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Monduran: Hard Core Fishing
  |  First Published: April 2009



The fishing at Lake Monduran is slowing down with the cooler weather starting to move in. But if you put in the hard yards, you can still milk the lake for some great fish in winter.

With cooler south easterlies blowing the water temperatures will fall dramatically over the months ahead. When the water temperatures drop the fish move into the shallow bays where the water is warmer. The Two Mile creek is a great place to look for fish sunning themselves in the shallows; I know I will be spending more time up in that area during the winter months. The creek that runs to the west out from J section is another great creek to fish. Try fishing the banks of the creek with suspending hardbodies or work the edges with stiffy’s and soft plastics.

The latest lure that was been working well for me is the new Bait and Switch from Storm. It’s a soft plastic lure that has a paddle tail and it’s been out fishing most of the big name brands. Give it run and see what you think.

Fishing Monduran is not a nine to five game. You have to put in the time to satisfy your hunter instinct and take home a fish for the table.

Once the desire to catch a fish to feed the family is fulfilled, you might find you want to target some more serious sportfish like barramundi; then the game gets harder. It’s a big step to go from novice to hunting out and landing your own barra. Some anglers hit the jackpot and troll up their first fish or hit a place when they are firing, but for most of us it can be tough to catch barra, but don’t let that put you off!

While it can be frustrating when the fishing is tough, keep in mind the dam has changed in recent years. Monduran is no longer a great trolling arena, and with a limited bite it’s tough for some anglers to keep focused on their goals. Monduran and other similar lakes have turned into hard core fishing venues, where every fish is a challenge.

To find the bite, you must follow the moon phases and keep up to date with local and visitors who fish the dam. A good way to keep up to date is to access a chat line on the Internet that will keep you in the loop with all the latest on the dam. And an online forum will usually give you a starting point with what lure to use, where to fish what clothes to wear and so on.

If you come to fish Monduran for the weekend, and nothing is happening during the day, try changing tactics, and fish after dark, as some of the fish will turn on after the sun sets. Be careful though, as it’s so easy to get lost on this dam, a GPS unit is imperative. Mobile phone coverage is substantial now too; with the Telstra network I have service all over the dam. Do all the sensible things tell someone when you are going and when you intend to return.

I have recently had a week just fishing the dam. The fishing has been hard and everything that could go wrong did go wrong with leaders breaking and fish tangling up around trees. But on the flipside we did manage to land some great fish.

Thanks to the Ausfish Crew Nagg and Whity who were here a week ago or so, I managed to pilfer their spot and land an enormous 126cm barra. These guys had a blinder of a week up here on the full moon with 10 fish over a metre.

Offshore the fishing has been much less frustrating. We have been out chasing GTs again offshore with some monster fish caught around the Spit, north of Fraser Island. We still haven’t caught any like Damon Olsen, who has caught some real horses around Fraser up to 80kg.

We did manage some big fish between 20-40kg. These fish love big poppers and Bills Bugs, unfortunately they destroyed my propellers on my new bug. Stick baits also work well and live baits disappear quickly in this area too, with big jack cobia and Spaniards smashing them.

The small black marlin are still around but slowly thinning out as the move onto warmer waters as our winter descends.

We are fortunate to live in a great part of Queensland with some of the best fresh- and saltwater, sport- and gamefishing in the world.

Hope to see you here soon.

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