It’s no secret that Lake Monduran near the Queensland township of Gin Gin ( also the home of great pies at the Travellers Rest Cafe 😉 ) hold BIG barra. Back in December 2010 – just prior to the floods, Denis Harrold landed a World Record barramundi while fishing from his kayak with a monster fish, which tipped the scales at 44.6kg – breaking the old world record of 37.85kg. It measured in at 135cm with a whopping girth of 107cm and is still to my knowledge the largest barra landed in Australia today!
As with most of our big barra impoundments, Lake Monduran has taken a while to start producing fish over the metre consistently again since the floods. The local fish stocking group have done an amazing job and we are starting to see the benefits of their work again with the last few seasons starting to produce these beautiful fish again.
Last year in October 2021, Gin Gin’s Jake Bates landed another monster barra measuring 129cm and weighing in at 35 kilograms confirming Lake Monduran truly is a “Trophy Barramundi Fishery” again!
While Mondy obviously holds some enormous barramundi, it is a large lake with plenty of water to explore and many anglers also referred to it as “lake misery” 😉
I am not a fan of fishing heavily timbered water as I hate getting wrapped up and busted off after spending considerable time to get the bite – so I have spent most of my time fishing Lake Awoonga over the years. With consistent reports of great fishing coming in from Lake Monduran, I decided to start putting in some time on the lake as it is only an hour and a half up the road which makes it an easy day trip destination.
Armed with some reliable intel from mates Luke Fallon and Dane Radosevic I did my first few trips last year and managed to put fish in the boat each trip with only one dreaded donut trip. I also signed onto Jason Wilhelms Impoundment barra mastery course which has really made me more aware of natural indicators and got me out of my comfort zone and fishing times throughout the day I would normally be snoozing.
Good mate Nathan Nitschink has had a shocking run on Mondy with dozens of trips for not a single barra in his boat! He has lost a few in the timber and caught plenty of catties – but was a supporting member of the ” Lake Misery” club.
This trip was actually in mid-November 2021 and we were applying some new knowledge from Jason Wilhelm’s Impoundment Barra Mastery course – fishing daylight hours between 10 am and 4 pm which is during the hottest time of the day when I would normally be having a nana nap after an earlier start in preparation for the evening session.
We marked a number of fish out in open water away from heavy timber sitting around the thermocline at 15ft – 20ft. We targeted these fish by counting down the ever-reliable Squidgy Slick Rig and then slow-rolling them back.
The condition of these fish needs to be seen and they go so hard as well!
