Barramundi

== I have fished the Boyne pretty much through all seasons and understand why it is regarded as one of the iconic fishing locations for the Gladstone Region. It can produces Barramundi all year round even though the number caught is often low. Other target species include Mangrove Jack, Grunter,…

== Gladstone is blessed with a lot of fishing options including iconic rivers such as the Boyne and Calliope rivers, Awoonga dam which is famous for its barra and of course expansive estuary waters including a 40 kilometer stretch of water between Curtis Island the Main land called The Narrows. On…

== The Narrows is a 40 or so kilometre stretch of water that runs between the mainland and Curtis island. For me the southern end of the Narrows as far north of the Crossing just below Ramsay Crossing is the gem of the estuary fishing in Gladstone. The reason I focus on that area is that it…

== Even though South Trees Inlet is connected to the Boyne River it is a separate water course in its own right. Historically it was an inlet with a problematic braid linking it to the Boyne River but the transfer of water from the Boyne River to the inlet was very light. Between 2002 and 2005…

==Awoonga Dam was created by damming the Boyne Rive with a  rock fill structure faced on the lake side with a concrete skirt to mitigate erosion in the case of overflows. The 650 odd meters of embankment is 540 meters high at its highest point and was built from rock excavated from a quarry on the…

A fly line is a fundamental piece of specialized equipment for the fly fisher. Modern fly lines are made from special polymer materials which are extruded around a core generally of monofiliment or more recently braid. The key difference of the two core materials to the fly fisherman are the…

Over time I have come to understand that there are two distinct classes of Barramundi in Lake Awoonga and other similar freshwater impoundments … "residents" and "travelers". Residents Barra are released into Lake Awoonga generally at a range of sizes from fingerlings to grown on fish of around…

The Jerky J Swimbait 5" is the little brother of the &' version. It's a great lure to employ at those times when barra are looking for smaller baits or when smaller baits that land softly are required. My three favorite colours are: Salt and pepper as in the top of the photo above Golden shiner…

There are very few fish that don’t eat prawns or at least shrimp. Prawns can be fished in a number of ways right through from horizontal rolls at various speeds and depths to long vertical or angled lifts and falls in the zone where fish are holding or even jumped back to the boat just above the…

This jointed soft plastic swim bait is ready to use straight out of the packaging and is a favorite of mine for deeper water. The form and a very fish like swimming action of this paddle tail are complemented by a small spinner under the the belly which adds just enough flash to bring it to the…

The Jackall Transam 95mm weighs 20g and is the first vibe that I caught barra on in Central Queensland and it is still my favorite. It sinks quickly and has a really tight vibration at a range of speeds. Effective across a wide range of retrieves from vertically vibing through schools of fish or…

Yakamito Hyper Jerk 90 jerk minnow – sardine

The Zerek Live Mullet is a jointed soft plastic swimbait that is built from the super strong TPE. They swim well reaching depths of around 2 meters on a slow roll and of course swim a little shallower on faster retrieves. They are available in 3.5", 4.5" and 5.5" sizes and in 13 colours. Like all…

This walk the dog type lure is an older model and the colours the orange chrome is no longer available. I was lucky to snag a couple of these at our local Tackle World. The new ones have a lateral tail fin that stabilizes the retrieve a little but I am happy without that because without the tail…

This just one of the Happy Rock softies that is a credit to its designer Trev Burgess. He gave me my fist one probably two years ago and I have been using them ever since. Unfortunately Trevor passed away in a tragic boating accident at Lake Awoonga on 4th September 2020. A very sad day for our…

"Plastec" is the name given by ZMan for their proprietary form of TPE material. It's different to the TPE material used in Zerek, Chasebait, Transams & Barumbah lures but still has to be stored away from traditional plastasol soft plastics. I store each of my straight TPE and Zerek TPE soft…

The Jerky J Swimbait 7" is one of just a handful of soft plastics I rely on when Barramundi fishing in competitions. Predominately this is a dusk, dawn or full moonlight soft plastic. My three favorite colours are: Green Shad as in the top of the photo above Boneless Chicken which is a translucent…

Slickrigs are one of the most successful soft plastics that "Squidgies" ever produced. In the 130mm size they come in packs of 4 lures fully rigged ready to fish … on that basis alone have been a popular barra lure for a number of years. When I started to get involved in competition barra fishing…

Powerbait hollow belly soft plastics are available in 5" and 6" versions and I use them for both weedless and jig hook presentations. The four colours that I use are: Tennessee shad Hitch Bone shad Blue gill Weedless hook presentations In those cases The reason for that is that they are indeed…

Bombers in general are a very well known lure and it's likely that one or more colours are represented in lure boxes across Australia than any other lure. They have a retrieve depth of 2-3 feet when cast but on a longer troll swim down to 4-8 feet even at a slow speed. Bomber BMB Long The brown…

FIRST PUBLISHED:(3 October 2022)   This is a hybrid of two very different types of lures … a prawn imitation and a grub tail soft plastic. Both those types of lures have their place but I have to say that this combination, my grub tail prawn, has earned a place in my tackle box as a…

The Westin "Bony the Bream Vibe is 100mm and 30g of weight and is one of my favourite Vibes particularly in stripy perch (black/orange) & smelt (which is basically white with a little orange). If barramundi, fingermark, mangrove jack, make up any of your fishing tastes then you have a new best…

The Belista Juggernaut is unique in that it has a built in flashing light at the tail that comes on when the lure gets wet. I over-paint my Juggernaut's in two popular barra colours. The first is gold with black bars and the second is black with chartreuse bars. In each case the area where the…

Whilst the Zerek Ripper Diver was designed with trolling in mind, the Ripper Diver incorporates a weight transfer system that enhances its casting distance. It's a floating lure which is handy when fishing around snags and on the cast swims at around 3 meters. The side to side wobbling produces…

This is a lure I have added to my Coastal and estuary lure box particularly for barred grunter. Grunter turn up in our estuaries and rivers during summer and will often stay there until heavy rain makes it too dirty for their liking. In times of low rain they may stay in their summer abode right…

Like the Belister Juggernaut this lure has unique properties that have earned it a place in my hard body lure boxes. It's not a an every day lure for me and only comes out to play when fishing for barra I can see in deeper water when I have my Garmin's set in "Perspective" mode. Being relatively…

This is one of the bigger soft plastics that I carry and is only pipped for size by my 8" top pour soft plastics. Both these big lures generally get a swim any time I am fishing in low light or in dirty water. This is the biggest of the DieZel Minnows that I use and I like it because the Z Man…

This is my favorite medium size soft plastic paddle tail swim bait and has a great mullet shaped profile and realistic swimming action at any speed. I rig it in two ways. On TT Headlock jig heads generally in 1/4 oz and 3/8 oz sizes It has a big advantage over most other paddle tails rigged on jig…

This is a fantastic lure from my point of view and and one that carry in all sizes except 165mm. The three sizes I carry are 65mm, 95mm an 10mm. All 4 sizes come in an extensive range of colours. Even when the lure is sitting on the bottom, the slightest current will have the tail pulsating and…

I am pretty sure that barramundi take these long thin soft plastics as garfish which are a popular food source for Barramundi. The Alpha Gar is based on my Hammer Variant with the main difference being it is much thinner. Like my Hammer Variant as well as a very active tail the Alpha Gar have a…

With a diving depth of 8 feet on the cast the original Barra Bait has been one of the most popular Barra lures in Australia for many years and is still a great option particularly on the troll. This classic design has been responsible for some of the largest Barra ever caught in Aussie waters!

The 25A features the trademark Bomber tight wiggle and rolling movement that creates a life-like swimming action. This is a deep swimming lure and swims at 12-15 feet on the cast and 20-25 feet on the troll. Deep Long A Lures produce the same seductive action whether fished with a slow retrieve or…

One of my favourite past times is dusk and night fishing for big barramundi in Lake Awoonga. To be successful in the dark it's important to have the right gear at hand and knowing where each item is. My Lake Barra check list helps in that regard … there is a place for everything and everything is…

Although mainly trolled, the Scorpion 150 is a great casting lure for big salt and fresh water barra. On the cast it swims down to 3 meters. The “butterknife” tail aid in easy casting and the lure quickly descends to around 3 meters. When trolling areas of structure, the buoyancy of the lure and…

  Quicklinks   Plastisol is a high quality liquid soft plastic that is Phthalate free and is the common base material for most soft plastic lures. Lures made of this material should not be stored with lures based on Elastec material such as Zman lures or lures made of TPE materials such…

  Quicklinks   Plastisol is a high quality liquid soft plastic that is Phthalate free and is the common base material for most soft plastic lures. Lures made of this material should not be stored with lures based on Elastec material such as Zman lures or lures made of TPE materials such…

As fresh and salt water lure that on the cast has swim depth of 10+ feet and on the troll it swims a little deeper. The Classic 120 Barra has an unmatched tournament-winning heritage and for many years was the first choice of all serious Barramundi anglers. It has slipped from that position these…

This is the deepest swimming lure that I carry and on the cast can swim at a depth of 20 feet. The River Rat is a stand-out general purpose saltwater lure, that is great for both casting & trolling. I carry just one colour and that is the Bobby dazzler gold.

The Pointer 100XD is an extra-deep diving jerkbait. It has a reputation of swimming straight from the moment you take it out of the pack. Off the cast it has a swim depth of 10 feet. I often use this lure when the water is colder and barra are sulking in deeper water. Gunmetal shad – a very flashy…

The Jackall Super Squirrel 115 lures was released as bigger brother to the Jackall Squirrel 79 in 2020. They are Hank tuned and consequently they come out of the box already tricked up with hardware suitable for barra. The super Squirrel swims at 4 meters and is currently only available in a silent…

Process: In the example below I am making two 46g two layered soft plastics. So in this case that will take 92g of material. The bottom layer is deeper and will use about 60% of that and the top layer is only about 7mm thick so it will use only the remaining 40 % of material. For each colour I also…

One of the things I still enjoy about fly fishing is tying a fly and then catching a fish on that fly … it's a fantastic sense of achievement. Unfortunately fly fishing options around where I live in Central Queensland are limited by strong prevailing winds and strong tidal flows so more often…

This colour is called Olive Scale and it has a diving depth of only 1-2 meters. This fills a gap in my hard body lure box for a relatively shallow diving lure in natural colours for use around structure and weed banks and weed bombies.

On 29th September I was fortunate to be invited by Scott McAuley, who I have fished with socially on quite a few occasions, to partner up with him to fish the 2020 Venom – Lake Awoonga Open. The competition was made up of three sessions, one on each of Tues 29th Sep, day two on 30th September and…

We are very lucky in Central Queensland (AKA "CQ) to have an extensive range of big fish that we can target. That includes but is not limited to the species listed below. Barramundi (both freshwater & saltwater) Kingfish (Yellowtail and Cobia) Lutjanids (Mangrove Jack & Fingermark) Javelin fish…

This post is a work in progress and lists the different species of fish I have landed on fly in Central Queensland. I have had a look through my photos from the last couple of years and added those that I have found but there are still some photo gaps which I'll add as I find the photos or will…

The Zerek Fish Trap lipless crankbait has a unique design that integrates the action of a vibe with the versatility of a soft plastic as well as a grub tail adds another vibrating hot spot to the lure both when being retrieved and even in response to the smallest movement when on the pause. Made…

Jackall Squirrel lures are all Hank tuned and consequently they come out of the box already tricked up with hardware suitable for barra. The original 79mm version swim off the cast at around 3 meters and a little deeper on the troll and come in a version including rattles and a silent version. In…

  Quicklinks   There are times when the right bait for barra is a hard bodied lure. Selecting the right style and swimming depth of hard bodied lure is definatley one of the keys to that process. You can do things with hard bodied lures that you can’t do with any of the soft plastics…

Historically, weedless soft plastic paddle tails have had a poor reputation for hook up rate because the soft plastic material does not compress enough when a barra takes the bait. This ingenious soft plastic paddle tail has all the fish attracting capabilities of other soft plastic paddle tails…

These are expensive lures at about $40 a pop but there are times when thay can be gamchangers so it would be a sham not to have one or two in you kit. The Barambah Bony Shad Lure has interchangeable weights that allow anglers to set the depth. The slow to medium sinking shad can be fished from 1…

The SugaPen 120mm is a uniquely designed dog walker. This lure is designed to splash with it cupped face, like a popper, but have the advantages of being a dog walker which attracts more fish. The colour I have selected is GT287 which is silver with a little bit of orange under the chin. This is…

This is one of those lures that has stood the test of time. Originally designed as a barra lure for Northern Territory fisheries the B52 had evolved into a popular Australia lure for not only barra but for many other fresh and saltwater species. This lure swims at around 1.5 meters and fills a gap…

This is a silent running suspending lure that dives to the depth of 3M+ and one of my favorite lures for prospecting around weed beds and other structure. Samaki REDIC are crafted of the highest quality materials, ABS body is the best in its class, offering unmatched strength and crisp clear bib to…

The L120 swims at around 2.5M on the cast and just a little lower than that on the troll. The cast has a straight tradectory because the weights move to the rear of the lure and then as the retrieve starts the weights lock in place back towards the front of the lure enhancing the swimming action of…

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