Flying Barra

Catching a barramundi on fly is on top of the goal list for most dedicated fly fisherman around Aus.

Just catching any type or size of fish on a fly rod is a great experience - feeling the fly line pull through your fingers after the strike and the feel of the rod as it bends into a fish - it's awesome.

Barramundi of big sizes were harder to find with fly fishing techniques before the impoundments were stocked in Queensland. Now, with metre plus barra in large numbers in dams, the dream of landing a big barra on fly has become easier to achieve.

But it's still an extremely challenging goal - getting a big barra to eat your fly requires thought & effort.

Here's some tips that might help you achieve this goal:

1. Find a few spots that you’re confident will hold barra - weedy areas, laydown timber, points.
2. Plan how you'll fish them - your fly choice, where you'll be casting etc.
3. When you start fishing, come in stealthy & make long casts to the area.
4. Persist! This is one of the main ingredients of any successful idea.

The 112cm in the photo was captured after returning to a hot area the day after we landed 6 barra up to 113cm in 3 hours of fishing.

We think we could have caught a lot more on lure but persisted with the technique for 2 hours until we had the strike.

After setting the hook, it ran out into the deep and was a challenge to apply pressure. It finally came in and measured 112cm - taking around 2 minutes to land from the strike.

It was awesome fun & an amazing experience.

BTW, the fly was a slow sinking Sal-Mul-Mac at 130mm long - and was sunk for 10 seconds, after pulling the lure out of some weedy strands... bump!

Written by,
Cy and Kerrin Taylor.

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