Barramundi After Dark

There aren't too many people out there that I know of who don't like chasing barramundi. Chasing barramundi at night makes you rely on senses other than sight. You can't see a monster barra come in and engulf your lure, nor can you judge how close you come to snags or other potential fish holding structures. Despite this, barra readily feed at night and are positively a great night time target species on lures. Quite often fishing after dark is a lot less taxing up in the northern tropics, where daytime temperatures and humidity are in excess. I'll go through a few key points of when, where and what to use to target barramundi after dark.

When to target them

I find two days before, during, and the two days after the full and new moon to be the most productive time to target barra. I mainly concentrate my fishing times around the tide change, irrespective of whether I'm in tidal environments or not. Fishing the full moon, around moon rise, moon set and moon right above, normally coincides with short bite time periods. Generally the warmer months, with water temperatures over 24 °C, are the most effective. This is because barra will have a higher metabolism and therefore need to feed more frequently. They can still be targeted during the colder months, but this just means you'll have more casts between bites.

Where to find them

Barra are predominately ambush predators that don't tend to move too far to get a feed. If you are fishing tidal areas, or areas with current, concentrate on pressure edges, points and structure that will create eddies, where barra can lay in wait for bait to move past. In non-tidal environments like impoundments, shallow flats and weed edges or points are a good place to start looking for them.

Fish the windy side, as the wind will often create current in "stationary" water. I tend to take an up wind approach as the fish will be facing into the wind. Fish lures toward the fish, instead of over their backs. A decent sounder is always helpful in finding fish as it adds a lot more confidence to the equation. You can sit there and keep fishing a school of barra until they decide to eat. Once you find fish it is quite often worth staying in that area and concentrating your efforts there, as those fish will be in that spot for a good reason and sometimes just getting one to bite will be enough to fire others up into a short bite period.

Tackle and techniques

Surface: Not too many things are more exciting than hearing a big barra boof a surface lure at night, especially when you can't see what's happening. Surface fishing for barra at night is a very effective way of targeting them and this is especially true for full moon periods where they rely on silhouettes created by the moon to find bait.

My go-to lure for chasing barra on top are the ZMan 4" Hard Leg FrogZ in White. When fishing the FrogZ at night I run them on a spin outfit, which is made up of an Okuma spinning reel on an Okuma Cerros 7' spin rod, rated 5-12kg. I have the Helios spooled up with 20lb braid and I run a 60lb leader. I like the longer rod because it gives me greater casting distance with the FrogZ and I like making long casts with the FrogZ to cover a lot of water. I work the FrogZ with a high rod tip and I start winding as soon as the lure lands. Speed wise, when the FrogZ 'sounds' good to you, pattering over the water, then you've hit the sweet spot as far as speed is concerned. You will quite often see a bow wave of a barra following the FrogZ, do not stop winding. When they do this, 9 times out of 10 they will follow it right to the edge of the boat or bank and eat it as soon as you run out of water and try to lift it from the water.

Sub-surface: When it's windier, or there is a bit of chop on the water and surface fishing won't be an effective option, night-time barra can still be caught running either hardbody lures or paddle tail soft plastics. My go-to lure here is the 6" ZMan SwimmerZ fished on baitcasting gear, spooled with 20lb braid and 60lb leader.

When fishing the SwimmerZ I will rig them either on a TT Lures 8/0 1/2oz HeadlockZ HD jighead, when fishing open water, or an 8/0 1/2oz SnakelockZ jighead when fishing weed or other structure. I find the bigger hook converts to more hook sets on bucket mouth barra. When retrieving the SwimmerZ I prefer to fish them on a slow, controlled retrieve, allowing the paddle tail to do the work, creating the vibration for the barra to hone in on. Colour wise I'm a huge fan of Pearl at night, however other colours are always worth a go if the bite is slow.

These are just a few tips that I can offer on chasing barra at night. It definitely is an exciting way of chasing them and hopefully you can get out and find a few of your own!

Gear List

ZMan 6" SwimmerZ
TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jigheads
TT Lures SnakelockZ jigheads

ZMan 4" Hard Leg FrogZ
TT Lures ChinlockZ jigheads
TT Lures ChinlockZ SWS jigheads