Yes, it’s officially brown jocks month with November being the best time of the year to tangle with the big mangrove jacks that haunt our local creeks and rivers.

This time last year the Baffle was fresh nearly to the mouth and it really didn’t produce as well in the upper reaches. This year, barring a surprise heavy downpour, the upper reaches should fire with the ferry crossing being the place to start and head up. All the old favourites will get bites, PrawnStar Juniors in the pink and honeypot, Tilsan Barras in pink herring and gold and of course the Berkley Frenzy Popper in the purple or gold. The best way to fish these is to get to the ferry crossing early in the morning coinciding with low tide and just start working your way up the river as the tide rises. You will need to move quickly as when the November tides move they really push in hard. Fish the surface poppers around any fast moving currents, then try the PrawnStars in the deeper snags and switch to the Tilsans around the rock bars.

This month will see the barra in the river start to push closer to the mouth so before the pros net them get into them.

Try trolling hardbodies around the deeper holes near the ferry crossing and even a few live baits fished on the edge of the north wall at night might connect you to one of the barra in the system. There have been quite a few barra caught in the river this year thanks to the flash flood last year washing them from farm dams into the system.

The flathead have really been turning it on and all those beginner soft plastic anglers should be taking advantage of their abundance.

I have managed to catch that dam barra bug again and have been putting a fair bit of time in on Lake Awoonga and a bit on Monduran.

We filmed an impoundment barra DVD recently and thanks to a heads up from the Awoonga guru Jason Wilhelm, we had a session of 8 fish over a metre, the biggest up to 117cm. All these fish were taken on Berkley 5” Mullets in relatively deep water not unlike a schooled bass bite. It was great fun.

I have also been getting fish in the dam on my favourite jack hard body, the Tilsan Barra, pausing this lure for long periods just on the edges of the weed. The fish just can’t help but eat it, not unlike the jelly bean theory. So if you want to do it, do it this month. Just don’t forget your brown jocks.