Slip into the mind of a barramundi.
Every hot-blooded fisherman and woman in Australia has dreamt of tackling the elusive barramundi. Thankfully, our northern state governments are waking up to the economic value behind our most iconic sport fish.
Lates calcarifer is a tropical dwelling fish ranging from central Queensland round to the Exmouth area over in Western Australia.
Prolific and inhabiting some truly diverse ecological niche, barramundi are just as happy living in a backwater lagoon far into the freshwater as they are around coastal rocks and reefs. They have a huge hunger, a wide and varied diet and a propensity towards getting bigger. Barra are without a doubt one of our premiere fishing attractions to both a domestic and international audience.
In this feature, I have garnered the help of a fellow fishing guide who understands the mind and habits of these fish better then most. Liam Stafford (Staffi) will be tackling the fist four sections, giving readers some insight into what makes our favourite fish’s mind tick. You know the people who really love them; they will be awake later than most each night chatting about them and then wake up early to ponder Google Earth images in a desperate search to eek them out.
Seasonal fluctuations
Barramundi are seasonal creatures.
Year to year noticing the behaviours, as water runs off the wetlands and rivers return back to their dry state, ‘arra’ have some behaviours that tickle and excite the mind of a fisho and keep a keen angler more than interested in finding their catch.
Seasonally, the runoff period is a prized time to lure in a monster barramundi and catch the many that have made their journey in search of food on wetlands, up in swamps and in the deep stretches of fresh water found after the wet.
Healthy systems hold thousands of fish, and the flood can make for unbelievable fishing. Anglers must still use their tools and instruments to find the biomass, find where the majority of fish are on the feed; essentially finding where the food for these fish is.
Barramundi follow the feed, and will eat almost everything that is put in their face! Hunting in packs and also sometimes solo as they get bigger and schools disperse. They hide behind structure and safe havens like big logs, bushy lay down trees and back eddys of water.
Looking for Creek-heads with spiralling water out of the main current flow or a log with turbulent water behind are great indications of where barra may be hiding. Usually out of the current waiting for any life to pass by. It is at these moments you need to get your lure running in front of the tree as they will stalk and follow that lure and boof it when twitched and paused correctly.
As the water levels drop and seasonal change occurs from wet to dry, fishing can become better. When saying better, meaning more consistent. Barra settle into safe havens and heavy structural environments, making them easier to find and more predictable to catch! Looking for spots where the tidal flow ends so there is still a fluctuation and water movement as well as fresh bait being pushed up from the tides.
Fish can be found in dense tree structural areas and places where rock are found. Thinking like a fish, think about where a congregation of fish would hide with access to some flowing water in which the food can be sourced. These behaviours are consistent in rivers throughout the northern states.
Tidal fluctuations
The tides play a huge part in finding fish within the systems you are hunting. People rave about no run no fun. This is particularly true for barra, as the flow creates opportunity for the fish to hide and hunt their prey as it flows past structure. Barra can be found right throughout the tide, again looking for bait and biomass. Low tide run outs are fantastic as drains bottom out and back eddys occur. As the tide drops fish are pushed into gutters and drains making it somewhat easier to locate and target hungry fish.
Barra move – they move up and down with the tide and then hide within the next set of structure they come across. It can be productive to sit on a single drain and fish it throughout a tide as fish will congregate and pass through. A more effective method is to find pockets of fish, using your sounder to look for signs of bait. Catch what you can from the school then move onto the next set of structure.
The turn of the tide is the most likely time you will get a hot bite. Be sure to be ready for this moment, target rock bars, deep snags and heavy structure. As the water returns with an incoming tide, the first push is also a hot bite moment. The lull of a low can be a time of rest and the new water moving back in can carry the bait every fish is waiting for. Get the lures in the water!
Run in tides can be super effective, and fish can be aggressive as new bait returns to the system. Again, look for structure. Run in tides are a great time to look for out of the way places where water back eddys and a different flow of water produces pockets in which barra will hide.
Lures
Lure choice and selection play another part of catching the elusive barra. Barra on the feed are keen eaters and will likely eat anything you throw in front of them. When you find hungry it can be a great time to experiment with your lures. Hardbodies, silly looking soft plastics, floating insect lures and whacky bits of timber that wobble will likely all get hit! Remember, no wobble, no gobble!
Soft plastics are very effective and if weighted correctly can be run through structure and make presentations where other anglers cannot get and where fish are hiding deep in snags. Good luck getting them out!
Heavy leaders up to 60-80lb are sometimes necessary in these tight areas.
Hardbody lures such as the famous gold bomber and floating shallow divers are super effective. Barra feed from below, with eyes on top of their head stalking a lure from beneath. They will often follow a lure out of a snag right to your boat so make sure to twitch, pause and repeat all the way back to your spot! The amount of fish caught right beside the boat or bank is baffling.
Depending on the system you’re in, a sweet spot to find is the 2-3m mark of which fish hide deeper in the snags. This is a time where suspending lures are strongly recommended. Imagine the bait sitting right in your face twitching. There’s a high chance you’re gunna-wanna gulp that thing down your throat!
Vibes are another essential tackle item. Dropping them into holes and next to snags, working them from the bottom. They are often smacked on the drop, so it’s important to work the bottom of the water column. It’s great to experiment on deep snags and rocks, changing the angles in which you bring the lure past structure.
Genetic diversity
Barramundi differ in looks, growth rates and behaviours between different river systems and geographic locations. Studies have revealed that different genetic strains can be remarkably close together, separated only by a single river or creek system on occasion. A few of the rivers on the western coast of Cape York have completely different looking Barra from one another only 20km apart. What does this mean to fisherman?
Well mullet eating barra, prawn eating barra and cherrabin eating Barra will obviously feed quite differently from one another. Since genetic strains of Barra tend to hang around in similar locations, they develop different characteristic and feeding patterns exemplify this. Find out what the fish eat in your particular system eat and you are a long way to matching the hatch.
Mullet eating barra will love shallow diving lures. Prawn eating barra will love the huge array of prawn imitations on the market these days. Bony bream munching barra might like vibes. However barra will eat an enormous variety of prey, many of which are copied by some great Aussie lure manufacturers.
The underwater sonics
The sound of a barramundi swim bladder expelling air when changing direction or imploding a baitfish needs to be experienced multiple times to be noticed. There is a ‘WHOOMPH’ noise that can be detected through the water column and even through the hull of a boat if that can be believed. When barramundi are feeding actively, this noise translates into other barra hearing the commotion and coming on over.
As an angler, being completely still and present in the moment, listening to your surroundings and becoming attuned to that underwater implosion can change your day.
Underwater sonics plays an integral part in one barramundi turning into five and five barra turning into twenty. This is what barramundi fishos are chasing constantly. That hot bite where a couple of hungry fish turns into a cricket score.
The big girls
Understanding that larger model barramundi will behave differently than your average smaller models is important for those chasing that dream fish. Leaving technology out of the equation, which has the ability to pinpoint individual large fish, there are a certain amount of environmental cues anglers can use. Larger barramundi tend to be a little more solitary then their smaller relatives, preferring their own company to that of others.
Depending on the population of fish in question, barramundi will change from male to female at a certain size range, usually somewhere between 70-85cm. This change will occur depending on the amount of females in the breeding population, plus the amount of prey and habitat available for fish to range. A female barramundi will continue to put on weight and length right up until around 140cm. Most conscientious anglers will try releasing fish above 80cm in the hope of protecting breeding fish.
They will also feed a little less and more decisively, using smaller bite windows to eat a lot in a small space of time, thus preserving effort. With a larger girth, a larger mouth and a larger appetite, big barramundi are capable of consuming much larger prey items. This is not a hard and fast rule, because big girls will eat larger lure presentations just as willingly as small ones.
It all comes down to effort and risk reward. There are three primary areas to find the big girls. Some will use wet season run-off to discover out of the way places. Lagoons, billabongs and back waters where they can reside as the top-dog. Others will feed veraciously around run-off outlets following the wet season.
The next locales are mid river or creek where there is abundant food supply moving up and down the system. Big Barra in these places prefer rock bars, snag piles and settled spots to sit while waiting for their next feed. Finally a good proportion of larger fish will make their way downstream late in the year to spawn around river mouths and coastal rocks.
The Greatest snag in the world
Every barra fisho and fishing guide will have their perfect snag or structure they prefer. To finish off an article gleaning insight into the mind a of a barramundi, let me offer a glimpse of the greatest snag in the world. Remembering this snag must work both on the incoming and outgoing tide equally well. Barramundi are ambush predators, so this fictional beast needs enough cover to hide both predator and prey in one.
My ultimate snag sits just inside a tiny creek mouth which is an offshoot from a river system, not far from the mouth of the main river. The snag is a large fallen tree close to the point, laying down in around 2m of water, timber strewn all over the place. Leaves long ago having rotted away from the spindly mangrove branches, providing a suitable barrier to baitfish and crustaceans getting in and out of the creek. It provides shelter where little other shelter exists and current pushes hard against its outside branches.
The ultimate snag has a variety of life congregated around it, not just barramundi. They are social fish and quite happily share their premises with dusky bream, banded grunter, mangrove jack, a few roving queenfish and a mixture of mullet, boney bream and little glassy baitfish.
Barra being barra their feeding episodes will be driven by numerous factors and sometimes a heap of repeat casting is needed to coax the first one into striking. But once the ultimate snag is sparked into action, barra from far and wide hear the commotion and find their way to the feeding zone. An angler simply needs to pick the spot current intersects with timber and land the perfect cast in the perfect place.