James Rowley camptured a decent 96cm barramundi on a Molix Shad 140 Swimbait.
Water level leaves large barra lure shy
I Logan Gilmore scored a 99cm barramundi on 7” Castaic Jerky J Swim.
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07 4157 3881 or email info@lakem.com.au www.lakem.com.au Page 76 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, March 2023
T’S been a tough start to the year on Lake Monduran for many anglers. The huge increase in water level has left many people struggling to find good areas to target. For those who have managed to find decent numbers of fish, it’s a struggle to entice larger models to take a lure. I’ve been asked by a number of people what would cause this, so I’ll do my best to try explaining why. Water level increase As anyone who fishes Lake Monduran regularly will know, over the past 18 months, we’ve seen the water level go from 35 to 100 percent capacity. Being quite a shallow lake, this jump means the surface area has increased significantly. Which leads to the same amount of bar-
Lake Monduran by SAM ROWLEY
ramundi spreading out over three times the amount of water, hence big numbers become harder to find. Increase in bait Increase in water means more areas for bait to feed and breed. And though this is great for the health of the system, it also results in the predatory species having to work less to feed and survive. Hungry fish are much more likely to take an artificial lure than those that are spoilt for choice. I have noticed a huge increase in the presence of bait over the past couple of months and this has coincided with bites becoming tougher. Luckily, we had a great survival rate from
the fingerling release at the end of 2021. As these fish get bigger, they will begin to influence the levels of bait throughout the dam. Given there should not be another bait spawn until later in the year, we should see the bait level drop over the coming months and in turn the fishing should hopefully improve. The fish are spooking easily Monduran is quite a heavily fished lake, which has the effect of the fish becoming steadily wearier as they get older. Anything from outboard and electric motors, banging hatches or even talking too loudly * continued P78
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