Tuesday 7, Sep 2010
For those of you who have followed Rob Paxevanos' various adventures fishing for barramundi in Lake Monduran in Southeast Queensland, you'll know he is a massive fan of the place. Local guide and barra guru, Rob Wood provides us with an update and reports that rising water levels in Lake Monduran in Queensland are making the barra fishing tough but that the future after A LOTrecent rain is brighter than ever...
Lake Monduran may be mistaken for the new inland sea west of Gin Gin, as the rain has has begin to fall like never before over Queensland. The Fred Haigh Dam (Monduran) has risen from a level of 24% of capacity to 77% in just two months. This has been great news for everyone, especially local farmers, but the poor old barramundi is struggling with its new environment.
This might seem ironic to most people, but with the area receiving good rain prior to the major downfall that came from our near miss here with a cyclone, the ground was already very fertile, resulting in very long grass up to nearly one metre high around the edges of the dam. When the large downpour came producing even more rain, the long grass, new trees and saplings went underwater and these in turn, started to decay, de-oxygenating the water. The ultimate result has been that the water in more wind protected areas of the dam has gone sour, giving off a strong sulphur smell. Fish kills have been noticeable in these areas.
Most of the barra in Monduran have gone to deeper areas of the dam to hang out and are usually seen on the sounder in up to 12 metres of water. Barramundi are hard to target at this depth and in the recent barra tournament run here by Matt Fraser, the results reflected this fact. Although better than expected numbers were caught, the fish were smaller than usual with an average size of 61.6cm for the 37 barra caught on the weekend.
The winning team was Daniel Gretch and Belinda Watson with eight (8) fish for a total length of 686cm. Daniel and Belinda are Rapala sponsored team and use hard bodied lures as their main fishing arsenal and won $1,000 cash and one of the best barra trophies I have seen. The barra trophy was a fiberglass moulded barra mounted on a timber stained block with the fish mounted in the jumping position. To top things off, Belinda was also crowned "Champion Woman" of the barra tournament.
Coming second, was team Halco with Jason Ehrlich and local "whipper-snapper", Tommy Wood. Jason cracked a pattern early in his pre-fish time on the dam using a Transam style lure but on the first day of the tournament, Tommy throwing a Rapala X-Rap suspending hard-body caught the first fish of the tournament, twelve minutes after the start.
These pair not only had the place to catch the fish but the right lure and technique to do so. Tommy went on to catch three fish the first day and Jason, two fish the next day. Tommy dropped one on the second day to come second, paired with Jason. Jason took out the "Biggest Barra" of the tournament at 105cm while Tommy took out the "Junior Angler", and "First Fish Caught" prizes and paired with Jason won $600 cash with other goodies for their trouble.
Glenn Smith and Michail Weick also cracked the pattern early in the piece and while failing to put fish on the board in the tournament, caught plenty during the prefish. Local Tackleworld identities Splitpin Leather and Tim Mulhall also had a good tournament boating three fish.
In Lake Monduran terms, the fishing was ordinary to say the least, with the 36 anglers participating catching only 37 fish over the weekend. Lake Monduran is going to take some months to get back to its old self but when it does it will be a much larger arena with some of the best barra fishing on the east coast of Australia.
If you persist in trying your luck at the moment, the best technique is using Rapala suspending lures, throwing close to the bank in shallow water and suspending the lure for up to 30 seconds. You can also try bouncing the Transam lure across the bottom with the fish hitting the lure on the flutter down. Tommy’s favorite colour in the Rapala X- Rap suspending lures is the "Hot Steel" and mine is the "Glass Ghost" and only good tackles stores will carry these lures.
Rob Wood
