Which Lure for Murky Water?

It was late November and my mate and I decided to head out yak fishing in the local Causeway Lake. The area of Rockhampton and Yeppoon had been impacted by a fair amount of local rain which had greatly affected local waterways making them very muddy and silty. When fishing in these situations, I’ve found that the lighter coloured lures are the lures of choice when the fish are playing hard to get and are shut down. Also you need to think about the other factors that allow fish to feed in murky water. Sound and vibrations made by baitfish are also the key to targeting these shutdown fish so pick a lightly coloured lure with a very prominent rattle.

We launched our yaks from a dirt boat ramp near the Cool Waters camp grounds and headed out into the back creeks with mangrove fringing banks. I was armed and dangerous with my Okuma Flame F-30 reel and Okuma travel spin graphite rod. I started with a minnow type lure using a twitch and pause retrieve to entice predatory fish to smash my lure but the lure was left untouched. My mate experienced the same irritating treatment from the fish as he had a similar type of lure. After a few more casts without any hits I swapped to a herring coloured shad profiled lure, while my mate switched to the same lure in a different colour. A few casts into the snags using a seductive twitch retrieve produced a nice little barramundi which tried to dart back into the snags and break my line off. After a couple pictures were taken the fish was released unharmed back into the water where it disappeared as it headed back to the snags.

My mate soon after hooked up on some type of estuary salmon using his shallow diving, floating minnow lure. Soon after, I hooked up on a larger fish that hit my lure just as the lure approached a drop off from the shallow snags to the deeper water. The fish stuck to the bottom till it was almost under my kayak before I could get it to surface. It was a nice mangrove jack that was very camouflaged due to its brown appearance. Soon after the release of the mangrove jack, we started heading back to the boat ramp and were against the wind the whole way.

 Half way there we came across two men in a tinnie which had broken down and were drifting to the rocks and mangroves at the side of the lake at quite a speed. They asked me and my friend for a tow but we had to pass that offer up as we were having a hard enough time getting back any way. Just as we were approaching the ramp we could see the two men in tinnie cruising up one of the creeks so we figured they got it to work.

That day my mate and I learnt the importance of changing our lures around till we found the fish’s favourite.

River Trout

New Zealand is full of rivers, streams and creeks that network between the lakes and the sea. The most common targeted sports fish in these locations are rainbow trout and brown trout because of there wide distribution and the various methods of catching them including bait, lures and fly fishing. When fishing in these areas you must first purchase a recreational fishing license from any information centres, sports and fishing stores.

We stopped at river just of the southerly borders of Lake TeAnu that looked promising for nearly untouched fishing with pristine conditions. I quickly grabbed my Okuma graphite travel spin rod, my Okuma Flame

F-30 and my Rapala lures when I set off for the river. As I approached the main river section I realised the water was too fast flowing and shallow to be inhabited by most trout so I walked upstream to a section where the river had made a long narrow island. I walked across a shallow section and over the narrow island to find a slower flowing stream section with a promising tree line on the side opposite to me. About ten metres upstream from me the river is narrow and shallow before going deeper and spreading out in the section in front of me, then ten metres downstream continuing to narrow and return to a shallow depth. About two thirds of the way cross was a little rock bar that was much higher then the rest of the water.

The 7cm Rapala Original Floating lure in brown trout colour.

The first lure I tied on to my line, using a lefty’s loop, was a 7cm Rapala Original Floating lure in the brown trout colour. I tested it in the water in front of me, before casting it out, and it beautifully displayed the classic Rapala “wounded minnow” swimming action. I cast the lure in all directions and tried a variety of different retrieves. The lure was swimming about half a metre to a metre under water and could not get deep enough in the water column. Just as I was about to change lures I saw a brown shadow suspended just off the bottom.

The 5cm Rapala Countdown sinking lure in perch colour

I decided to change to a 6cm Rapala Count Down sinking lure in the perch colour. This lure is a slow sinker so you let it sink down to the chosen depth before you start your retrieve. As I was letting the lure sink I found the flow of the river was carrying the lure downstream to fast, so I tried casting upstream und letting it sink down by the time I got to me. This made a big difference to the depth of the lure but it still did not get to the right depth where the trout was suspending off the bottom.

Take note of the large bib on this 6cm Rapala X-Rap Shad lure, as the larger the bib the deeper the lure.

It was now I had to play tough so I brought out my 6cm Rapala X-Rap suspending shad, with the larger bib, in the firetiger colour. By the time I switched my lures over the ‘brown shadow’ had disappeared and I could not see it any were. I started casting in all different spots and I decided to cast on the other side of the rock bar which was two thirds of the way across. Just as the lure was passing over the rock bar a nice sized fish hit the lure and started heading downstream using the flow to his advantage. I couldn’t afford to have him snag me off on the bottom or get lost in the strength of the stream. I pulled my rod up and out to my left to help get him out of the deeper water and to help land him on the stony shore. I led him into the shallows and picked him up being sure to support his belly. The fish was surprisingly round and heavy which led me to believe there is a good source of natural food in the river system. The fish was released after a few quick photos back into the blue clear water he came from.



Fish and lure, face to face, eye to eye and love at first bite.



This showed the importance of depth and how fish, when fussy or shut down, will only hit lures that get right in their face and in their section of the water column.

Me, the fish, my Okuma combo and my Rapala X-Rap

To Catch Big think Small

When it comes down to lure fishing there is nothing more adrenaline pumping than targeting fish on light gear. But don’t be fooled, just because you have a drag screaming on what appears to be a never ending run doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. By using top quality gear you can be assured that you have the best possible chance to land the fish, so just hang on and enjoy the ride.

After passing over the Grey River, at Greymouth in in New Zealand, we found a caravan spot located very close to the rivers northern banks. I immediately grabbed my Okuma graphite travel rod, my Okuma Flame F-30 reel and my backpack of fishing gear and headed to a little bank surrounded by water grass on either side. I predicted there would be brown trout in the river, as they are a very common species in New Zealand waterways, so I tied on a 7cm Rapala Original floating lure in the brown trout colour and began casting around the submerged rocks two my left. With no hits or follows produced by the most obvious form of structure, I decided to cast out long to the right where I worked the lure along the inaccessible grassy bank. The grass along the bank was taller than me and some stalks had collapsed and suspended in the water just off the edge. This was a great spot for trout to live, as they feed on minnow type fish (including there young) and some arthropods like grass hoppers and other insects. On the second cast out along that section a relatively small brown trout immediately munched the little Rapala lure and tried to dive back into the grassy cover. I easily landed the little brown trout on my bank before releasing it after a quick picture.



 One third of the way across the grey river is a rock wall which separates the shallow side from the deep fast flowing side. I was on the banks of the shallow side which had no currant and was mainly fresh water, but I could see fishermen who had kayaked out to the rock wall. They were casting metal jigs and spinners out into the fast moving saltwater river and catching Aussie salmon or kahawai as they call them in NZ. I switched to small metal spoon in the hope that there were a few nice little salmon in my section. After casting out in every direction possible without success I cast in the same place I caught the brown trout on the Rapala and reeled in at a speed fast enough to give the spoon a sluggish flutter like a little baitfish. A similar sized brown trout grabbed the lure and jumped out of the water as I was reeling him in. I realesed him back into the water just as one of the fishermen was kayaking back from the rock wall.

The man was a local fisherman and he had a bucket full of salmon fillets. He offered me his kayak so I could get to the rock wall and back, as long as I pulled it up into the long grass when I finished. As I loaded my gear into the yak and started paddling out I realised he had a heavy 10-15kg rod and a 70gram lure while I only had my light Okuma gear. I pulled the yak up as far as I could then tied it, so it wouldn’t drift away. I pulled out my gear than climbed over the rocks to get to the other side. I cast the little spoon out as far as I could and let it sink a bit before I started to reel it in. the flow of the river pulled the lure out to my right pretty fast. About half way in my retrieve I got a very strong hit, a very fast ran and my line went slack. I lost about thirty metres of 4.5kg braid on my first cast and I was getting a little worried. I then tied on a 13.5 gram Tassie Devil lure with a pearl white colour on using 12lb fluorocarbon leader. I used I slightly slower retrieve and got a huge hit. The fish started to dive down and swim out to my right with the currant. I started loosing line of my Okuma Flame F-30 reel but it’s high quality drag helped my to slow the fish down enough to turn it around. Strangely as I turned it the fish did another super fast run taking out over 100 metres of line, but went against the flow of the river. I started to gain line back on the spool as the fish reluctantly zigzagged closer and closer to my rock wall. I managed to get the fish two metres from where my rock wall met the water, but as I did I dove down. I couldn’t get over how far the fish was diving straight down and figured it was a sheer drop off. I managed to pull him back up to the surface and he keeped kicking around in the shallows and darting around near my feet, before darting back out again. I had no gaff, no net and no idea how I could land it I got down to the water surface and just as he came back over the ledge and into the shallows I grabbed his tail and lifted him out of the water. I dealt with the nice salmon and left him with my gear.



The Salmon with the little white lure just near its face



I cast the small lure out to my left and started retrieving it straight away. Almost instantly it got a hit and a nice Australian Salmon torpedoed out of the surface several times before trying to dive down. This one was not as powerful as the first and I managed to get it in a lot quicker. It started to jump and skitter across the surface when it was close to the ledge. Having done it once already I was able to land it a lot easier and pull it up onto the rocks. The sun was getting lower and lower so I packed up my gear, jumped back in the yak and paddled to the little bank I launched off.

From this fishing experience I learnt that to catch big, think small and downsize not just lures but leaders and fishing gear like rods and reels, but always use quality gear.