Travel up to the Hinchinbrook region and you’ll find the waterways littered with barramundi! The Hinchinbrook Channel itself covers 50km of rivers, estuaries and creeks, all packed with very fishy looking snags. It is fishable all year round, you just have to change up your tactics in the colder months.
As the temperatures drop, the barra change their feeding habits. Colder water means their metabolism slows down. This means they won’t travel as far to seek food. This is why you will often find schools of these fish, bunched up on snags in the winter months, as they sit waiting for bait to swim up to, or past them.
This means that your best bet is to sound over a good looking snag before casting into it to see if the fish are there.
Using live bait on a paternoster rig, cast in front of the snag. This means that, the bait will sit just out of reach from any branches you could tangle on, and it also means the barra will have to come out from the snag to get it.
Live, freshly caught prawns are ideal as a live bait, but live Mullet or Gar also work well.
Head instore to your local BCF store if you are unsure on how to rig up to target these winter barra. They also have a huge variety of soft plastic and hard body lures to try for barra, if live baiting isn’t your thing.
If there is one Hinchinbrook charter operator we would recommend, it’s Nathan Kemp’s Full on Fish’n Charters. Nathan has over 30 years of experience in the region and has an in-depth knowledge and knack for finding, and catching Australia’s iconic sportfish.
