Barramundi

[Paul Arden]

Hi folks,

Apparently the barramundi fishing over on the coast is quite good at the moment. I’ve targeted them a little in NT, Australia. But I really don’t know much about them. They are catching them in a tidal zone.

I believe they are feeding on mullet. Since the anglers appear to eat everything they catch ( ) finding out what they are eating shouldn’t be too hard, but apparently they are empty. So I don’t know what this says really.

Anyway what can you tell me about these fish that I should know before heading over. I get the impression it’s early morning and night fishing. Subsurface. Poppers. I’ll take sinking lines too. I might sleep in the truck.

Any thoughts on what wonderful flies I should tie in advance?

Thanks, Paul

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Paul,

We got barras here in Fla. So far they are contained in aquaculture ponds, (and hopefully it will stay that way) but for a price you can fish for them. Although I have not tried it, from what I have heard, those are about as tough to fool as farm raised trout.

But, they appear to be very similar in shape, and fit the same ecological niche, as our snook... minus the latter's dominant lateral line. It looks like a case of parallel evolution.

As such, I would expect that a nice big mullet fly will do the trick. Gunnar Brammer does a nice job showing how to tie a good mullet fly with his "Bulkhead" videos.

[Paul Arden]

Cheers Gary, I shall tie some of those!

[Graeme H]

I'm not a big chaser of these fish, but Pink Things (and other flies in the same family) are popular in Oz.

Also "Black n Barred" ...

[Bernd Ziesche]

Hi Paul,
In Thailand both the stocked and wild ones loved shrimp flies. Medium size did well.
Cheers
Bernd

[Paul Arden]

These aren’t stocked thank goodness Nor in a pond. Here they are in the estuaries and I’m impressed by their sizes. I’m told they are chasing mullet. I must get organised and drive over. Preferably during Ramadan!

[DryFly]

Might not help, but when I fished for them in a pond in Australia, I caught more with my popper flys than all the other spin fisher together.

Cheers
Reinhard

[queenfish]

Hi Paul
Don't under estimate your popper at the right places on the top.
I have only caught one it was 10 centimeters tan zonker tail with few raps of cross cut zonker behind the eye with small bead chain eyes using inter line.
my friends caught with similar flies as well.