A day in the Fitzroy

[Douglas]

A conversation with a well known barra fisherman, caused me to rethink my views about lures. I hinted at that in the post/s I did a few weeks ago on soft plastics.

These guys whose barramundi catching abilities are fact, have formed conclusions based on years of experience.

It would be foolish in the extreme to dismiss those conclusions.

When I drilled down a bit further with the conversation, it was obvious that what this fisherman was having trouble explaining was why these conclusion (although correct) had come about.

During the explanations, it became apparent that the reasons didn't stack up despite the correct conclusions/outcomes.

Then came a warning bell mention of infrared eyes. Barramundi do not have infrared eyes.

At that point I thought " Could this guy be right for the wrong reasons?"

There must be technical reasons to support the conclusions that had been arrived at.

So off I went digging further into the supportable technical aspects about effectiveness of lures eg action, colour, dirty/clean water, devices used by fish to detect food etc.

Its been a journey of enlightenment and its not finished yet.

One big eye-opener for me has been the effect of the distribution of light and colour in water.

I found quite a few articles about the subject. Some by people like Greg Vinall who I'd consider to be the go-to person on colour absorption and light scattering in water.

Other articles were simply cherry-picked from even more articles and were short on explanation.

Both types of info were based on what happens in crystal clear water (usually oceanic).

Unfortunately, none of the articles were relevant to fishing in dirty water and THAT'S where barra fishing happens.

With no info available, I've had to do my own "citizen science" research which has included buying some test equipment suitable for nailing down some specific things about dirty water.

Am I learning? You betcha.

At the end of the post on soft plastics, I said I'd do hard body lures which is what I'm doing.

I also had the opportunity to see an interview with Dave Killea (previously Killalures). Highly informative with a couple of nuggets on lure action thrown in with Dave Killea's casual style.

Anyway, I've nearly finished gathering the info and the next job is to put it in easy to understand words.

[Douglas]

Opening day here resulted in a 125cm and a 107cm barra (that I know about anyway. Could be more).

Town reach/CBD is the current go-to place.

Mate went down yesterday in rain for 85cm (on $3 soft vibe), and 80cm, 78cm and 70cm on 100mm drop-bear squidgy.

I went on Thursday to Marmor for a 21cm barra. A significant catch as it threw more light on the spawning events late last year and subsequent recruitment.

At 21cm it also equalled the only mangrove jack I've ever caught and even that was by accident. It attacked a 65mm squidgy (1/3 its size).

A 100mm model also attacked the lure but couldn't get its mouth around the tail. Aggressive little buggers.