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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 Eastern side of the dam wall. The concreted spillway is 40 meters high and provision has been allowed in the design to increase the height by adding gates on the top of the spillway if necessary. As the dam stands at the moment it has a capacity of 777,000 mega liters.
 

How to get there

Lake Awoonga is located around 25 kilometers south west of Gladstone. It is well sign posted and if you head south from Gladstone through Calliope or Benaraby on the road to Brisbane it's hard to miss. Having said that if once your on the Bruce Highway and your heading south toward Brisbane and you get to the Boyne river you have gone just a kilometer or so past the final Awoonga turn off.
 

Open season

Lake Awoonga is open all year and the Barramundi closed season does not apply to Lake Awoonga. There are no licence fees payable to fish Lake Awoonga.
 

Services & ramp; facilities available

The main ramp is a double concrete boat ramp situated just north of the dam wall. The ramp has parking for around 15 boats and trailers at the ramp itself and there are additional parking provisions just uphill from the ramp. If you park on those higher parking spaces be prepared for a short walk from the ramp parking but that is not generally a problem.

A pontoon is under construction at that ramp and that is expected to make launching and retrieving boats so much easier particularly when westerly winds are blowing head on into the ramp.

The point just before the boat ramp has a amenities including toilets and a number of picnic tables. Some of those are quite elaborate with covered 'gazebos'.

Between the boat ramp and the dam wall there is a boat hire facility and just above that, with a great view of the lake, there  is a caravan and camping park with its own shop. What else could you ask for.

In 2023 a second ramp (the Trevor Burgess Boat Ramp) was built at Western end of the lake at Boynedale Bush Camp. That is a single lane concrete ramp. Unfortunately there are no facilities at that ramp at this stage.
 

Lake species

The lake is well stocked with Barramundi and they are the main draw card for anglers.

The lake is also stocked with several baitfish and holds large populations of Mullet, Snub-nose Garfish, Banded Grunter and Bony Bream.

In the lakes early days the lake it was also stocked with Bass and Mangrove Jack and Sooty Grunter and whilst those stockings were not as successful as the Barra stockings there are still small numbers of Bass and Mangrove Jacks in the lake.

There is also small natural populations of Saratoga, Silver Perch, Sleepy Cod, Yellowbelly, Agassiz's, Glass Perch, Eastern Rainbowfish, Specked Hardyhead, , Gudgeon, Long-finned Eel, Longtom, Mouth Almighty, Spangled Perch and finially small numbers of  Hyrtl’s Tandan as well as a well established large population of Forktail Catfish.

Barramundi in the 10–25 kg range are regularly caught and the largest barramundi caught to date was 29.8kg.
 

Stocking

Since 1996, over 3 million barramundi fingerlings and 500,000 mullet fingerlings have been released into the Lake.

The Gladstone Area Water Board has a fish breeding program in place and breeds Barramundi and Mangrove Jack for stocking into Lake Awoonga as well as some of the surrounding waterways. Approximately 200,000 fish are released into Lake Awoonga each year made up of 200,000 Barramundi and small numbers of Mangrove Jack.

Stocked fish are bred at a purpose-built fish hatchery on the shore of Lake Awoonga, operated by the Gladstone Area Water Board.The Board has a continuing fishery monitoring program in place using net surveys, to evaluate the success of the restocking effort.
 

Food chain

With the abundance of food sources Barra grow at about twice the rate they would have in the wild.
 

Food sources are made up of a well-balanced phytoplankton and populations of nymphs and shrimp drowned terrestrials including, beetles, hoppers and cicada but the main elements in the food chain for barra are bony bream from just a few centimeters in length to hand size fish, mullet of a range of sizes, snub nose garfish, barred grunter and catfish, red claw, and the list goes on,
 

Tackle set ups

Barra in Awoonga can be targeted on a wide range of gear. I have set out below the gear I favour:

Fly gear.

Dark side gear.

There is no doubt about it … lures catch more fishos than fish.

If you walk into any fishing shop these days you can expect to find a wall or walls of all sorts of lures … wow, where to start. Well, I am confident that the lures in just my 4 barramundi lure boxes provide me with enough ammunition to target barramundi in almost any situation
 

Fly suggestions

Barramundi are suckers for many of the flies in my Tropical fly box.
 

Dark side suggestions

The dark side I alluded to above includes techniques other than fly fishing such as: Soft Plastics, Hard Body Lures, Vibes, TPE Swim Baits etc.

Hot spots

Trolling was by far the the preferred method of fishing in Lake Awoonga for many years but over time it seems to me that fishing with all sorts of artificial bait has taken the lead.

Awoonga fish and particularly Barramundi go deeper in summer, to find the cooler water and go to more shallow in winter, to find the warmer water.In summer whilst fish will venture into shallower bays to feed you will find those shallow areas adjacent to deep drop offs and associated structure will be more productive than structure that is a long way from deep water.  Regardless of the season 1 or 2 degrees makes a difference.

Most of the target species move through different habitats according to the seasons and lake levels but as a general rule its a good starting point for the fly fisher to target  the shallow bays in cooler months as often fish are searching for food and more comfortable water temperatures and in the winter months work over bays  that have plenty of fallen timber and bank structure. In winter if you can find a bay with fallen timber and a breeze blowing warmer surface water into it all the better.

For more on that check out my post headed "Barramundi - freshwateer".

Keep any eye out for the cormorants - they know where the bait fish are schooling up. If you do find fish on the surface you would be bonkers if you don't to pepper the area with your longest casts as the predator fish wont be far away.

My favourite locations:

These are all areas I have explored and now consider as target locations as I work through the key triggers that I have described above.

ON THE SOUTH EAST SIDE OF THE LAKE

1. Iveragh Creek arm

From the boat ramp travel South past the dam wall the big SE bay in front of you ... that is the Iveragh Creek arm. Big Creek and the heavy tree structure on the NE side are great locations asis the back side of Kens Bay the point you pass to enter Kens Bay and Kens Bay itself are always worth a close look. Moving further into Kens Bay Horse Gully is a favourite location for resident fish.
 

• The standing timber on the LH side as you enter Iva
• Kens Bay … the points on each side and the three back waters
• McDonalds bay to the west of Wedge tail Island … the points on each side and the gutter between the land and the shallow area.
2. New Zealand Gully

The biggest bay ... about half way up the main basin on the NE side.

• weed beds at the back of the main arm
• weed beds along back bay on the east side
• weed beds along back two bay on the west side
• dirty water at back of bays
• Riverston Creek arm

The NE arm of Awoonga and just to the NE of the ramp.

• weed beds
• standing timber
• Gold Mine

The first big point as you travel south in the main basin. Tortice bay and Grevillia Creek Bay offer some great options.

• Point
• Tortoise Bay Timber.
• First bays to right and left of Tortise Bay.
• Eagles Bay

This is the next big bay up from Grevillia Creek Bay and there are a couple of timber banks at he back of the bay that can be fantastic.

• Middle Creek
• Windward banks
• Dingo Island
• Along the Eastern side.
• Bays and deep water behind.
• Futter creek
• 4-5 meter deep flats coming off weedy points
• Timber structure
• Weed gardens and towers up toward the disused rail bridge.

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