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{{+1}}Hard body lures{{-1}}
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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 including, depending on your hard body lure selection, you can:
- Have more control over the depth your presenting your bait by selecting a hard body lure that intrinsically swims at a particular depth range.
- Pause a hard body lure once or multiple times part way through the retrieve times and allow the lure, depending on your hard body lure choice, to just hang where it is, sink at a particular rate or rise in the water column at a particular rate. Barra can watch a lure nose to lure for many seconds and then just out of the blue whilst it’s still paused, falling or rising, or as soon as the lure starts moving forward, take the lure.
- Whilst the lure is paused you can just twitch the rod tip to impart the smallest amount of movement on the hard bodied lure and that can be enough to trigger a take.
- Cast a buoyant diving lure a long way into or next to structure and before commencing the retrieve just let it sit there so nearby fish, or fish from a surprising distance away, can investigate the noise the hard body made as it landed. On some occasions hits will seem to be as if you landed the lure on a barra's head on other the hit may be as you commence the retrieve thus making the lure dive like a fleeing fish. On other occasions barra will follow a hard bodied almost back to the angler before striking.
- Similarly, if it’s a bibless floating lure when you commence retrieving it through or on the surface creating a ruckus that may trigger a food or territorial response from a barra … either way that can be a lot of fun.
In any case whilst employing these tactics work through the different casting techniques.
My hard bodied lure categories are basically arranged by swimming depth.
I have not tried to include separating colors in my categories and decide that before I tie a lure on.
For barra a pretty good rule of thumb is that a chrome or light belly is a good starting point for lure selection and during the light, in clear water natural colored backs on the selected lure is my preference with greens, olives, browns and blues being good choices. For water that is discolored brighter lures or blackish lures, that are more visible to barra, are an obvious choice. In the dark I like white or blackish lures.
Also make sure that you have some lures in your selection that have rattles and other that have non rattle and can be retrieved with stealth.
My lure selection below take the above criteria into account:
» Surface lures, Top 2 meters, Lures 2+ to 3.5 meters, Lures 3.5+ meters to 4.2 meters, Lures 4.2 meters plus,Surface lures
These are the hard bodied lures I use when targeting surface feeders.
Rapala x-Rap Walk 09
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 fin the swimming action is a little more erratic.
Top 2 meters
These hard bodied lures are the ones I use when target fish in shallow water, fish feeding just below the surface or above weed or in the tops of drowned timber.
Lures 2+ to 3.5 meters
These lures are all designed for fishing at depths between greater than 2 meters but less than 3.5 meters.
Halco Laser Pro 120
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 the lure.
Jackall Squirrel 79
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 late […]
Samaki Redic jerkbait DS 100
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. This colour is sandstorm and is a great colour for Awoonga barra … there are of course other fantastic colours in the range.
Yakamito Devil Edge 60
This a really neat small diving lure that dives down as much as 3 meters. I particularly like it because it’s a floating lure and if you feel your line or leader touch timber and immediately pause the retrieve the lure rises quick enough it to risen above the timber by the time you restart […]
Lures 3.5+ meters to 4.2 meters
These lures are designed to be fished at depths greater than 3.5 meters but less than 4.2 meters.
Lures 4.2 meters plus
These are the deepest running hard bodied lures I carry.
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Last Updated: February 1, 2021
Author: 
{{+1}}Candy – hardyhead{{-1}}
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Even for pelagics such as tuna, mackerel, queenfish & trevally matching the hatch is often critical to success. This fly is my version of a hardy head which is one of the baitfish that particularly tuna and queenfish target in Central Queensland but because of its form and function it's also a good representation of some other small baitfish that these hunters target.{{end}}
Categories: Big fish flies - temperate & tropical destinations, Flies
Tags: #fishonfly, Big fish flies, Tuna 
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{{+1}}Platypus’ continuing to die because of politicians passing the buck{{-1}}
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Fishing a stream and seeing a platypus how good is that ... well it seems that unless our politicians stop passing the buck and get on with the job of protecting them from "opera house yabby traps" our kids and grand kids may never experience that.
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The NSWCFA has been asking questions for many months about the delay in introducing regulations banning "opera house" style yabby traps in NSW. The traps are lethal to platypus, turtles and native water rats. Better designs that don't trap and kill animals are readily available. A ban on opera house traps was recommended a couple of years ago and we understand that regulations were drafted but have never been passed by Adam Marshall, Minister for Agriculture and Western New South Wales...responsible for all fisheries matters.
Since then we have seen nothing other than continuous buck passing by the government. We asked managers within DPI about the delay and were told that the recommendation had been sent to the Minister via the Recreational Fishing NSW Advisory Council. So we asked Minister Marshall about the delay, and we also asked Minister for Energy and the Environment, Matt Kean, who had expressed support for the ban in the past. We never got a sensible answer...we were just referred back to managers within DPI, none of whom had the power to get the regulation passed.
In September we even asked the Premier about the Minister's lack of action. She just referred us back to the Minister.
In the past week there have been calls by scientists for the government to classify platypus a threatened species; the platypus population has halved in the past 30 years according to a UNSW model, due to historic land clearing, river regulation, and extreme droughts. The area of eastern Australia where platypuses are found has shrunk by about 200,000 square kilometres (22 per cent) over that period.
The latest letter we received from Minister for Energy and the Environment, Matt Kean, on 18 November, is just more dithering. He states "I can confirm that the NSW Government remains supportive of banning opera house style traps and is looking to commence the prohibition as soon as effective community engagement activities can be undertaken in a COVID-19 safe way".
Well, the government announced as long ago as the beginning of April that recreational fishing was permitted during the COVID-19 lockdown. It's now December, and the government isn't capable of "effective community engagement activities" with recreational fishers? It's just the latest, flimsiest excuse for lack of action at both departmental and ministerial level.
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{{+1}}River access increased in Victoria{{-1}}
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Freeing the rivers
The Upper House has passed legislation to legalise camping on Crown Land with river frontage and grazing licences from September 2021, complementing recreational activities already permitted on Crown Land like fishing.
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This is a big step forward in delivering the State Government’s Target One Million commitment, which will make it easier for families to pitch a tent by a river somewhere, wet a line with friends, and enjoy Victoria’s great outdoors responsibly!
Fisheries Officers will play a key role in ensuring everyone does the right thing and extensive consultation with licence holders, fishers, traditional owners and regional communities will be undertaken soon.
Head to this link to read more about the news.
And click here to learn more about the proposed regulations.
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{{+1}}Molix Shad 140 swimbait{{-1}}
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This jointed soft plastic swim bait is ready to use straight out of the packaging and is a favorite of mine for deeper water.
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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 attention of close by barra even in discolored or moon lit waters.
Another plus is exposed hook on the top of the lure and a set of trebles under the head that together give this lure a very a good hook up rate.
Comes in a great range of colours with "321 - Black Gold Tiger" as shown above being my favorite.
It fishes well at a range of speeds and even on a slow roll it has a great action.
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{{+1}}Castaic Jerky J Swimbait 5 inch{{-1}}
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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.
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My three favorite colours are:
- Salt and pepper as in the top of the photo above
- Golden shiner
- Green Shad as in the bottom of the photo above
The three hooks that I rig this paddle tail soft plastic on are from top to bottom in the photo above:
- Owner Flashy Swimmer 5/0
- An alternative is to rig it on a 5/0 Owner twistlock to which has been added a few turns of lead wire that has well coated with a couple of layers of red nail polish.
- Owner Nitro Saltwater Pro 5/0 1/6 oz
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{{+1}}Bomber{{-1}}
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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.
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{{+1}}Yakamito Hyper Jerk 90 minnow{{-1}}
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{{+1}}Happy Rock Softies – grub{{-1}}
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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.
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Unfortunately Trevor passed away in a tragic boating accident at Lake Awoonga on 4th September 2020. A very sad day for our fishing community ... RIP Trevor.
This is the only grub soft plastic that I carry and I fish it with confidence in those very quiet times when we can see the fish on the sounder but they are not interested.
I rig it up weedless in two ways.
- The first is on a 5/0 Owner Flashy swimmer ... this can be fish as you please but the original retrieve that Trevor described to me was a very slow roll.
- An alternative is to rig it on a 5/0 Owner twistlock to which has been added a few turns of lead wire that has been well coated with a couple of layers of red nail polish.With such a small amount of weight this softy can be fished really slowly with the tip of the rod imparting gust a few twitches.
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{{+1}}Powerbait – Hollow Belly{{-1}}
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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
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Weedless hook presentations
In those cases The reason for that is that they are indeed hollow and so when a barra munches on them there is little resistance in squashing the lure and exposing the weedless hook and thus enhancing the chance of a hook up.
For the 6" hollow bellies the two weedless hook set up I favor are:
6/0 Owner Flashy Swimmer
6/0 1/6 oz TT Chinlock
For the 5" hollow bellies the two weedless hook set up I favor are:
5/0 Owner Flashy Swimmer
5/0 1/6 oz TT Chinlock
For the 5"
Jig presentations
For the 6" Hollow Belly the three hooks that I rig this paddle tail soft plastic on are from top to bottom in the photo above:
- Mustard Big Game Head Size 10/0 20 gram (7/10 oz)
- Mustard TT headlock size 7/0 1/4 oz and 3/8 oz
For the 5" Hollow Belly the three hooks that I rig this paddle tail soft plastic on are from top to bottom in the photo above:
- Mustard TT headlock size 5/0 1/6 oz and 3/8 oz
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