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Rising waters
  |  First Published: February 2010



The summer rains and cyclones have added a little over 1m of water to Lake Monduran so far. Some more rain would be great to return water levels over the thirty percent mark.

I have been working the edge of the main basin working bigger plastics down deeper in the water column. But this can be tough when the lake is busy with boats trolling the main basin as they will troll straight over where you’re fishing unaware of what you’re doing.

Lures I like to use at the moment are the Slick Rig 130 fully weighted with stingers which you can adjust the weights for shallow water.

Storm Bait’n’Switch are a great go to lure that offer the alternative of changing your plastics on the go without retying your lure.

I love using Bill Clarke’s Cockroaches as a surface lure; it makes a lot of noise on the water and has the ability to suspend in the one spot to entice a bite. I use this a lot on charter to stimulate a bite when things are slow. The bigger bugs or fizzers can be too noisy and can have the opposite effect.

These lures are best used sparingly as you have to pick the right moment. It seems to me the poor old barra just get a little sick of the same lure so changing your lure type or set up is a good idea, as it will change the sonics of the lure. Sound and vibration in the water seem to be very under estimated part of enticing a fish to bite. It’s not only critical in the lures but also boat noise.

Rapala suspending lures also make a great alternative to the soft plastics in the water. These lures create a different bait type for the fish to turn on and will stay in the strike zone longer when worked properly.

The Rapala X-walks are a good alternative for surface fishing offering a large aerodynamic lure you can cast a long distance.

These X-Walks and Fizzers seem to have a big advantage on toads, as they seem to suspend over the strike zone for a long time.

People who use toads swear by them and they work well in the right conditions creating one of the most exciting bites. The toad is charged across the surface creating a very visual scene with a large bow wave forming around the forward section of the moving fish.

In the ABT barra tour this year we received Bozzo lures in our angler packs. I tried some of these in the pool and I think they may be a little heavy but they also swim great. They’re best suited to some deep-water fishing and stingers can be added by using a bait needle with mono to attach a stinger hook to the main hook eye. Thanks to Bozzo lures for supporting our tour and introducing me to the effectiveness of your lures.

The months ahead look great as last year we caught monster fish up to 129cm in April. The weeks away from weekends and school holidays are best with minimal disturbance on the water from boats. We fished right through the year last year having some tough times in the colder months of June and July.

Offshore the game fishing has been ordinary to say the least. We missed the fish that travelled straight passed us to the Sunshine Coast and beyond.

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