LAKE MONDURAN
Lake Monduran has the reputation of the toughest Barra impoundment in QLD, earning the title of 'Lake Misery'. The reputation didn't put us off as it's been a while since we've done a proper Barra trip. A lot of planning went into to making this happen as dad was away the week prior, so we had prepped most of the gear 10 days prior to the trip.
Dad flew home from his work trip, had a shower and drove to school to pick me up at lunchtime with the weapon in tow for a weekend on the lake. 150km later, we settled to our accommodation but all we could think of was fishing so off we went. This was our first visit to Monduran but we had a plan that involved fishing afternoon into the evening then again from first light. With only one hit to show for our evening session efforts, we reloaded for the morning. We ventured into a wind blow bay and had it all to ourselves. We worked points, structure, lilypads, weedbeds and sheltered spots, for no action. A quick lunch break during the heat of the day gave us an opportunity to chat with Rob from Guidelines (Monduran Barra Guru). With Robs advice and our NT Barra experience we set off the for the afternoon/evening in the bays close to the mornings session. Casting into the lilypads, I worked a surface frog across the lilies then into open water. Hoping the frog off the final lilypad resulted in a thrilling strike but unfortunately, the hooks didn't set. With the sun setting, we setup for the night full of anticipation due to the abundance of bait. Just after sunset, boofs were heard close to the boat and then in pure darkness my rod loaded up. I was on! I've never hooked a Barra in the dark before, so I didn't know what to expect. The Barra put on an aerial display and was refusing to come close to the net. One final jump into the net and 62cm of Monduran Barra was on the deck. Being well hooked, we took our time to remove the trebles and swam the fish prior to releasing the final treble to ensure it was full of life once we were ready to release it. survival. As expected, it swam away strong. We were unlucky not to land a couple more that night but with our beds calling we headed for the ramp. Eat, sleep, repeat and we were on the water at first light for our final session. The morning was quiet so we packed up before lunch, thanked Rob and Kelly for their hospitality and made our way home.
Impoundment fishing is a lot different to chasing wild Barra. Now that we've got our first impoundment trip done, we are armed with important experience and look forward to our next trip to Lake Monduran.
