What a year it has been thus far with the enormous amounts of rain falling in the summer that pushed epic amounts of water down our rivers and creeks.

This left the impoundment fishing in somewhat disarray, with fish being washed downstream and dams continually running over. But the native stocks will benefit and grow exponentially creating some of the best increases in spawning of native fish like barramundi in years. This will also increase large amounts of bait into the rivers producing stronger strains and weeding out the frail.

The dams have morphed into planes of water with large inland seas developing as acres of grazing land becomes large lakes. The lake has always had large populations of insects that have supported the wildlife such as bats, birds and fish plus the amount of baitfish has grown exponentially as well, which can only mean good things for the future of fish stocks.

But for now, the stocks of barra and bass are down, and while it’s always been hard to find fish in Lake Monduran’s expanse of water, times are now really tough.

Rob Howell from The Lake Monduran Caravan Park has initiated a fish stocking program called Adopt a Barra Program. The basic idea is to repopulate the dam with large numbers of fish. This is an expensive excursive and costs around 50 cents per fish, which doesn’t sound a lot but with high mortality rates in the dam we are hoping to release around $50,000 worth of fish per year on top of current stocking levels.

I know people are hurting out there at the moment and most families are still recovering from recent disasters and the ongoing economic down turn in business in direct result to such disasters. Queensland is reeling after these disasters and the worst hit long term is our tourist industry.

This is for people who love there barra fishing and it gives them an opportunity to rebuild and be apart of the stocking of our dams. You can make one off donations to the Adopt a Barra Program or take advantage of our direct debiting system. You can direct debit as little $1 a week and not miss the $52 you donate a year. You can also help release these fish; we hope to make an exciting weekend involving all the people donating money in releasing fish at the Lake.

Fishing in winter will be tough, but there should be plenty of small fish around to target on hardbodied lures and weedless plastics in the shallows.

Reef fishing is always good this time of year, perfect weather and some of the best inshore reef fishing on the barrier reef.

The creeks are still very accessible and with water cleaning up there are plenty of jacks and barra around still.

The summer ahead should be great and with barra stocking going ahead in late summer, numbers will be replenished. The summer should see some great fishing at Lake Monduran as the big girls start turning it up for the anglers.