2019 Barra Tournament Angler Guide

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2019 zerek barra tour calendar

Springboarding from the successful Zerek BARRA Tour, ABT is excited about the 2019 calendar.

It’s only one event longer, but what a cracker it will be! The Venom Rods BARRA Australian Open will be launched in Lake Awoonga in September, and according to local Awoonga guide Justin Nye, the timing couldn’t be better.

As the water warms in September, Awoonga’s current barra crop will be feeding up big time, and the positioning of the event as a mid-week, live scoreboard barra spectacle means that you’re not fighting the weekend warriors for a crack at these fish.

Check out Justin Nye’s article inside to get a real head start on this event.

Justin spends more time on this lake than nearly anyone, and he has handed out some pretty useful info. ABT’s motto is ‘Who Shares Wins’, and he has shared for us all.

For several years, the Zerek BARRA Tour has been

DATE

LOCATION

EVENT

SPONSOR

SESSION TIMES

10-12 Sept

Lake Awoonga

BARRA Australian Open (Evening 3-day Event)

Venom Rods

2pm - 10pm

8 Nov

Kinchant Dam

BARRA Tour Round #1 (Evening Event)

Power-Pole

4pm - 12am

9 Nov

Teemburra Dam

BARRA Tour Round #2 (Evening Event)

Edge Rods

4pm - 12am

11 Nov

Peter Faust Dam

BARRA Tour Round #3 (Night Event)

Samaki

4pm - 8am

13-14 Nov

Peter Faust Dam

BARRA Tour Round #4 (Evening 2-day Event)

Wilsons

4pm - 12am

using the ABT Tournament Series app (powered by Track My Fish) to log and record catches, however the lakes on the traditional BARRA Tour are often out of mobile phone coverage.

Kinchant is the only one that has 100% reception, and that event is just as exciting for anglers following off the water as it is for competitors. Last year, the lead chopped and changed until the final minutes.

The Open will be the same. Featuring 100% cash paybacks as well as around $5,000 in Venom Rods prizes and a spectacular perennial trophy, we know you’ll want to be able to tell the story that you were there at the first BARRA Australian Open. With the BREAM and BASS Aus Opens firmly entrenched in the calendars, we know that the resurgent Awoonga event will be the start of something special.

The other lesson we have learned in the Zerek BARRA Tour is: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We have added a single rest day

between events 2 and 3, and that’s it. The waxing moon, the time of year and the lake rotation all stays the same for this epic barra trip that suits newbies and tournament veterans alike.

There’s no better way to fast track your barra learning curve than to spend time with those anglers who excel at it. In recent years, competitors have been proud to share their knowledge. Just take a look at the 2018 BARRA Tour Team of the Year. Geoff Newby and Phill Lyons do their thing extremely well, and they’re happy to share all of the gear and techniques that they use inside this magazine. We hope that you enjoy their take on the Team of the Year title, and it might just give you the confidence to give it a go.

Remember that all new teams are welcome to either of these events – it’s not a secret club – and the fishing looks to be as good as ever.

I hope to see y’all on the Tour or at the Open. – Steve Morgan, ABT Director

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FLAT SHAD 7" & 9"

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"The barra really crunch this lure hard so hang onto your tackle..."

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Zerek BARRA Tour’s top Four on the Floor MACKAY

Stephen Booth

Tournament anglers are unlike anything else you will find in the fishing world.

They are pedantic, intuitive and exceptional. They discover the best of the best in lures, and quickly work out alterations or additions to get the most from these plastic and timber offerings. Rarely

is a lure fished by a barra tournament angler ‘straight out of the box’.

Their penchant for tinkering goes against the efforts that lure designers and manufacturers put into their lures to get them right. However, clued-in manufacturers can learn valuable lessons from these switched-on anglers. Of course, the ultimate aim is to deliver a lure that anglers

The 5.5” Live Mullet was an immediate success for the Wells Brothers on Proserpine’s barra.

can literally take out of the box and tie on with absolute confidence, and that’s as it should be.

While bream and bass fishers are moderate tinkerers, barra tournament anglers are elite tinkerers. I’m yet to run across a barra tournament angler who has not changed split rings, swapped over hooks, boiled soft plastics or cut extra nicks into a tail – all in an effort to get that extra 1% they are striving for daily.

The reason is simple – that 1% may be the difference between coming first or last.

At Zerek we thoroughly test all our lures before they are released, as do most manufacturers. We are happy to say that anglers can use our lures straight out of the box and catch fish, but barra tournament anglers find ways to modify the lure’s set-up to meet their needs.

I don’t take any of this tinkering as a sign of poor design. I prefer to look at it as elite level anglers seeing something they really like in our lures, and taking the time to adjust it to suit their needs.

It’s a real win-win for us, as we get loads of ideas for our next lure and some very solid feedback from the players who set the trends in fishing.

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The big paddle tail and easily crushed body of the Flat Shad allow for great hook sets.

Very occasionally we will release a lure that is on point and needs no adjustment or retrofitting of components – a lure that everyone is comfortable using straight out of the box. The Fish Trap series, fitted out with 4x strong Mustad Saltism trebles, is one of the few lures that barra impoundment anglers can literally use straight out of the box!

However, this lure does not suit every application tournament anglers fish. Some anglers still cut into the body and remove grams of lead, others are experimenting with assist-style hooks, still others are using lure pens to change the colours to suit. Tinkerers will be tinkerers!

We’re lucky to have a number of very keen tournament barra anglers who choose to use our lures, and I’ve taken the time to talk to four of them about a particular Zerek lure and how they get the best from it in the heat of tournament battle. I deliberately asked them not to be afraid of telling me the whole story. I want to know

what changes they make to get that extra 1% in the end result. I want to know how the lure is best used and, more importantly, I want all of you to know these secrets too.

Let’s get into it and look

a habit of working out exactly how to get the best from a number of Zerek Lures, and their immediate love for the Live Mullet when chasing Faust’s big silver slabs was obvious.

This barra nailed the Zerek Fish Trap on a vertical presentation. at the four Zerek lures you must have on this year’s Zerek BARRA Tour.

WELLS BROTHERS ZEREK LIVE MULLET 5.5” Nick and Matt have made

“The Live Mullet showed up in 2017 and was an instant hit,” said Matt. “We were fishing and filming at Faust with Harro (Rod Harrison) just after they were released, and after a few good meteries

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The Zerek Flat Shad is a great search bait for barra in the impoundments.

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Tournament Angler Guide

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his words were, ‘Nice one boys, it’s a bloody game changer’.

“We first fished them on a rising dam, and the smaller profile was great for fishing

soft lure is amazing,” he said.

“Whether you fish it hard and fast or soft and gentle, the life-like tail will be pumping from the first turn of your reel to the last.”

applications, Matt said that they like to upgrade the treble to a size 1/0 Mustad 4x strong Saltism for that extra bit of sting and strength.

“The extra width of the

Robbie and Dicko caught this double header on Zerek Fish Traps vertically jigging them to a deep snag that had fish stacked all over it. right up in the shallows in the newly flooded grass and sticks.”

It was an epic first trip for the boys, and confirmed their initial thoughts that these lures would be a game changer.

Nick said that they like to fish the Mullet in depths ranging from 3-12ft, but added that it can also be very productive fishing deeper.

“The versatility of this

A medium to fast retrieve with a few quick rips of the rod gets the Mullet dancing around the water column and can help to get that reaction bite out of those lock-jawed fish. It’s really quite a sight when you first see the Live Mullet doing its thing in the water!

Although the Live Mullet can be fished straight out of the box for a lot of

1/0’s gauge can also help to pin those inquisitive, swiping fish,” Matt said.

In regards to colour, Nick said that their colours of choice for Faust are min min, fat betty, temmy and orange gill.

“These three colours have been standouts from day one,” Nick said, “and they have each delivered many of Faust’s magical meteries to the net.”

LOCHIE REED - FISH TRAP Lochie Reed is a gun at interpreting sounders and making the right lure and techniques choices from these observations and, over the last couple of Zerek BARRA Tours, has come to rely on the Fish Trap for a lot of work.

“When turning up to fish it can take some time to understand what’s happening with all the variables,” Lochie said. “The first thing I do is look for barra on the sounder and try to understand what they are doing, and then hatch a plan to catch them.

“The most critical element is what to cast at the barra to trigger a bite, and nearly always my first choice is a Zerek 95mm Fish Trap.

“Why? Versatility!”

The Fish Trap can be fished in many ways and at many depths, making it the perfect prospecting lure.

Barra can be fickle critters, and presenting a lure just right can be the difference between donuts or winning a competition. This is seen all the time on Tour, where one team can be fishing right beside another, throwing similar lures, and only one team is getting the bites.

“Fishing the Zerek BARRA Tour for the last few years has put into perspective how important it is to crack a

pattern quickly,” Lochie said.

“Running over a week and with events on three different dams, anglers need to be able to adapt to each dam’s requirements.”

Lochie said that the Fish Traps can be cast at weed edges to tempt barra in Kinchant just as easily as it can be vertically presented to barra in Peter Faust and Teemburra in snag piles. It is this versatility that allows barra tournament anglers to use the Fish Trap at all the venues the Tour visits.

“The Fish Traps are ready to fish straight out of the box,” said Lochie. “We

do experiment with them occasionally by changing hooks and rings to make them lighter or heavier depending on what we need to do, but on most occasions, they are fished as they come.

All in all, the Fish Trap is versatile, strong and easy to fish. With four different sizes, there is a Fish Trap to match whatever the barra are feeding on at the time, and at any of the locations fished.

“I wouldn’t even think about fishing the BARRA Tour without an assortment of fish traps in different sizes and To page 6

Faust barra love smashing the Zerek Live Mullet 5.5” whether that’s in the trees, over the weeds or over the flats.

FRENCH DESIGN FOR TOURNAMENT ANGLERS

4”

5”

8”

5”

6”

5” 8” rigged

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Tournament Angler Guide

From page 5

colours in my kit,” Lochie said.

TROY DIXON LIVE SWIMBAIT Troy ‘Dicko’ Dixon is a well-known identity on the Zerek BARRA Tour, and he uses the Tour to test many Zerek lures before release to the general public. It puts him in a position to really understand the lures and how to get the most from them.

The 8” Live Swimbait holds a special place in Dicko’s heart, delivering him a metre-plus barra on the very first cast with the lure while pre-fishing for the 2018 Tour.

This lure also delivered his largest impoundment barra over the 120cm mark! So it’s

fair to say this is a lure that can deliver on the big stage.

“The best time to use the Live Swimbait is when you see fish sitting off the bottom or holding mid-water,” Dicko said. “These fish are a little more active than the weed dwellers, and respond well to the big bait.

“When I see these fish on the sounder I will cast the lure towards the fish and allow it to sink to the just above the fish’s depth, and then start a slow retrieve with lots of pauses.”

It’s interesting to note here that the Live Swimbait sinks in freshwater at a rate of a foot a second without additional weight, allowing for fairly precise positioning of the lure

Dark lures are becoming a real game changer for impoundment barra and the green sunset colour in the Zerek Fish Trap has proven itself during testing and after release since May 2019.

abt.org.au

The blended frog patterned Fish Trap is a new colour that had immediate success on impoundment barra. in the water column.

Dicko added that the lure matches the hatch on many occasions, especially when the fish are eating bony bream.

The Live Swimbait is a lure that you can option up, but Troy rarely alters the lure further than changing the split rings by doubling them up. You can add chin weights, hooks on the dorsal surface, swap out for assist hooks, add blades – the options are endless!

“The bite is vicious so hang on,” Dicko said. “The barra really crunch this lure hard so hang onto your tackle as you could easily lose it over the side if you’re not concentrating.”

Park your boat on the floor it deserves!

As far as colours go, Troy recommends two colours, the mainly white FB (flying bear) and OBT (orange belly trout).

If you want to go for something loud and proud, he said colour T (temmy) would be great.

MICHAEL DETENON ZEREK FLAT SHAD Michael has fished the last two seasons of the Zerek BARRA Tour, and has been incredibly successful fishing the Zerek Flat Shad.

The Flat Shad is a unique lure that features side slits that allow the soft plastic to compress and expose the worm hook it comes rigged with, however some anglers fish this lure on a jighead rig and yet others add a stinger to the bottom of the worm hook.

The most recent upgrade to the Pro Series has seen the inclusion of an eyelet moulded into the worm hook weight to give anglers an easy connection point for their bottom stinger treble.

“The Zerek Flat Shad has been my impoundment go-to lure for some time now, and it is the lure I tie on knowing on any given cast I can catch a barra,” Michael said.

“My love for the 7” Flat Shad came about when I first started fishing competitions in the freshwater impoundments.

I knew a big paddle tail plastic was needed, and I wanted something that I could rip out of the packet and throw without having to boil it, cut it or mangle it in any way. The 7” Flatty was what I found, and it didn’t only look good to me, the fish found it looked

pretty good as well.”

Results came quickly for Michael and his team mates, finishing in the Top 10 in

several comps and bringing home a Top 5 Team of the Year finish last year.

While Michael says these lures catch fish straight from the packet, he has added a 1/0, 4x strong treble to the tow point on the bottom of the standard hook, and with that Michael reckons the Flat Shad is ready to go.

“They are just so easy to use, whether it is a weed point, a deep ledge or casting in amongst the trees,” he said.

“You let the lure get to the depth you want and just slow wind. There is no need for hops or twitches, and as you slow roll you can feel the big tail doing its thing right through to your rod tip.

“My confidence in these lures has grown so strong that on the last ABT Barra Tour I caught every single one of my

• Zerek Fish Trap

• Zerek Flat Shad

• Zerek Live Swimbait

• Zerek Live Swimbait

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HEAVY OUTFIT • Venom 7’6” Swimbait • ATC Combat Plus 200 • 50lb braid

barra on the Flat Shad. The space mullet is the colour I tie on first, but I am never really worried about colour, as I have now caught barra on every single colour in the range.”

LAST WORD These days there are many lures on the market for barra impoundment fishing and we are lucky to have a quality range of fish-producing lures that are tried and tested in the heat of battle.

If you’re fishing the Zerek BARRA Tour this year, make sure you have these four on the floor!

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A likely win for the lads BRISBANE

Geoff Newby

Over the years my teammate Phill Lyons and I had been pretty consistent on the ABT BARRA Tour. Although we had never won an event, we had a couple of second places and top ten overall finishes – at least until 2017, which proved to be a disaster for Team Likely Lads.

old (2007) we have been doing it since 2009 when there were over 30 boats and although fished with two anglers per boat it was an individual event.

The attendance gradually dropped to the lowest of 12 boats but this was due to the floods of 2010 when all the major barra dams were almost devoid of barramundi due to the fish loss over the dam spillways.

The format was changed in 2013 to a two-person team

A bright yellow and red Nitro heralds the approach of the Likely Lads.

We went into the 2018 Barra Tour not very confident, and our pre-fish experience was terrible. We spent over 40 hours on Peter Faust for one barra, around 30 hours on Teemburra for two barra, and 20 hours on Kinchant for a donut a couple of weeks before the tour started. During that period,

event, the dams gradually improved along with the team entry numbers and in 20018, 28 teams competed.

We have not missed a tour since and it is the highlight of the year for us and I would advise any angler

Leicester called the Likely Lads, so we adopted that name here.

We soon discovered that Australian comp fishing was very different. There are a couple of ways of barra tournament fishing: gunning and running, or hanging on a spot for the full tournament. The second option is the one we prefer. Different types of areas to fish are trees, bays and points, and we focus most of our efforts on points.

The sounder we use is a Lowrance HDS Carbon (now being upgraded to the HDS Live), and we have found it to be the perfect tool for finding fish, and most of all for finding spots in the first place. The insight Genesis mapping system is first class, with almost all dams in Queensland mapped with depth contours. This makes it easy to locate potential spots around the dams that could hold fish in the conditions we would find the barra.

ROUND 1, KINCHANT DAM Kinchant Dam isn’t like most of the other dams.

Basically, it has one tree and one really significant point. The dam is almost 50% rock wall, and fishing within 100m of the rocks is not allowed, but it is chockers with big barra.

Our spot was the bay

The author’s regular teammate and fellow compatriot Phill Lyons has many metre-plus barra under his belt to date. load of fish on the spot during the one pre-fish session, and although we couldn’t get them to bite, we thought we would have a better chance during the comp leading up to the full moon.

It was a very slow night; we only just managed our five fish bag. One was caught on a 120mm Rapala silver ghost X-Rap, and one on a 130mm black/ gold Squidgy Slick Rig. We also each boated a good size barra on a new lure that Phill found: a Molix Shad swimbait. It needs to be modified by upgrading the front hook and split

ring, and we used an Owner ST66 no. 4 treble hook, heavy-duty split rings, and removed the spinner blade off the back and fitted a second treble as a stinger hook. This yielded two more barra of 90cm and 85cm. That got us into the prize list in 6th spot, and we were happy with that as we had not been confident leading up to the event.

Phill uses an Ian Miller TCurve 1.73m, 6-8kg as his X-Rap rod, with a Daiwa Zillion baitcaster reel with Sufix 832 30lb braid and 55lb Schneider leader. His other outfit is an Ian Miller Toad rod with a Shimano

Stella FE 4000 reel spooled with Sufix 832 30lb braid and 28kg wire leader.

I used an ACM custombuilt 15-30lb Revelation swimbait rod, with a Daiwa Certate HD 4000 30lb spooled with Sufix 832, and 70lb Schneider leader.

ROUND 2, TEEMBURRA DAM We were more confident at Teemburra, as it’s what we call our home ground.

On the October full moon, Phill, myself and another mate had boated 35 barra off our first-choice spot.

We decided not to fish the dam during the week before the comp, and heard

• Berkley Giant Ripple Shad

we consoled ourselves with the fact that we were fishing at night on the wrong moon and it was very cold.

We are not the youngest team in the ABT barra tour.

We were already knocking on in years when we got our first boats, and we only tournament fish freshwater (dams). Although the ABT BARRA tour is not that 8

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who enjoys barra fishing and has a competitive nature, to give it a go.

We both emigrated to Australia from England in the early 1990s. Although fishing was in our blood, lure fishing in freshwater was new to us. We had both been regular comp anglers on the match fishing scene in England, and there was a successful team from

towards the tower, located to the right of the boat ramp. We went straight to it and never moved all night. We decided to not use the anchor feature on the electric motor, as we think the barra have started to associate the noise with anglers, so once in position we dropped the 15kg lead plonker. We had found a

Fish of this calibre, and a truckload of determination despite an ordinary pre-fish, helped team Likely Lads to dominate the 2018 ABT Zerek BARRA Tour.

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Tournament Angler Guide

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that it was very tough from the visitors during pre-fish.

Before any comp we prioritise three spots, so if anyone gets in before us we have somewhere else to go. Our number one spot, Pinnacle Point, was open as we raced across the dam.

In we went, straight on the mark, and dropped the 15kg lead plonker.

Again, it was a slow start, but we expected that because we were fishing during the afternoon; the spot usually fishes better at night. Phill got a follow at the boat after

about an hour, but it didn’t eat the lure. Still, it made us feel better knowing that there were barra around.

We were seeing the odd fish but no numbers, then at 7:50pm we had a small 60cm barra that consumed a Berkley 160mm fire tiger Giant Ripple Shad,

which got us off the donut. Our first objective was complete.

Another fish followed at 8:20pm, an 83cm barra taken on the 13cm Molix Shad. The barra had the Molix in its mouth like a dog with a bone, and all three hooks were set.

With around an hour to go we said if we could get one more barra it could get us a top 10 place. We never expected to find the result we heard back at the boat ramp – that we had not only won, but the 83cm

HD 4000 spooled with 30lb Suffix 832, and 70lb Schneider leader.

Phill used an Ian Miller Toad rod with a Shimano Stella FE 4000 reel with Sufix 832 30lb braid, and 28kg wire leader.

ROUND 3, PETER FAUST DAM ALL NIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP Although we had a disastrous pre-fish, we had decided on our three spots at Peter Faust Dam. A point in the basin was our number one location, and two other spots were

• Squidgy Slick Rig

barra was the biggest barra.

We took home the top prize of $1400 and the Biggest Barra prize pack.

I again used the ACM custom built 15-30lb Revelation swimbait rod, with a Daiwa Certate

towards the river.

We had a good draw off at number three, and with not far to go we thought we would get on our number one choice, and we did.

It’s a very shallow point To page 10

The author is no stranger to the BARRA Tour, and his record of podium finishes at BARRA events is testament to his experience.

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with a weed edge coming out from the bank about 2-3m, then another 2m of weed towers under the surface, then 1m deep out to around 3.5m where we were anchored.

We started as usual, with each of us using different lures and swapping every 15 minutes or so, casting to the solid weed edge and burning it off before slowing the retrieve in the clear water. After 90 minutes a good fish fell to a Squidgy Mongrel. It measured 109cm, and was a great start.

After that we got quite busy, boating barra every 20 minutes or so, and the lure doing the damage was the Berkley Giant Ripple Shad in fire tiger. Then at 8pm we boated our biggest barra of the night – a cracking 112cm fish.

We were starting to get the upgrades we needed. We had also had a lure swap, and started to get the better fish on the 13cm Molix Shad in black/gold. We finished up with 14 barra, and our best five measured 5.36m.

That converted to a weight of 80.83kg, and was enough for the number one spot.

The wind had been very strong in our face, so there were issues with backlash on

Tournament Angler Guide baitcaster reels, so we mainly used spin rods. I used the ACM custom built 15-30lb Revelation Swimbait rod with a Daiwa Certate HD 4000, 30lb Sufix 832, and 70lb Schneider leader with the Mustad quick change clip. My other outfit was

Toad rod with a Shimano Stella FE 4000 reel with Sufix 832 30lb braid and 28kg wire leader.

The main lures were the Berkley 200mm Giant Ripple Shad in fire tiger and the 5.5” Molix Shad swimbait.

• Molix Shad swimbait

a custom built Geoff Busbridge 12-20lb spin rod on a Rain Shadow blank, with 20lb Sufix 832 braid and 55lb Schneider leader with the Mustad quick change clip, with Transam vibes that picked some of the early barra.

Phill used an Ian Miller

LUCKY CRAFT ROUND 4, PETER FAUST DAM This was the start of two massive sessions for Phil and I. Coming into the fourth and final round, our nerves were jangling and our stomachs were turning somersaults. We were

BARRA? WE HAVE YOU COVERED 10

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leading the Team of the Year table by three points, just ahead of the best barra team in the last four years – Craig Griffiths and Karim De Ridder. What a position to be in!

We decided to go to the point we had fished on

the night championship, settled in, dropped the anchor and started to thrash the water to foam. We had a great start, with Phill smacking a 100cm barra at 4:30pm (30 minutes in) on the Squidgy Mongrel. Our first fish, donut gone, and on the board.

Then we had a

abt.org.au disastrous hour or so, dropping around seven barra. We called a halt to the fishing, and sat and talked for a few minutes.

We decided that we needed to settle down and get back into the groove. The bite had changed from the night comp; we had been concentrating on hitting the weed edge, a short burn, drop and then a steady retrieve. This wasn’t working. We changed to a 45° angle cast towards the bank, but falling short of the weed fringe, concentrating on a longer cast and keeping the lure in the deeper water. The barra started to come at a steady pace, and we finished up with 10 barra for the session. Our best five total measured 5.05m and weighed 63.7kg, putting us in 3rd place.

Session 2 The first session was a good result, but we still faced a big threat from Team Edge Rods/EJ Todd. Craig and Karim had had a tough session, and were down the field in 12th place, 27kg behind us. However, if ever there was a team who could pull a rabbit out of the hat and make up the deficit, it was Craig and Karim.

The thought of winning round four had gone, and

all we could think about was catching a bag that would keep us in front for the Team of The Year.

We headed back to the same spot and concentrated on the angle cast, with the main lure being the green grunter Slick Rig. At 5.30pm our first barra hit the deck, and a steady stream of smaller barra followed. We had anticipated a very late bite of bigger fish, due to what happened the night before, and at 11:30 we were into a good fish that measured 113cm. Before we boated this fish we thought we would be safe with the Team of the Year title, but it would be tight for a 4th round victory as we had an 80cm barra in our best five bag.

We ended up boating 11 barra, with the best five measuring 4.87m and 59.69kg, and it earned us another 1st place finish in Round 4.

We had almost completed a clean sweep – three wins in the rounds and Team of the Year. We were $4,400 better off with two beautiful Ian Miller rods and a pile of trophies.

Greatest of all though was the accolade of being the ABT Barra Team of the Year 2018.

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Lake Awoonga Ver. 3.0 GLADSTONE

Justin Nye

As barramundi addicts, we sit back and think about Lake Awoonga in its glory days! ‘Pre-flood 2011’ is a conversation that’s passed around many campfires, boat ramps and tournament briefings. The stories of 30 fish sessions, and 1.3m beasts that go bump in the night, were enough to spike

any anglers’ adrenaline rush into overdrive!

However, as quickly as the conversation peaked, it plummeted back to Earth, with spillover comments bringing misery to the barra fishing fraternity.

Between 2011 and 2016, the lake’s levels remained reasonably high, with strong monsoon seasons being prominent, forcing several spill events during this period.

The record-breaking Australia

Day weekend floods of 2013 saw the spillway go over by an incredible 8m+!

In April 2016, Lake Awoonga spilled one last time, which had anglers far and wide watching with nervous excitement as the next chapter of the lake’s history unfolded. October 2016 saw an opportunity for myself to turn my recreational fishing obsession into a career of guiding in the Gladstone region. During

The result of a double hook-up on jerkbaits.

Gladstone Area Water Board hatchery broodstock. the summer of 2016/17 I recorded good numbers of 50-65cm fish, although larger fish were rare.

The 2017/18 spring and summer saw the lake gain momentum, attracting more anglers to try their luck.

Good numbers of 60-75cm fish were being captured, with some quality 80-85cm fish mixed in.

It was in August 2018 that I witnessed the rebirth of Lake Awoonga! An

reached maturity and were hungry! In the period from September 2018 to March 2019 I recorded almost 600 boated barramundi for clients onboard Gladstone Fly and Sportfishing, with an average size of 82cm.

HIGHEST STOCKED BARRA IMPOUNDMENT The flood events over the period of six years was heartbreaking, but it didn’t stop the tireless work of the Gladstone Area Water

team took over the reigns of the GAWB hatchery and developed a program that would allow them to get the best numbers of high-quality barramundi out of the facility they had in Gladstone.

Every Lake Awoonga barra is spawned from local wild-caught Central Queensland broodstock, and the fry and fingerlings are graded every 2-3 days to maximise numbers, which maintains the efficiency of

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WORK HARD FISH HARDER. 12

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Josh Butler caught this nice barra on a jerkbait. abundance of 70-90cm fish were spread throughout the lake, and their presence was mind-blowing. They had

Board in restoring the best impoundment barramundi fishery. In 2014, stocking guru Thomas Hayes and his

the program. Since the flood of 2016, there have been 1.12 million barramundi stocked into the lake, including

Tournament Angler Guide

abt.org.au 555,864 this financial year!

And there are huge things to come for the hatchery, as the GAWB have been allocated funding to build a state-of-

abundance of 85-95cm fish, which are the real deal when it comes to barra impoundment angling. These fish are 3-4 years old, and they are

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quick as a hook-up comes with these fish, it can all end just as suddenly if they get the better of your angling ability in tight country.

This fish was caught on a Molix Swim Shad. the-art hatchery at Lake Awoonga itself, which would have the capacity to produce 1.2 million fingerlings a year.

CURRENT FISH SIZES Currently, there is a clear defining presence of year class in the lake. From the top down you will see a large

ruthless at this size! They are known for blistering pace and acrobatics, and will give you the full run around wherever structure is involved.

The next year class is the 75-80cm models, which to the bass or bream angler will blow your socks off! As

Apart from bulk numbers of these 2-year classes, there are plenty of smaller fish in the 50-65cm bracket given the massive numbers stocked last year, and metre class fish will also be on the cards for September.

To page 14

A Weedless Castaic Jerky J was the undoing of this fish.

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Tournament Angler Guide

From page 13

TACKLE There’s plenty of highquality affordable tackle available on today’s market, so you can buy gear that’s up to the task without blowing your budget.

Having a variety of rod options is beneficial,

especially if you want to turn bites into hook sets on every occasion. Tactics can quickly change in a tournament situation, especially if the fish are responding to a different presentation from the one used during pre-fish. Adjusting the sensitivity of a rod choice will often result in better hook-up

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rates, particularly when throwing soft plastics and weedless presentations.

KEY AREAS AND TECHNIQUE If last September was anything to go by, experience tells me the fish will be moving around in large numbers in two distinct locations.

Various soft plastic presentations.

A healthy barra caught from a point.

The weed fence Look for direct or indirect windward facing edges, points or bays that have distinct weed fences, quite often with a small mix of standing timber. This weed creates a perimeter inside to the bank, which allows barra to herd the bait inside the ambush zone. These perimeters are often filled with chocolate coloured water as a result of east-northeast afternoon sea breezes.

Quite often when the word ‘weed’ is brought up, weedless presentations are the angler’s instant response. However, you shouldn’t be afraid to throw shallow hardbodies and standard jigheadrigged plastics into these areas. Practice variations in retrieve speed and aggressiveness, as ripping the lure through the weed quite often results in a bite.

It’s a good way to maximise your catch rates.

Standing timber bays and points Again, using wind energy, directly or indirectly, find a bay that has a good variation of standing timber, particularly in 3-4m of water. Look for distinct laneways or pathways to open water, which the barra may use to move in or out of that area. Often one obvious laydown or horizontal timber may be the ambush zone for several fish, so look out for this kind of structure.

Various techniques

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Tournament Angler Guide

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can be highly productive, so don’t hesitate to have a mixed bag of options rigged.

Suspending hardbodies fished aggressively with long pauses, standard slow rolling plastics and vertical jigging vibes can all be great options.

SCANNING TECHNOLOGY The use of modern-day sonar will enhance your ability to find fish during the pre-fish and during the tournament.

All the major brands have incredible technology, and it’s vital that tournament anglers these days are equipped with at least side imaging or

downscan sonar equipment.

During the pre-fish you should utilise these tools, mapping out contour lines and possible flight paths for daily barramundi movements. You will have a clear advantage if you can work out a pattern to their movements in the lead up to the tournament. It’s also important to keep an eye on the water temperature at this time of the year, as warm water honey holes can be a game changer.

MY HOT TIPS You should pre-fish as close to the tournament as possible; don’t pre-fish in July

with the expectations of the same scenarios in September.

The water levels, temperature range and trade winds will all have changed, resulting in significant barramundi mood swings.

You can expect to see fish move through in a series of windows, such as moon and tide events, along with other natural occurrences like last light. You must capitalise on these events to be successful, as the bite windows will come hard and fast and often be gone again in the blink of an eye! Those anglers who can turn five bites into five

TACKLE SPIN OUTFIT: •7’-7’6”, 15-20lb medium-fast for weedless plastics and lighter presentations, matched with suitable 3000-4000 spinning reel with plenty of drag capability and 20lb braid or PE. •7’-7’6” 20-30lb fast action for heavier plastic presentations like slow rolling and even vibing, matched with 4000 to 5000 spinning reel and 30lb braid or PE. BAITCASTER OUTFIT: • 6’6”-7’ medium-fast to fast action 15-20lb for soft plastics and topwater, matched to suitable 100-150 size baitcast reel with plenty of drag capability (be prepared to thumb the spool).

• 6’2”-7’ fast to extra-fast action, 15-25lb for heavier soft plastics and jerkbaits, matched to suitable 150-200 size baitcast reel with plenty of drag capability (again, be prepared to thumb the spool).

LURE FAVOURITES Suspending hardbodies: Duo Realis 100DR, Jackall Squirrels, Lucky Craft Pointers Plastics: 5” and 7” Castaics, Hollowbellys, Happy Rock Swim Baits and Willys, Slick Rigs, Molix Shad, Zerek Flat Shads and ZMan SwimmerZ Vibes: Zerek Fish Traps, Jackall Transams, Madness Shiriten Vibes and Samaki Vibelicious.

captures will no doubt be on the leader board at the end of the tournament. Be prepared to cast your arms off, and if you’re going to take a

the second. For example, if the wind is blowing from the east, these anglers will automatically direct their attention to the western side

flight paths can produce good numbers of fish, there will always be an ‘end game’ (feeding location) destination nearby, and quite often in the

Garry caught this barra on fly from a weed wall. break, don’t take it around a bite window!

My reference earlier to direct and indirect windwardfacing locations is a key factor. Most anglers will take the first option and disregard

of the lake. Although this is a likely location. It is not always the game changer, because barra will use wind energy down a point or bank as a flight path that can lead them to feeding locations. Although

most unlikely of places. With time and experience on the water though, you’ll know that these unlikely looking places are actually potential hotspots, giving you an extra edge on the competition.

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