I’ve just spent three full days fishing in Bynoe Harbour.
We were doing a NAFA magazine apparel shoot, and stayed at delightful Crab Claw Island Resort.
The tides were great for barra fishing: 1.4m down to 0.9m over the three days.
Bynoe Harbour is a big system and, on spring tides like these, you need to pick the area where you want to fish and get there before the tide gets too low and you can’t get in.
Mainly, we cast lures to drains and mangrove edges, and there was enough action to produce quite a few barra, although nothing of any notable size.
Trolling on the other hand at least dug out one quality barra: an estimated 80cm fish which sadly threw the lure after a good battle.
Given that lure fishing for barramundi can be broken down into two basic techniques – casting or trolling – we gave both a good shot.
On that note, let’s examine both techniques in more detail.
Casting and trolling can be highly effective, and there are various sub-techniques that can be applied to both barra-fishing styles.
These sub-techniques go hand in hand with the type of lure you have chosen to use.
If you have chosen to cast a lure at a particular location – eg at a snag that protrudes from below to above the water’s surface – you might start with a shallow-running, hard-body minnow like a Bomber 15A lure.
This would allow you to check for barra in the upper water level whilst minimising the risk of snagging.
If that doesn’t work, you might decide to probe down deep using a weedless soft plastic like a Zman SwimmerZ or Squidgy Pro Prawn.
The beauty of casting a weedless lure into the heart of the snag, and letting it sink before you retrieve it with a slow roll or with intermittent lift and drop, is that you can get through the timber without snagging.
Of course, you’ll need to have a “come-here” drag setting to wrestle any barra you hook out of the snag before it can cut you off.
There are other casting sub-techniques that can be applied to different scenarios.
In recent years, “vibing” has become very popular.
A vibe is a small, internally-weighted, soft-plastic lure with a fish-like profile and usually two small trebles.
You cast it out, let it sink to the bottom and then retrieve it with a twitching or lift-and-drop action.
It’s risky fishing around timber structure because it will snag easily, but it can work a treat at feeder creek mouths, across rock-bars and through gaps in aquatic vegetation like lotus lilies.
Some anglers prefer to cast only for barra and look at trolling disparagingly.
However, there can be much more to trolling than simply dragging a lure behind the boat.
Importantly, it allows you to cover a lot more water than you ever could by propping at different spots and casting.
For example, in a tidal river situation where there is a row of submerged snags that do not show above the surface of the water – eg a collapsed bank – you can troll against the current flow with deeper-diving, hard-body minnows worked above and through the snags.
This requires a certain amount of skill to avoid snagging: you need to quickly free-spool and “throw back” line when you feel a snag, and hopefully the lure will float back and up, and then swim above the snag when the spool is re-engaged.
Lures like the Classic Barra 10+ and 15+ are ideal for this style of trolling, and barra love them.
Thankfully, there are also some great, deep-diving, hard-body minnows that have a big, large bib which acts as a lever to help the lure “jump” the snags; eg Reidy’s Goulburn Jack.
A technique referred to as “fast trolling” works well in tidal rivers when mullet are on the move.
It’s basically a non-snaggy technique as you don’t need to troll close to the river bank.
Bigger lures like Bomber 16A and 17A in fluoro green colour and Reidy’s Big Ass B52 are great fast-trolling lures which need to be towed a long way behind the boat at 5-7km/h.
Trolling in the billabongs is just too easy because there is no current to take account of.
A couple of standout trolling lures for freshwater barra are the Bomber 15A in chartreuse colour and Reidy’s Little Lucifer in blue/white colour.
Troll the lily and grass edges slowly, regularly pulling the outboard out of gear for a few seconds and jigging your raised rod to make the lure dance enticingly as it loses forward momentum, and then putting it back in gear.
This is called “jig trolling” and is a great technique for getting the fish on the bite.
So, to cast or to troll? Each has its positives.
Of course, casting lures is the go-to when Active Target fishing, but trolling an area when your forward-facing sonar has identified the presence of barra on the move is also a logical tactic.
Let’s hope 2025 is a fish-friendly and safe year for all of us.
Amber Guinane with a brace of Christmas barra caught casting at drains in Bynoe Harbour.
A barra comes to the net after taking a lure at a draining gutter in Bynoe Harbour.
