Realbait and Barramundi

Barramundi destroy my lures, and the most of the cases, they were wooden baits. However, another nightmare entered my list.

It was my son casting Lucky Craft's Realbait. He said "this doesn't sink fast, so can I make it like a Texas rig?" A 8 year old kid wanted to make this slow-sinking bigbait a Texas rig. So, I asked him why. He said "well, since Chatterbait wiggles good in the water because it's got the weight on its head, I set a Texas sinker on this bigbait, and then it sinks fast and should swim better."

I didn't know it swims better or not, but we gave it a try.

He pitched a short distance and looked at it and liked the way it swam. I was standing besides him, and he cast long and waited like a couple of seconds to retrieve in the middle range.
Kaboom! First cast, a big hit. He almost dropped his rod. But fish came off. I mean, it was never hooked up. Just a big bite.
He reeled the lure in. We found it was chopped in half.

So, he got mad, stopped fishing, and started playing Nintendo 3DS he brought.
Therefore, I decided to buy him another Lucky Craft's Realbait. Now he's begging me to go fish. But he's got flu, and I don't think he can go fish weekend. So sad.

Spinnerbait and Barramundi 003

Does anyone know this spinnerbait? The blade shows "Glamour Shad."
I found it in my old tackle box, I probably bought it when I visited Bass Pro Shops in Atlanta back in late 90's or early 200X. It probably bought it because it was cheap, and that's all I remember.

I purchase many same things at one shopping. For spinnerbait, I still use  Vibra Shaft and Bulldog spinnerbait.

Anyway,  I just found this Glamour Shad in my box and didn't care much, thus I cast it to catch barramundi. What happened was it caught a lot! I think I caught at least 5 barra on it that day.

As an angler, after all those great result in one day, I went to search it on the net. What I found was the manufacture's probably bankrupted or something, and no one produces this bait anymore. So sad!

Spinnerbait and Barramundi 002

My all time favorite of the favorites. The only spinnerbait that my wife casts is Gary Yamamoto's Gary Spin. 

This is the shit, but I can't throw it any more because it is the last spare I have left.

This is almost like an antique. I found it in my tackle box which I hasn't opened for about 20 years... When my wife saw it in my tackle box, she screamed so bad like she met a friend whom she hasn't seem him over 20 years. 

Our barra instantly destroys it if I try.

However, my wife doesn't care it's the last one or not. She is not a collector type of person, and she will cast it for fun. So, I gotta hide before she does a crazy thing.  

There is another all time favorite that I don't have in my stock. It's BlueFox Big Bass Roland Martin spinnerbait.  I can't find it anymore at store... I miss it.

Spinnerbait and Barramundi

Hey, no one told me that spinnerbaits work for catching barramundi! I go to a few local tackle stores, but I have never seen spinnerbaits at all. But I thought spoon works, spin-tail jig works, then why not spinnerbait.

 

 High Pitcher of O.S.P. One of the best spinnerbaits that people say. I like it, too. Yeah, this one produced the largest catch on spinnerbait. It was a 6 kg barra.

Another High Pitcher has done good jobs, but the arm is almost broken, so it needs to be retired soon.

My all time favorite spinnerbait is Delta Force of Evergreen. This dude dodges through weeds and laydowns so good due to its head shape. But barra's basically on the open water, and it hasn't get me any bites yet.

Spooky Jack and Barramundi

Well, on the different day, I wrote about Monster Jack which gets broken so bad but produces a lot of catches. Here is another killer bait but breaks. Spooky Jack from Fish Arrow, the same brand of Monster Jack.

This is really a good ol' bait, I mean it. Every time I go to tackle stores and I find it, I have no choice. I buy it. It's almost 5,000 yen ($50), not a cheap toy. I wanna play with it nicely, but barramundi don't go easy on it!

 

It is a 190mm long, 2 1/2oz big and heavy and sinking bait. You can cast a long distance and swim any ranges you want.

 

You see this pic. You find it what's wrong?

The jointed tail part of its body is broken. The tail part doesn't have a hook but destroyed. What happened was Barramundi bit it hard. I missed hooking, and I felt something different when I started retreiving again. I reeled it in and looked at it....
The tail part was destroyed in one massive bite.

I thought Moster Jack and Spooky Jack of Fish Arrow are some sorta wooded weak baits. I think I was wrong. Barramundi is too strong.

Monster Jack and Barramundi

One of the most barramundi catching baits for me is absolutely Fish Arrow's Monster Jack. Maybe, I have bought 10 of them, and all of them were destroyed by barra.... Expensive lure, though.

Fish Arrow Monster Jack

There are many pros and cons of this lure.
Bad points are expensive and easy to get broken; however, it catches many barra. It has caught more barra than bass I used do in Japan.

 

Monster Jack is a wooden bait. Not plastic. Therefore, it contains a strong buoyancy . When Timberflash (Evergreen) is too aggressive on the surface and Silent Killer (Deps) is too tight to appeal to barra, I would choose Monster Jack. 

This means Monster Jack sits in the middle of 2 of kickass baits; consequently, I mostly start casting MJ at the fishery. 

But Like I said, it breaks up very easily. The tail comes off very easily. The hook heaton comes off easily. The worst is the jointed body broke off after catching some fish. 

When my Monster Jack retires its mission, it's always the body joint broken. 

Maybe, Monster Jack is for bass fihsing, not for Barramundi fishing....

Faith and Barramudi

Jerkbait is one of the best choices of fishing barramundi if you care of the numbers of fish you catch. I don't care of numbers too much because I like to throw bigbaits whether I catch fish or not. But I will bring jerkbaits for fun.

There are 2 types of jerkbaits when I look around the fishery and guys using. Floating model and sinking model. In the morning, barra is really lazy, and they tend to bite on the sinking type than the floating type. Thus, if I really care about the number of fish I catch today, the first choice in the morning will be the sinking jerkbait.

But I wonder why I have more floating types than sinking types in my tackle box in these days....

Anyway, when I bass fish, I use a long-bill, suspended type, too. Staysee (Lucky Craft), Squirrel (Jackall), K-IV (HMKL), Suger Deep (Bassday), and Kicker Eater (Evergreen) are all good stuff. But my current favorite long-bill jerkbait must be Faith of Evergreen.

I don't know why, but Faith doesn't produce many bites. But once it hooks up, the size of barramundi is huge. I never caught barra smaller than 5 kg on Faith.

Thai local frog lures and barramundi

There are some Thai local lures. Many of them are targeted and designed to catch snakeheads. I went to a local tackle store, but they didn't carry many choices. Thus, I decided to mail-order them from store called 7 Seas.

 

My baits came like this. It's always nice to open it. My wife said to do it in my room, but I gotta do this in front of TV. I wanna watch TV and do my baits at the same time.

 

Here they are!

 

 

 These are design to catch snakeheads, NOT barramundi in the first place. I am not sure these work on barra at all. However, I try it anyway.