A beginner's guide to... ROCK BAR BARRA

Fishing for barramundi is one of the most thrilling forms of angling I can think of. It's easy to understand why so many people get involved in it. It's the kind of fishing the whole family can participate in, and a great way to teach kids how to fish.

Barra are spectacular, hard-fighting fish and are damn good to eat - especially when they are caught in salty or brackish water and still have a yellowish tinge on the tail.

Barramundi are found in dams, estuaries and the inshore tropical waters of our northern states, and are often caught by anglers fishing off piers, headlands and around other structures. The best way to fish for them, though, is from a small outboard-powered boat, such as a punt or a shallow-draught tinnie that will allow you to work in close to the rocky headlands or along the drains and snags on mangrove-lined riverbanks. These are all good areas to catch the wily barra, but the best grounds without a doubt - particularly if you consistently want to tangle with big barra - are around the craggy upstream rock bars.

WHERE TO LOOK
Most rivers and creeks will have hard-bottom sections in the system somewhere, and they can be detected by looking for rock faces or clumps of rocks along the riverbanks. Quite often these rocks will extend all the way across the river or creek, from bank to bank.

Trolling deep-diving lures over these hard-bottom structures is not only an exciting way to fish, but it's also a very productive method to catch these chrome-plated beauties.

To fish any rock bar successfully, there's a few items needed in the boat that will help make the fishing all that much easier. A small depthsounder unit, for example, will not only help you locate submerged rocks, but other snags as well, such as big trees or stumps that have been washed down the river during floods. A good sounder will also indicate the various depths and bottom contours, which help you in selecting the right kind of deep-diving lures to use.

Barra are lazy fish and prefer to wait in ambush behind ledges, rocks and stumps for their prey to swim by. So it's important to work your lures as close to these obstacles as possible.

Other handy items in the boat are a couple of sturdy rodholders. They can be used for trolling or just storing your rods when you're busy unhooking a fish or re-rigging. These are best positioned amidships, so while you're hanging onto the outboard tiller driving the boat you can watch your rod tips and see a strike, or maybe the lure touching the bottom or fouling a snag.

Many anglers like to hold the rod in anticipation, and this is certainly a fun way of doing it. These barras can belt the lures in a very aggressive manner and feeling the strike can be a lot of fun.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Another useful technique when trolling is to spool up with a light gelspun line (such as Spider-Wire or Super Braid) on your reels. The sensitivity of this strong, thin line is absolutely amazing and because there's no stretch in the material, you can feel your lure working over the bottom - or even if it fouls with weed.

It's a great advantage to be able to adjust the depth of the lure quickly or get it in to rid any debris caught on the hooks.

One thing you will also find when trolling these rock bars is how the tide or current can affect how deep your lures run. When pushing into the current, you'll need to let out a bit more line to get the lure down to the required depth. When trolling with the current, the following tide movement will help push the lure down so you don't need as much line out.

Naturally, the current will also have an effect on the boat's speed as well, so when pushing into the current you will need a few more revs than when going with it. The speed at which you troll depends entirely on the kind of lures you are using: the rule of thumb is to go as slow as you possibly can while keeping the lures down and working correctly.

Hooking and fighting these barramundi, particularly a big mother, can push your adrenalin levels to the limit, and it's hard not to panic at first and do something stupid. Keeping the pressure on and turning the boat away from the rock bar often can lead the fish out into open water.

Sometimes a big barra will just run through the rocks and bust you off smartly. There's nothing you can do about it. Other times you can be lucky and get fouled up on a snag but not busted off, and if you get the boat up over the top of the fish you can sometimes clear the line and resume the fight. This has happened to us on numerous occasions, even with 30-40lb fish.

PUT IN THE TIME
Like any form of fishing, the more you do the better you get at it. After a while you'll find that trolling will often give you more consistent results than casting. It's all about persistence and patience when fishing new grounds that look like holding barra.

Watching the depthsounder and working the right deep-divers to get you into the strike zone is so important, and there are plenty of lures on the market that will produce a bite if they're dragged past a barra's nose. Believe me, if you put in the time on a rock bar, you'll catch that fish of a lifetime!

TOP TIPS FOR ROCK BAR BARRA

John's Top 10 rock bar lures