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While barramundi fishing with my mate in the local estuaries, none of our lures were being hit or produced a follow. This occurred even though we cast right deep into the snags and used the seductive twitch retrieve. The last lure I decided to throw into the deep end was my new Rapala Floating X-Rap. The lure was 10cm and a beautiful pale blue with a light top and bottom. This was good because the water was brown and muddy so the natural mullet coloured lures seemed to fade into the water.

For a floating lure, the X-Rap casts like a bullet due to its wait shifting system. It can be used like the regular suspending X-Rap by casting and retrieving or trolling. The thing that sets it apart is its buoyancy which allows it to rise. “Big Whoop” you might think but when you’re fishing right in snags it pays of to have one of these bad boys in your tackle box.



The barramundi and the Floating X-Rap



If you are casting and retrieving your lure and it hits logs or rocks on the bottom, you can pause and allow your lure to float above these structures before commencing your retrieve. This helps prevent the loss of lures and can help increase hook up rates as you are not afraid of loosing a new $25 lure you have just bought.

One of my favourite retrieves that is excellent for fishing around snags with these floating lures is to cast out and let the lure float on top. Give the lure a sharp twitch and it will flick up water and dart down under the surface. The lure then rises up to the surface and you can repeat this action. This is great because it can keep your lure right in the strike zone amongst the snags for a longer amount of time. It also works your lure from the surface, down through the different water columns which is great when trying to hook up on fish that are shut down.

This is the retrieve I used while I was kayak fishing with my mate. It proved to be deadly on barramundi. It also works great with the 10cm Rapala Flat Rap which is a wooden floating lure that has a very small lip. I suggest you should check these awesome lures out the next time you go to your local tackle store.

Measuring the barra on my mates kayak

X-Rap Barramundi

While preparing for a day out on the saltwater Causeway Lake, I packed a selection of Rapala lures including the X-Rap shads and slashbait minnows. I kayaked out to a fairly quiet mangrove system where I began casting my lures as close into the snags as possible. I started with a 10cm Saltwater X-Rap slashbait in a natural dark brown colour. I began with a standard retrieve but then resulted to a seductive twitching retrieve. The water was very muddy and the lure seemed to disappear as soon as it hit the water. With this in mind, I decided to switch to my 6cm X-Rap shad in the fire tiger pattern. This lure has a large bib which allows it to get right down into the deeper areas and occasionally hit the bottom giving a puff of sand through the water which can attract predators. As I was using the twitch retrieve I saw a barra hit a group of small herring just off the surface right amongst the snags. I quickly changed to a smaller X-Rap slashbait in the silver blue colour to help resemble the herring. Not only is the colour and size similar to a herring but when I swam it beside my kayak it became obvious that the herring cold be seen easily in the murky water due to their light shiny colour.



My first cast landed in a sandy bank area rimed with mangrove roots. The lure was twitched and worked all of the way back to kayak with no hits. My second cast landed right up close to the mangrove trees and was twitched and paused. Just after the second twitch, a nice size fish ate the lure and started to run off along the mangrove encrusted banks. The drag of my Flame F-30 Okuma reel was adjusted to help turn the fish around and get him into the open water away from the snags. As he stubbornly came closer to my kayak I could see he was a nice sized barramundi and he was neatly hooked right in the corner of the mouth, with the tail treble. He had to slowly tire him out before I could pull him onto my kayak. He measured to be 59cm and was quickly and safely released after the picture was taken.



The barramundi before being landed



The 59cm Barramundi

   



I continued casting the little lure around into the snags, twitching and pausing it to help produce a strike. Shortly after I got another hit from a more energetic barramundi which jumped out off the water twice before spitting the hooks. I had to cut off and replace my fluorocarbon leader line because it had been extremely worn and shredded from the aggressive hit. With in no time I hooked up on another barramundi which behaved similar to the one I had landed earlier. This one though measured 56cm and was just smaller than the other. With in 5 minutes a third barramundi was then landed measuring 49cm.

 


My lovely X-Rap, Okuma Rod and Barra



Tha smaller 49cm barramundi











 

This shows how effective matching a lure to the natural food can be and how well it can pay of it you do so. Sometimes though if fish are shut down and not feeding brighter more ‘out there’ colours like a fire tiger colour or a clown colour can be used to help produce more bites.



56cm barramundi