Episode 248: Weipa Barramundi With Bryce Coxall

Bryce’s Barramundi Fishing Tips

• The barramundi fishing around Weipa slows down during the cooler months and many parts of the cape get closed during the wet season, leaving opportunities  April/May during the runoff and Sept/Oct as the water starts to warm again.
• It’s important to fish fairly heavy gear, especially leaders and terminal tackle. Bryce favours lures that are fitted with quality terminals out of the box, but if not he switches to quality VMC hooks to reduce the potential for lost fish.
• Bryce likes the runout tide and likes to fish towards the bottom of the tide when he can. Those days when there are only two tides in the day are a great opportunity to find a small eddy and fish it for a few hours because the bite window is extended.
• It’s best to use reasonably heavy tackle and get the fish to the boat. Using light tackle can result in heartbreak when the fish of a lifetime breaks free! Fish that are subdued quickly have a better survival rate when returned to the water also.
• Bryce carries a pair of mini bolt cutters in his tackle box for cutting hooks that get buried in an arm or leg when he’s a long way from help.

Bryce’s Barra Fishing Tackle

• Bryce loves the Shimano Barra Raider rod and a fairly mid-range baitcast reel because they take abuse and don’t hurt the budget too much. He’ll usually load the reel with 30 pound braid and top the outfit off with a 60lb leader. When he’s in heavy cover Bryce will switch up to 50lb braid. 

Bryce’s Suggested Barra Fishing Lures

• The Classic 120 in 10-14ft diving depth is a great hard body lure for fishing the cape and comes with good terminals that don’t need replacing. This lure is tough and very buoyant, making it suitable for casting around structure such as snags and rock bars as well as in the deeper sandy areas near the river mouths. Bryce likes to work it with a slow roll, keeping the retrieve speed down to the minimum he can get away with and still have the lure working.
• The Jackall Squirrel 90mm suspending hardbody is Bryce’s pick for when the barra are less aggressive. He suggests ripping them down to working depth and then pausing for 5 seconds or so before starting to retrieve with small twitched interspersed with 5 second pauses. Strikes usually happen on the pause.
• Any good quality soft vibe is a very good option, although Bryce likes the Pro Lates vibes for their tough terminal tackle.
• When the fish are really shut down and are schooled up in the sandy areas at the river mouths Bryce likes to position his boat downstream of them and make a cast with a 3″ Berkley Gulp Prawn on a quarter ounce jig head. He then slow rolls the lure back to the fish. Bryce finds that once a fish has taken the Gulp prawn it’s not unusual for the rest of the school to light up and start taking other lures styles, too.