that made up part of our strategy. Lures were also factored into today's agenda, although I decided to experiment by placing a small green glowstick inside a black and gold squidgie shad in the hope that it's inner glow would prove irresistible to ravenous barra. It didn't.

We fished in a more concentrated area this time, focusing on where we knew for sure barramundi were feeding the night before. This time around, we threw practically everything at them, including a large collection of soft plastics, as well as live baitfish, unweighted and or underneath floats. As with the previous night, nightfall made the water come alive, with barra jumping around all over the place. Amazingly, however, once again we failed to manage a solitary hook up.

At around 9PM we were treated to an awesome demonstration of the real power of nature as a highly charged electrical storm moved in. It didn't look overly impressive from a distance but as it moved in ominously toward Teemburra, electrical energy manifesting from the storm became more and more obvious, with lightening now visibly striking from various directions around us. This caused me to stop and ponder the warning that accompanied the Nitro rods I'd acquired recently, which was a reminder that graphite rods have the ability to attract and conduct electricity and that under no circumstances should they be used in an electrical storm. Like this one.

Calm before the storm

But this wasn't just any electrical storm, or at least, it didn't seem that way. At one stage there was a brief window of opportunity as a large low-hanging cloud parted just before us, exposing what I can only describe as a tunnel of thick and highly charged storm cloud. The inside of this tunnel was like a washing machine of electrical energy and some of what we saw created by it was truly amazing. It started with what looked like a giant fireball bursting out of the tunnel, hugging the base of the clouds and speeding towards the earth. Astro later described it as looking like a meteorite. I agreed that the first one did look a lot like that, but this phenomenon occurred 2 more times in exactly the same spot soon after, all of them bursting out in a southerly direction. Each fireball created a definite 'whooshing' sound as they were were unleashed. Had we been any closer those whooshing sounds would have been a roar.

Soon after the fireballs had erupted, a huge bolt of lightening forked out from the tunnel, with hundreds of it's clustered arms stretching out along the base of nearby clouds. Stretching out, just looking for a conductive antenna to attach to... something a lot like my graphite rods perhaps. I'd never witnessed a lightening fork quite so menacing, or as close as this before... it all looked like something you'd expect to see in a Lord of the Rings movie. I've seen some impressive electrical storms in my time, but this was something else. It's proximity was also enough to make me decide to pull the pin once again - as awe-inspiring as it was, that last strike was getting just a bit too close for comfort. I only wish I had my DSLR camera at the ready when this happened, but sadly, I'd left it in the car.