Saltwater Barra Open Season

By Robert Thornton

Across the north, late summer is a highly anticipated and often anxiously awaited time for barramundi anglers. In Queensland, the barramundi season officially opens in February, making it a particularly exciting time in this part of the world.

As February rolls around, barra-mad Queenslanders, as well as interstate visitors, relish the opportunity to lock horns with big barramundi in their natural habitat. It’s often said that Queensland offers the best saltwater barra fishing, but that’s a debate best settled around a campfire, possibly with a few beers under the belt to emphasise the point!

In any case, anglers new to barramundi fishing and those who’ve experienced more barra seasons than they care to remember can unite in their appreciation for this great species.

With the help one of the state’s foremost barramundi anglers, this blog will arm you with the latest intel on tackle and techniques to chase wild barra at the beginning of the season. By applying his latest findings with old, trusted knowledge, you’ll be getting some of the best written advice available – whether you’re yet to land that first salty or just trying to improve your results on previous seasons!

Let’s jump right in.

Barra open season: a Queensland thing

Queensland is currently the only state or territory with closed seasons for recreational barramundi fishing, with two such periods applying to separate regions in this vast state.

In the sunshine state, populations on the east and west coasts are subject to different regulations, owing to their recognised status as distinct strains. On the east coast, the targeting and taking of barra in tidal waters is banned from 1 November, while in the Gulf (west coast) this begins on 7 October. The closures both end on 1 February, which often coincides with the best fishing of the season.

By this time both populations have finished spawning and are on the hunt, frantically trying to regain condition lost while dutifully re-populating the river. Prey items washed down by seasonal flooding are invariably on the menu for post-spawn barramundi, with prawns and small fish usually making up the bulk of their diet.

At the same time, newly hatched barra use the extra flow to push upstream into more sheltered habitats like billabongs, mangrove lagoons and other pockets of relative safe water. There they will then spend their first few years feeding on shrimps, insects, tiny fish, frogs and other small forage, before eventually heading back to the estuary upon reaching maturity. Once back in the saltwater, they’re able to do exactly as their parents did only a few years before, thus completing the life cycle of these amazing animals. 

A new season

Each barra season is different from the last, as is the case with any species anywhere in the world! Over time though, patterns tend to form. Anglers like Mackay’s Jack Mitchell, who has experienced many seasons in his local area, are the best sources of information about these seasonal patterns.

“It’s all about rain,” he says, “and I personally like to try find clean water at the beginning of the season.”

“They don’t eat any less in dirty water,” he goes on, “I just tend to find that it’s easier to pick where they sit; with dirty water they’re usually a lot more mobile.”

Using this knowledge, Jack can then decide which river or creek systems are worth exploring once the season opens. 

“If we get rain a lot of rain leading up, I usually avoid big catchments,” he explains, “Instead I’ll focus on small creeks, and ideally time my fishing around small tides.”

Large rivers that collect huge amounts of fresh during rain events can spend weeks flushing out excess run-off, as opposed to small systems that usually recover from minor flooding within a matter of days.

On the other hand, a dryer period leading up to February can be a good time to visit the major rivers, with big systems known for holding better populations of barra and quite often, bigger fish in general. If these waterways are churned up with murky water though, locating the fish can be very difficult.

Where to start?

With each season providing its own unique set of factors, conventional understandings of barra behaviour are useful when beginning your search.

Rain brings run-off, and in a rain-soaked system it’s usually possible to find drains, creek mouths and other locations where freshwater flows into the main system. Such spots are classic ambush zones for barramundi.

“You can always find run-off after rain,” Jack explains, “and you’ll usually find barra there, but you won’t tend to find a lot of big fish.”

Being a veteran to the game, Jack naturally likes to focus his efforts on locating big fish.

“I like to head down to the mouth and try to find a colour change,” he says, “an area where the dirty freshwater meets the clean ocean water.”

“This is where I’ll start looking,” he continues, “and if no luck, or I can’t find a colour change, I’ll work my way back upstream.”

What’s on the menu?

Paramount to success in the early season is replicating the barra’s natural food sources. In late summer, this is predominantly prawns, though small fish like mullet, herring, whiting and garfish are also part of the post-spawn diet.

“I’ll always have a prawn rigged up at the start,” Jacks says, “The Bait Junkie 5” Prawn is a really good size where I fish.”

“My go-to outfit for the size of fish I chase is something in the 7ft plus range,” he goes on, “as it offers length for long casts – I’m not super worried about accuracy when chasing big fish in open areas.”

“A 200-size baitcaster with a 6.3:1 ratio goes well with it, because a lot of my prawn fishing is slow.”

Prawn soft plastics can be fished in different ways, with various rigging configurations and retrieve styles offering multiple presentation options. Jack likes to rig them on standard jigheads between 3/8-5/8oz and fish them with a slow, steady retrieve. This produces consistent results on the bigger fish that Jack targets in deeper water.

On the other hand, some anglers rig them weedless, with little or no weight, and fish them with a series of twitches. This approach is more effective in shallow water, especially around drains and other in-flow areas, where smaller barra wait for nervous prawns as they’re swept virtually into their mouths!

Jack’s other main weapon is jerkbaits, with the Double Clutch 115 EXDR and Steez Current Master 93 EXDR two of his favourites.

“With a jerkbait I always start with the standard retrieve: first few cranks to get it down, and then a twitch-twitch-pause” he explains. “If no bites, I’ll change my pause time before anything else, starting with a 2 or 3-second pause, then 5-6 seconds, then 7-8 second and so on.”

“When jerkbaiting I’ll change that to a shorter 6’6” baitcast rod,” he continues, “and I like reel with a higher ratio around 8.1:1, as it helps to pick up the slack quickly.”

Handy hints

While running live sonar technology in recent years (which is by no means necessary for success), Jack has been able to observe how barramundi respond to different lures in a range of scenarios.

One very intriguing observation (among many) is how easily barramundi can spook, even when lures are presented to what look like hungry fish.

“There’s been plenty of time where I’ve found fish sitting at a certain depth,” Jack explains, “and as soon as I get a lure down to them, they spook!”

“What I like to do when I find fish now is work my way down to them,” he goes on, “I’ll always start with a silent lure, and try to fish it above them in the beginning.”

“If they’re hungry, they’ll rise 6-7ft to eat a lure, but may just end up spooking if you sink a lure directly onto them.”

If there’s no interest in his first offering, Jack will present something closer to the depth the fish are sitting at.

It’s worth noting too that barramundi are not always in the mood to eat. As the water rises and falls throughout the tide cycle, feeding windows and opportunities open and close with them. As Jacks says, fish in the wild are quite often “staging” if they’re not actively looking for food.

Jack has a few theories around ways to get bites from staging fish, and we’ll hopefully get to that in a future blog!

Season’s greetings!

With February just around the corner at the time of writing, anglers like Jack will be meticulously going through their arsenal and seeing what needs repairing, servicing and replacing. Tackle prep is an important phase for barra fanatics leading up to the open season, as not only does it ensure your equipment is ready to go, it also allows the angler to mentally prepare and formulate a plan for that first session!

Good luck to anyone getting out in February, especially if it’s your first Queensland barramundi season!