Posts Tagged ‘prawn’

Mud prawn – large 9cm or 10cm long

This is the biggest version of my Mud Prawn Fly and the one that I use when chasing barramundi in relatively clear salt water around structure such as drowned timber. It's a very durable fly that swims hook point up so that it's fairly snag resistant. It is designed not only to provide a representation of a prawn that is readily taken by barra of all sizes but it can be crept slowly over logs and other structure giving the maximum time for fish to respond, can be fished like a soft plastic or can be fished as a faster moving fleeing prawn.

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Spring comes early

Based on my diary what I call spring for the Boyne River in Central Queensland arrived about 20th August last year and the year before. This tear I reckon that it arrived a week earlier. The criteria I bases that on is a dramatic change in the weather patterns and the behaviour of budding fruit trees ... last week several local fruit trees were suddenly ablaze with their spring blooms. That followed just a couple of "Indian summer days" following a relatively cold snap. Now cold snaps in Central Queensland are mild at the best of times with overnight temperatures dropping down to around 8 degrees. This week the overnight temperatures are back up to around 15 degrees and the daytime temperatures up to 29 degrees.

Water temperatures have been on the climb as well and that has got the barra moving.

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Yesterday was a good start for the season with 3 barra landed of which two were between 60 and 70 cm plus a couple of other fish including a bream and a couple of small queenfish.

Water temperatures ranged fro 21.2 to 25.8 during the day with the fish most active around mid day when the water was a balmy 24 degrees.

Note the barra hooked jut off the edge of the gill plate!

W.I.P. barramundi variant of my sand stripper that I am testing

This 2/0 9cm fly is a barra variant of my mud prawn that I am testing.

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Topwater sand stripper

This fly is modelled on the most successful estuary and inshore fly that I have ever fished with my prawn fly. For me in those shallow water salt water environments where you need a fly that you can fish deep in and around snags and other structure, can be fished at a range of depths depending on fly line and retrieve and swims hook point up to reduce hooking up on that very structure that holds fish my prawn fly out-fishes every other fly I have tried.

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Mud prawn – medium 7cm to 8cm long

In my experience that are very few fish, that we as fly fishers target, that will not readily eat a prawn or a shrimp. This fly is designed to not only to provide representation of a prawn or shrimp that is readily taken by fish but a fly that can be fished like a soft plastic or a faster moving fleeing prawn or shrimp and on top of that a fly that is durable and swims hook point up so that it's fairly snag resistant.

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Rattle prawn

This is quite a realistic prawn or shrimp imitation and incorporates a little bit of flash and a rattle in the body. Its particularly useful as a salt water polaroiding fly when just a twitch is often enough inducement for a strike and in murky water where a stop start strip gets the rattle working. I tie it in Root Beer / Pearl, Olive / Chartreuse and Pink / pearl but other colour combinations also work.

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Straggle shrimp

I always fish it on a fast sink line with a leader of around 8 or 9 feet. The best retrieve is similar to spinning soft plastics i.e. jerky movements with plenty of pauses to let the fly to settle back on the bottom. Used in this way it's a good representation of a shrimp or prawn fleeing from its sandy or weedy retreat after being disturbed.

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Mud prawn – small 5cm to 6cm long

The mud prawn is my first choice of fly for general prospecting in estuary waters or for targeting, whiting, flathead and bream. In water of only a meter or so fish it on an intermediate line. In deeper water I prefer to fish it on a sinking line. The best retrieve is a jerky but slow retrieve leaving plenty of time between strips for he fly to settle back on the bottom. used in this way it's a good representation of a prawn fleeing from its sandy retreat after being disturbed.

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