Tinaroo

Plus it might inspire others who have fished this to post up their knowledge and experiences so we might all learn something new as the place - and I need all the help I can get fishing here.

Bill Caracatsoundis and I just spent the last 3 days fishing Lake Tinaroo. This place gets my head in trying to figure out how to fish it. But this morning I finally had success with a 76 cm  model from it. Now at 76 cm this is a small barramundi for this lake as there have been many over 130 cm caught here.

We tried all hours of the day and night, deep water, shallow water, surface lures, diving lures, praying to various gods and demons that will probably see me burn in hell. We saw so many fish of all sizes on the sounder on the down view and side scan but they just would not open their mouths. 

We tried a bank where previously had our most success - Bill with a metre something fish and we both had hits there. In a little corner associated with this bank Bill had a follow by a big fish yesterday morning using a chatterbait. Follow up attempts here provided nothing new. On another bank we saw a bloke drifting 4 metres off the bank casting to it. We asked the usual question about "catching anyhing?"and the reply came back as ä small one". An hour later trolling over some big fish in deep water off this bank another boat came along. It was trolling only about 4 metres off it and he hooked and landed an 80 cm barra (epiphanies came slowly but they did come).

This morning we tried our usual spots including the deep and shallow areas for zilch. We then went over to the bank from yesterday's teachings. This is a steep bank that meanders around into a shallow bay. The 2 fish from the other boats yesterday came from the steep bank at about a 40 degree angle. Bill and I changed over to shallow divers and trolled right next to the shoreline. On our third troll, and approaching the shallow bay, I was fishing next to the bank when I was whacked and whacked hard. It this fish had jumped the wrong way it would have landed on the bank it hit that close to the shoreline. A few moments of nervousness and it was in the net at 76 cm. Like I said earlier - small by Tinaroo standards but after a total of 13 days fishing this dam for nothing but catfish, I finally landed a barra here.

The lure I was using was a Mad Dog lure by David Hill. This lure was tested at Lakefield by David and myself a couple of weeks ago and we agreed that it needed refining. So in the photo I have blanked out the (prototype) lure.

Learnings from this last few days - the barra are not really scared of boats, at least not when going slowly. A reinforcement of good fish very close to the bank. The fish was caught when using the petrol motor, so they are not scared off by that either. I was previously told to fish the wind swept banks and the murky water the waves stir up. I now know that this is not necessarily the case as my fish and the other two yesterday came off a very protected and calm bank.

the barra

I sounded around (teaching Bill how to use his new sounder) and found an old bridge that I was told about many years ago.