Innovative Yak Fishing







The smaller barramundi caught on the herring coloured shad



In the morning around 9.45am Clayton, my fishing mate, and I started to paddle to the west side of the Causeway Lake from a bank near the kiosk. We were armed and dangerous with a selection of lures. He was targeting fish using soft plastics like jerk shads and wrigglers while I used a couple of hard body lures. The first to be put to the test was a 45mm shad profiled lure with a natural herring colour. A few retrieve patterns were used. The first was a standard retrieve which was just reeling the lure in at a constant speed. The second and most successful retrieve was a reel and twitch which caused the lure to dart like an injured baitfish. I relatively large fish smashed the lure along the mangrove edge before running 10 metres before spitting the lure. We continued to paddle to a deep mangrove creek where we cast the lures into areas with a lot of structure. On the second cast of the shad, a fish smashed lure as it was twitched over a submerged structure. The fish turned out to be a nice little barramundi that reluctantly gave into the pull of the 4.5kg braid on the Okuma Flame F-30 and Travel rod combo. A few casts later a fish of a similar size hit the lure without being hooked and then the next few casts produced no strikes. Without time to spare I swapped over to a jointed minnow lure in the mullet colour. On the first cast over the structure I twitched the lure causing it to dart and ripple through the water like a weak dying mullet. Within two meters of the first cast I was already hooked up on an even nicer fish which took longer to get in on the light rod. The fish was a 56cm barramundi which finally drifted up beside my yak before being delicately lifted out of the water. After a few quick pictures the fish was released without harm. Releasing barramundi is a very important practice in late November and December because that is when their breeding season commences. Two men in a small tiny near us had three baited rods in the water and had no luck at all. They couldn’t believe the success rate of lures over bait and I assured them that lures can often be the way to go while targeting barramundi. With this in mind I showed them a few techniques and swimming actions of the lures to help them visualise why the lures are so appealing to fish. The two men were quite grateful and couldn’t wait to go and buy a few lures for their next trip. 



The second barramundi with the jointed minnow lure



The two treble hooks provided a solid hookup

Rhett Thorne