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| These fishermen are on the job. They are watching for tell tale signs to act upon. The Sea Eagle is the most efficient fisherman in the NT and as a fisherman you can learn a lot from watching how they operate. |
Fishing is such a wonderful sport or hobby to get into - there are so many variables to make fishing so challenging.
To compete at a high level in fishing or to regularly catch fish you really need to be switched on, not only with skills but with your surroundings as well.
Unlike the competitors of say, athletics or swimming, where our World Champs very rarely get it wrong on the day; it’s almost like clockwork the way they compete. Fishing on the other hand has so many challenges to face, varying in such small increments.
This is one of the factors that keep's you on your toes day in and day out. Variables include wind, tides and water temperature which will keep the champions a lot more honest, and makes it really hard at times for the novice fisherman to be consistent.
Noticing the tell tale signs and reacting accordingly can mean the difference between a successful day on the water, or a slow day on the water. It’s the edge that most amateur fisherman need to fine tune. The correct reaction can put you in the right spot at the right time with the right lure and the correct method of targeting your desired species. All the signs are there for you to read. As a fisherman it is up to you to read the signs and react. Most fishermen tend to forget at times that fishing is no more than a game between a hunter and his or her prey. Tricking the prey into falling into the hunter’s trap, be it a lure or bait.
Tell tale signs are keys that can help you open doors to finding the right areas to target. Find the right size lure to use. Find the right colour to use and most importantly in my opinion, finding what depth to be working.
If you can always have these few things right, I think you would notice the difference in your catch in no time. Let’s take the first of the four signs into consideration next time your out on the water.
Structure:
Structure is an important part of fishing for two good reasons. First of all bait congregate around structure for shelter. They feel safer amongst snags and rocks than they would out in the open and where there is bait the predators aren’t far away. Don’t forget that barra are predators. Secondly structure is also a place predators will use as ambush positions. It gets them close to the bait without being seen. Let’s talk about the four main structures that a good fisherman choose to fish around for lurking barra. They are Flats and Drains, Snags and Rock Bars. I have put them into two categories because Flats and Snake Drains are fished and work the same, as do Snags and Rock bars.
Flats and snake drains
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| This is a classic example of a snake drain on a flat. See how the tide is receding and the green water is deeper than the brown water. The water clarity is the same it is the different depth water that gives you a colour deception. |
One of the easiest places to target barra are on salt water flats in places like Darwin Harbour and Bynoe Harbour. To fish these areas it is imperative that you get your timing right. Once you decide to hit the area you have selected remember that it is only a few feet deep and noise travels along way under water; so noise plays a big part in your approach. Select stealth mode and keep noise down to the best of your ability.
Take a look at the diagram on snake drains. Remembering there can be up to 20 of these snake drains on the flat you have chosen to work so try find one that has active bait around it or surface activity. Fish the snake drains on a falling tide, preferably the first couple of hours after the change of the high tide, depending on the type of flat it is.
The ideal time to fish a flat is when the water has dropped away from the mangroves and water on the flats are becoming shallow, leaving the snake drains as the only place providing cover for the bait and barra to swim in.
My favorite part of the tide is when there is only a foot of water covering the flats which can mean there is more than 6 foot of water in some of the deepest parts of the snake drains. Another important tip is to keep your boat away from the snake drains. Position your boat with in casting distance of the drains and use your motor as little as possible. This is were an electric motor would come in handy.
Use shallow lures such as Bombers, Just Unders or Skin Deeps. You don’t want the lure to run too deep. Remember barra have eyes on top of their head that look in front of them and above them. If a lure is underneath them it is running below the strike zone. Work your lure slow and with hard jigs from the rod tip, imitating a wounded bait fish.
The majority of the water surrounding your location should be clean near the flats or gutters with a slight hint of colour distinction for the barra to use as an ambush point. The end of a good set of neap tides will bring you this clarity. The start of the springs will offer you the movement and slight colour changers needed. Remember, Barra are a lazy fish. They use the run in the tide to move them around. They use the eddies to hold up in and wait for passing bait to come their way. I like to see flats with a colour distinction but when it comes to trolling rock bars and deep snags, you can’t get it clean enough.
Rock Bars and snags
Fishing rocks bars and snags are a little different to fishing flats and requires different tactics. When fishing rock bars you need to determine at what time of the tide the barra feed? For most of the rock bars I have fished in the NT the outgoing tide seems to be the most productive. In order for rock bars and snags to fish properly you need run. With out run you won't get the eddies and pressure lines that the barra use to conduct their feeding. A good rock bar or snag should be in more than six foot of water at low tide and must be holding bait. I have found a hand-full of rock bars and snags in the NT that look great but just don’t hold bait. It’s like turning up to a Mc Donald’s store when they have run out of food.
The change of tide is also a good time to fish these areas. Sometimes it pays to put on shallower lures than you were using when the tide was running because the barra tend to lift and feed on the surface around the change of tide. This may have something to do with the eddies disappearing once the tide stops. Snags and rock bars can be fished either trolling or casting as the eddies work up as far as the surface in some cases. Deep diving lures need to be touching the rock bars or snags to be successful when trolling and close to the snags or rock bars when casting.
In my opinion you will consistently catch bigger barra trolling the rock bars and snags rather than cast them.
Water Clarity:
In order to target barramundi with consistency, you first have understand the capabilities of barra. What degree of clarity they can feed in, but more importantly what degree of clarity it takes for them to fall for your lure. The answer is simple. Barra can feed effectively in the most dirty coloured water you could imagine, but your lures won’t work effectively unless the water clarity is of a clean type. The colour that best describes this is Guns N Roses Green. That’s what colour the water appears to be with mangroves leaves are reflecting off it. This clarity can be measured by placing your rod tip under water and counting how many guides you can see before the tip disappears. The best time to fish in the salt water for big fish is when you can see all of your runners. However for numbers of barra the best time is when there is a slight discolourment and you can only see about four runners.
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| These White Egrets are on the job. The fact that they are beyond the water line means there is bait in the area. The fact that the area is of good structural nature means I will fish this area for predators like Barra or salmon who will position their selves in amongst the snags. This particular spot is a collapse mud bank with the depth of water under the egret being about 5 foot and a meter in front of that being about 10 foot….. Perfect. |
This clarity can be found on tides after a long set of neaps, a couple of days into the building tides. This usually occurs close to either the full moon or the new moon. The only other factor you need to take into consideration with clarity is wind and rain. Both these factors can damage your water clarity in minutes.
Once you have the right water clarity, you then need a little bit of run to the tide to stimulate feeding. Hence the saying “no run, no fun!”
Bait Signs:
Bait can’t always be seen, as such. To a trained eye, signs of bait can be seen 50 meters away once you know what to look for. Take these birds for example. This is a White Egret. They are a common sight when fishing in the NT. They can be seen lined up along the banks of rivers or catching a ride on a Buffalo’s back.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t go much on bird watching, but when out on the water I take great care in looking out for these birds because they play such a key role in finding bait. The Bait Bird (as I call them) can be seen all over the Top End feeding on small mullet, scats, and glassfish on the mangrove lined banks or billabongs. When these birds are lined up on a bank it is a good indication that there is some bait around and as I said earlier where there is bait there is predators.
Bait can also be detected on your fish finder if you have a sounder with high resolution and it is set up properly. The sounder will show up bait on the screen once you know what to look for. If you are working an area where bait is consistently showing up on your screen there is a good change you will find fish in that area. When you do see fish on the sounder pay attention to what shape the school is showing up as on your sounder. If they are in a tight circle there is a good chance there is a predator of some kind working them. If they are spread out there is a good chance a predator isn’t in the immediate area. Theses are the signs you as an angler need to learn to pick up on when out on the water.
Fish Indicators:
I use a good quality depth sounder when I’m out fishing. Some people use their sounder solely as an indicator of depth. Others say they need it just to find structure on the bottom. I trust my sounder enough to tell me when there are fish there and when there is not. A good quality sounder set up properly, with the right settings and features, can determine bait schools and fish on your screen.
I use my sounder to find fish and try to work out the position of the fish on the screen and whether it’s feeding or floating past.
On several occasions, I have left a well-known spot because my sounder hasn’t shown me enough fish to warrant staying there.
On other occasions, I have fished areas I have never been before because the sounder has shown me fish that appear to be feeding. That brings me to my last tell tale sign.
There are a number of ways to tell if fish are feeding. The first is your sounder. For example, if I’m trolling a tidal creek on the incoming tide, I’m in ten feet of water and my sounder shows fish on the bottom not on snags. That tells me that the fish there are not feeding.
Take the same example, say the fish are on the bottom around snags, there’s a good possibility that these fish are feeding. What I like to see on an incoming tide is fish floating past around six to eight feet. These fish are feeding. Put on a six-foot lure which will swim above the Barra that are feeding up the creek with the tide and troll both with the current and against the current until you no longer see these fish on your screen. Remember in this example the fish are feeding but they are also on the move so don’t be disheartened if you don’t see fish on your screen after a couple of trolls.
Don’t forget Barra have eyes on top of their head. They can only see what’s in front and above them when feeding, so don’t troll lures deeper than the fish on the sounder.
Another tell tale sign for feeding fish is watching the bait. Once you have found the bait in a creek or on a flat, watch for what the bait is doing. Imagine you were the bait. If there were several big Barra hanging around would you be swimming up the middle of the creek in ten feet of water or would you be in an inch of water next to the bank looking nervous and distressed? Would you jump at every sudden sound, or would you be franticly in search of a safe place to hide? These are the signs you need to look for when looking for feeding fish.
Another obvious sign in searching for feeding fish is surface action. Fish breaking the surface. Fish boofing bait leaving great swirls in the water. The sound of Barra boofing under the boat and the sight of bait scattering across the surface when one of their friends get taken inches away from them is a great sight. To see the bait on the surface shimmer every time you hear a boof is really the best feeling when on the water.
Choice Of Lure:
Take careful consideration when choosing your lure. Don’t just grab the old favorite out of the box and way you go. Look at the water clarity. If it’s clean use natural coloured lures if the water is slightly dirty, choose a colour that stands out a little.
If the water is dirty, choose a lure with a lot of contrast like black and red etc. I like to look at what bait is around as well. In the fresh water I look for checkered rainbows or barred grunter and match what they look like to the colour lure I choose. In fact you may laugh, but when in fresh water I place my lure softly in the water near some small bait fish and if they congregate around the lure I use it. If they flee from it I don’t. I don’t know why I do this but I have done it since I was about years old and it works. Sometimes it has helped me find the best colour for the days fishing.
When in the rivers I look for tarpon and put on shiny lures to imitate. Match the bait size to your lure choice. Sometimes if big Barra are chasing small mullet you will need to use a smaller lure than normal. Remember they feed peanuts to Elephants so don’t be scared to use a small lure.
The depth of your lure will play a critical part in catching fish as well. As I said before Barramundi eyes are on top of their head. They tend to look up toward the surface while feeding so use lures that will swim above the fish showing on your sounder. In saying that, when working snags or rock bars make sure your are touching the snags and rocks when trolling over them. Try and work your lure over the snags without being snagged using the drop back system.
If you take into consideration the timing of your trip, the right tides with the right conditions and watch for the tell tale signs, I’m sure your fishing trips will only get more enjoyable and profitable.
Don’t forget. Unlike Olympic heroes even the best of fishermen sometimes come back empty handed. It’s what you learn from that experience that gives you that leading edge over the average amateur fisherman.
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