Lake Monduran Bazza

Barramundi, saratoga, sooties and more. For dam fishing, use the dam forums below.
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nomad
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Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by nomad »

Got this nice silver bullet this am on the troll.
she went 99
They are sitting at 6m just above the thermocline
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Matt Flynn
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by Matt Flynn »

What a fish, looks like Monduran is a good paddock.
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by nomad »

Yeah Matt, they have had some warm weather recently and the barra are starting to fire up
I dropped one and boated another (93) last night
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by Matt Flynn »

They fight as hard as the wild ones? :D
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by nomad »

Yes they hit hard and go a bit but then slow up til they see the boat. I've been trolling in deep water so i could go lighter but im using a deep diver
i just finished a video - NOT FOR KIDS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lectZMIalrM&t=9s
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by NinjaFish »

Yep. Reckon that’s everyone’s name for that fish. :D
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by ronje »

Friend of mine called Graham Stielow died on that dam in late 80s. He owned Lady Musgrave Cruises at Bundaberg and part of the operation included a Beaver floatplane to take passengers to/from Lady Musgrave lagoon 50 n miles north of Bundaberg.

Graham decided that he wanted to learn to fly the Beaver and was practising takeoffs and landings on Lake Monduran. Qld has a quaint practice calling the dam wall after a politician and calling the impoundment something else.

Lake Monduran was originally part of the old Monduran homestead and that was what all the locals called it
(Monduran Dam). However the pollies named the actual dam wall after Fred Haigh. So it became Fred Haigh dam and Lake Monduran. Not the only place they've done that in Qld.

Graham was taking off out of one of the many long inlets and was just up in the air as he cleared the inlet mouth when he hit severe wind shear and went nose-in. Very hilly terrain around the dam.

Nobody knew what he and the instructor were doing that day. They simply didn't return.

Searches were mounted all over the place and suspicion fell on Monduran dam. Coppers got hold of some pretty sophisticated sounder eqpt (for that time. Any sounder these days would have done the job) and found the a/craft on the bottom in 20m of water after 8 days.

At that time the screenshot of the Beaver was un-mistakeable. Only time that I've ever seen an aircraft on a sounder.

A big fat barra of 99 lbs dragged a guy in a kayak around a couple of years ago in that dam. A set of scales put it at 100 lbs but a calibrated set put it at 99 lbs so 99lbs became the "official" weight. It wasn't particularly long but was fat. There are photos of it around on the web.

Monduran is very popular with s/e Qld quick trip visitors being first bigger barra dam to north. Pay for permit to fish there.
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Ronje
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by nomad »

Good yarn Ron
Like you said, lots of Qld waterways have different names for the dams/lakes.
Interesting that in the NT we measure the length and elsewhere they measure weight but lots of people do the length thing
Some of the fish I've caught here are very thick units.
Still to crack the metre mark and best so far 99
Apparently most of the impoundments are firing up but the last 2 days I've only caught caTtfish (spelling to beat Matts powertail autocorrect) :)
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by Matt Flynn »

Ripper yarn Ron :mrgreen:
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by ronje »

Hi Nomad/Matt

I'm hearing the "firing" story about most dams at the moment.

If you get the opportunity I recommend that you have a look at Lake Maraboon (Emerald's Fairbairn Dam).

Fairbairn has a very large population of murray cod (some monsters) as well as barramundi. There are no bag or size limits on the mc as they were not natural to the river when the miners put them in there. Environmental Dept now wants them out.

Miners decided to "do their own thing" and put 80,000 murray cod in it in 80s. Fairbairn has overflowed a couple of times since then and murray cod are now in the downstream reaches of the Fitzroy as well. Certainly as far down as Bedford Weir (near Blackwater).

A couple of floods ago, I caught a yellowbelly in the Rockhampton reach (salt) while the river was running fresh. That catch was a surprise so I reckon that the mc are further down than Blackwater.

Wuruma Dam (west of Bundy near Abercorn) is a quiet place to visit. Plenty camping area and facilities now. Its one of the only 3 dams in Qld to be stocked with barramundi and bass. (Wuruma, Lenthalls near M'boro and Monduran).

Don't know how many survive in Monduran (some big barra in there) but they survive OK in Lenthalls where the barra are only tiddlers.

Obviously like the Wide Bay area? (a.k.a. God's Waiting Room).
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Ronje
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by nomad »

Gday Ron
Yeah Monduran is going off atm.
Most people are picking up at least one daily.
They are stocked of course and I only just found out that even though they are big units, they are all MALES!!
Lots of the impoundments are firing up. I've seen some big units taken from Callide dam. But the old story of not leaving fish to chase fish so ill stay here for a while
My system is to locate the fish before fishing. It depends on which direction the wind is blowing as the bait move up to the shore line catching bugs etc. The barra seem to follow quickly
Where you find fish one day might be 5kms away from where they are today.
When I first arrived, they started releasing lots of water and the fish were stacked up close to the wall.
The whole area is nice and you can see why they old farts move here.
I plan to do a compilation of the fish (video and stills) – video takes ages to edit.
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by ronje »

they are all MALES!!

How old are you, Nomad?

That old, eh and don't know the difference between a male and a female? A likely story.

Heard a magistrate say that to an offender charged with taking female mudcrabs (offence in Qld). Offender gave excuse that for all of his life he'd been throwing back the wrong crabs.

That's right. Male barra (littler fellas in salt) have to take part in at least 1 spawning season (can only happen in salt) before they can change sex. Look thru the cr.p that the fishing writers (and others) put out to see just how many people don't know that very basic fact

Barra are out there doing their thing (aggregating for the right tide) right now at estuary mouths and adjacent headlands. Suitable tides this week. Black moon big tide, low tide after midnight allowing higher high/flood tide to push right up into mangroves.

Been absolutely no rain here, so salinity and water temp stable for a successful spawning season.

Been a couple of nets found belonging to the Grub Brigade.

I'm off down river tomorrow morning.
Regards
Ronje
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Re: Lake Monduran Bazza

Post by nomad »

i just assumed (yeah i know) that they changed sex once they reached the 80 cm mark

Heres one for ya,
It has been the long held belief that Flathead change sex when they reach a certain size. Not so. read all about it !
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