OLD
Bright lures in dirty water TOWNSVILLE
Dave Hodge
So far the wet has resulted in some mixed emotions and results for many anglers. Traditional locations such as Aplins Weir have produced some big fish, and quite a few of them, but for those of us who just can’t handle standing in the middle of shoulder-to-shoulder anglers, it was a lot more of a search before you located reasonable fishing sometimes.
After the initial blackwater fish kills and flushing of the dead water from grass-laden billabongs and lagoons had gone, the barra started to head upstream, as is usually the case. A second lot of heavy rain halted the traditional migration though, and maintained high levels for a longer period of time. This made accessing some of the better spots impossible. Thankfully, we all have our little hidey holes, and we managed to find a few spots to bend a rod on a barra. We had a few lures to
experiment with recently, with one of the stand-outs being the Real Baits by Atomic. They replicate
to a predator. Hardbodies have still been catching their fair share of fish, and the good
Lure maker Mark Truscott customised this colour for Tannhym. It has proven deadly in the dirty water.
The Atomic Real Baitz have been working very well. While casting from the side of the road amongst other anglers, this lure stood out in its catch rate.
The good old Halco Paddle Prawn in 5” pink has been a stand out in the dirty waters.
lures were more effective in the slower-flowing sections of water, while the plastics (more easily weighted and gauged) performed better in the faster stuff. I recommend experimenting with both lure types to see which is more effective in the area
almost identically each of the main types of baitfish that predatory fish hunt. We had a couple of the Mullet models and they were very effective in the faster flowing waters. We cast our lures out across the current and swam them back to our position, and bites were taken well down, proving their realism
When the fish are eating tiny baits you have to match them.
If the barra don’t want to play the game, head out the creek mouths to see if there are any of these spectacular fish haunting the flats. 36 APRIL 2023
old Tilsan Barra and Atomic Twitching Minnows have been getting results. I did notice that the hardbodied
you’re fishing. While some anglers have had incredible sessions on surface lures
lately, we haven’t really done as well as usual this year on the topwater stuff. Subsurface presentations have by far been the most effective for us. As it clears a little though, I think this will change. Fresh drains running into the salt have been where we have found most fish in the boat. It’s necessary to chase the tide as it changes height and be at the next drain downstream from where the last one fired as the tide dropped. The window of opportunity is short – often around half an hour. Another aspect of this style of fishing is the fact that when you get hit, the fish run straight towards you, mouth open and thrashing until they throw the hook. You can’t physically wind fast enough to keep that line tight, and they spit it on most occasions. To improve our catch rates a little bit, we went to our longer baitcasters and used the extra length to reduce the amount of slack between us and the fish in the initial stages of the fight. For me, the Samurai 7’ 10-17lb was just right for this, and with a parabolic bend at maximum load, it made a massive difference to our success. Brightly coloured soft plastics have been indispensable for us lately. We have been getting good results on fluoro orange and pink Halco Paddle Prawns, and radioactive rooster and electric chicken in the Atomic 4” Prongs. When combined with the
