Louise Jenkins

Hawgenvy Thanks for the reply. The Papuan Black Bass is a member of the snapper family (not a bass). Can be a really nasty customer if handled incorrectly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutjanus_goldiei A fishing partner of mine here in Aus holds the world record for a Papuan black bass. 91 cm and 47 lbs. Take a finger off easily. Don't know how official that record really is but it's certainly a big mean fish. Destroys heavy gear. Look up on you-tube. Lots of Aussies and some US people visiting PNG just to go chasing these things. Its one of those bucket list things people want to do. Told my mate (Bluey Helmuth - look him up) that I'd probably end up in cooking pot or something so i'm not going. Live on the mother boat for a week or so but everybody has to go pay respects to the local tribes along the rivers and ask permission to fish in their waters. Chinese have been giving local natives aluminium boats of 4-5 metres, motors and nets to gain influence. In return, natives sell the net catches to visiting Chinese traders. Can understand that as natives live a pretty basic (but happy) lifestyle. The most prized objects anyone can give them are screwtop clear plastic water bottles. They have no portable water containers.

Tell me please. What sort of turbidity levels do you guys encounter when bass fishing? I've got some samples with turbidity levels attached. I'd like to know if what I found in respect of turbid water and colour penetration is of significance to the US bass scene. Top photo is 15 NTU, next one is 20 NTU, 3rd one is 25 NTU and bottom one is 120 NTU (minor flood).

Thanks Tom and Sofflabasser Yep. Its sure winter here. Overnight temp got down to 13 C the other night ( 55F). Water temp is currently 21C ( 70F). Day temp 26C (80F). Was 44.5C last summer (112F). I don't know how much scientific work has been done on your bass. I have always thought that there were either LMB or SMB and that black bass came from Papua New Guinea. Apparently not 'cos you guys have your own version of black bass (I'm learning). Some fish evolve with little "tricks of evolution" to assist them in their environment. Barramundi have 3 eye cones for 3 colours plus eye "rods" for monochrome. PLUS they have a eye party trick for light in general. They can see very well even in turbid water. I can't find much in the way of scientific investigation for bass (yet). Maybe you guys can point me in the right direction. Can I put something up on here (some writings of mine) that would explain things a whole lot better? Idea is to trigger something that you guys might be able to expand on with your experience.

My view is that lure colour depends on turbidity. If turbidity low then top end colour spectrum lures penetrate water better (green, blue etc). Can be seen from further away. If turbidity high, then bottom end colour spectrum lures penetrate water better (red, orange, yellow). Unless the bass can see the lure straight up, then lateral line allows fish to get close where eyes take over for the strike. Do bass have "party trick" eyes for operating in low light water (higher turbidity) or are the waters clear enough that bass have not developed eyes for low light?

No. The guy in the photo is my fishing partner Mitch. I don't class 135cm as a giant barramundi. I transported one a few years ago that was a genuine wild 100 lb'er as a favour for a fisherman to a local hotel who he supplied. That fish was 103 lb gilled and gutted. I had to bend that fish (still alive) considerably to get it onto the back seat of my VW beetle. Made for an interesting ride with the thing flapping around in the back area though. Mitch's fish was an impoundment one that couldn't be revived when he got it in. Jacko's 154 cm was released though not tagged. Also Jacko caught a 148 and 145 cm barra exactly where I got my 135. In the CBD area of my city (Rockhampton) under the traffic bridge. Don't spearfish. Too many sharks in the inshore area. In the murky estuarine/river water too many crocodiles. I wouldn't get in the water anywhere in this river especially upstream in the fresh. A 5.2m estuarine croc was shot up in the freshwater a while ago and he wasn't the only one that I'd seen up there. Even at a boat ramp I always keeping the boat between me and the river proper. Attached is a pix of a bit of local wildlife stalking around our boat the other day. Had eagle-eyed 13 yr old grandson on croc watch. This guy is about 4m long. Anyway, enough of here. I'm interested in your bass

We don't weigh fish here just measure them. That 44.64 kg barra was caught in a freshwater lake to the south of where I live. Fred Haigh Dam aka Lake Monduran. Think the guy was using a kayak and got towed around a bit. There's a big difference between lake/impoundment barramundi and wild barramundi in both weight and eating quality for fish of similar length. Impoundment/lake barra have to be stocked as they need salt water to breed. They grow fat & lazy with ample food supply and weigh heavy. A similar sized wild barra wouldn't weigh as much as they expend more energy finding food. My fish was about 30 kg or so. No photo. Brother released it at side of boat accidently as I was getting camera ready. I've got a photo of a friend's 154cm wild barra caught in our river system (Fitzroy River Qld) that would have gone about 35-40kg. Caught on live herring while fishing for smaller type of fish. A couple of photos. A 34kg dam barramundi which was 129cm and a wild caught 131cm on a measure mat (most measure mats only go to 120cm). Note how fat the 34kg fish is compared with the others. The one from Monduran Dam was a fat fish also. Barra between 85cm and 100cm are the hardest to handle. Up to 85cm they've got agility but little bulk. Over 100cm they've got bulk but little agility (just tow you around). But between 85 - 100cm they have both agility and bulk and can be a real handful if there's a bit of run in the water. The snook comes from a different family to barra/nile perch. Snook family is Centropomidae while barra/NP come from the Latidae family. Different genus and species. Both barramundi and snook are hermaphrodite fish (change sex) with both having a slightly turned up lower jaw but that's where the similarity ends. Snook with long thin bodies look like a local species called whiting. We get Florida based fishermen come here to the Fitzroy to chase barra, saratoga, threadfin and permit on fly. Aus's most common natural bass are cold weather fish and they also need salt water to breed but they're pretty small. I live right on the Tropic of Capricorn (much warmer) and too far north for bass. A 54cm one would be classed as a trophy fish here. Mostly they're released but taste ok for a freshwater fish.

I didn't know about the common ancestor. Nile perch are a close relative but have smaller scales and they grow bigger. I guess that I have an enquiring mind. THAT'S what started me wondering why the accepted folklore had traction with many others when it didn't seem to add up for me. Lateral lines are accepted as the prime tool in our mostly turbid waters for finding food but the lure manufacturers don't seem to pay a lot of attention to lure action. For example, I've never seen a lure that has the vibration rate stamped on it anywhere. They have lots of colour and some are real works of art. Rembrandt couldn't do better. Lure colours in water are a different issue and seem to justify the oft quoted remark " lures catch more fishermen than fish". I've caught a few barramundi with 95% as tag and release so keep pretty good records. Last count was 3364 since 2002 with 23 over 1 metre and the biggest at 135 cm. If laid end to end, the distance is 1787.2 metres ( 65.8 metres to make the nautical mile). That's the experience that I lean on when trying to work out why a lot of the guru information doesn't add up. That colour missing link was the clincher for me. What is the ancestor that you mentioned?

Members 2,063 3,246 posts Location Florida My PB: Please Choose Favorite Bass: Please Choose Favorite Lake or River Anywhere there are bass I will fish for them Report post Posted June 1 A barramundi is much more similar to a snook than a bass Never seen a snook but I've heard others make that comment. I'm looking at lateral lines as part of a "know thy enemy" project. If I know what tools the fish has, how they work and how they're used, then my knowledge base is a bit further advanced. The subject of lateral lines is but one of the tools. The reason I'm doing it this way (step by step) is because there's so much mis-information out there in "barra land" (and I'm sure a similar thing exists in "bass land") that trying to work out what is what is like watching an octopus trying to make love to a set of bagpipes. Instead of accepting "folklore" I'm starting from a knowledge base based solely on my experiences. Some of those experiences don't correspond with folklore. I guess its a case of which "expert" do I take notice of 'cos there are heaps of them out there. I'm a fair way down the track with my research. I came to this website to learn as I know you guys are big into bass and that a wealth of knowledge and experience exists here on subjects universal to fishing and not simply species related. Along the way, I've picked up "the missing link" (in this part of the world) in what happens to colour underwater. Jeez, that's caused a lot of misunderstanding here for a long, long time. I'm happy to put some up on here as an attachment if anybody would like it. Some of it relates to barramundi as THAT is the species I chase (lateral line operation, eyes, hearing, environment) but some is universal (water turbidity, colour penetration of water - " the missing link area". Are you guys happy for me to put a bit of stuff on here?

Thanks for those responses fellas. Food for thought in there and I'll look further at it. In northern Aus we have an iconic fish called a barramundi (lates calcarifer) and I'm a barra fishing tragic. There seems to be a lot of misinformation around barramundi fishing so I decided to look for myself and its been quite a learning experience. Unless you go back to basics to understand what senses that fish possess and how they use them, you have no idea on what credibility to put on what bits of information that abound. In finding out for myself, I've come across a lot of stuff that has historically been taken as gospel and that simply doesn't stack up. Its usually presented in such a way that the claims seem to be confidently wrong rather than hesitantly correct. Presented in such a convincing way, its difficult for people to question it without appearing to be dumb. Some of the senses are common to fish world wide and some are more specialised. Lateral lines, hearing and vision are topics that I started on. Barramundi to Aussies are what bass are to US fishers. That's why I've ended up on the forum looking for info on how you guys work your bass out. I have an engineering background and look for technical reasons for things being the way they are rather than simply the result of "black art" knowledge. There'll be lots of similarities with bass/barramundi fishing along with some differences. The senses used will be mainly common with maybe slight variations in application eg frequency response characteristics of lateral lines maybe. I don't know 'cos I've never been bass fishing. I've put together a couple of thoughts about the issues on pdf and wouldn't mind putting them up to see what you guys make of them. Remember that we're dealing with basics about barramundi but some will line up with bass. I'm happy to take on board any suggestions or observations.

Been thinking about lateral lines a bit more and came up with 2 further issues to explore. Found some research that confirms very low frequencies (sub-audible) are the go for fish lateral lines. That threw up issue No 1 which is the range at which vibrations due to movement in the water are transmitted. Because of the low frequency involved, range in relation to lateral lines is going to be greater than range in relation to audible sounds of higher freqs. How much greater is the question. Are we talking body lengths or inches? I suspect body lengths. Thoughts? Issue 2 is that one of these sensors must give homing ability for the fish to find the source of the disturbance. Somewhere along the line the fish needs to be able to find those potential food sources or to avoid a predator. Because the lateral line system has 2 lines (one surface and one in canals under the scales), it must be able to sense direction. The directional indication wouldn't need to be highly sophisticated but sufficient to put the fish "in the ballpark" to the stage where other sensors can take over for the strike (eg eyes/colour). I suspect that the existence of the 2 lateral lines means that the fish can process the differences in signals between the 2 and from that determine simple left/right direction indicators on which to "home-in". I guess that I'm really working backwards in trying to understand what tools a fish has and how it uses them to get a feed and then working out a way to use the characteristics of those tools to advantage.

We all learn something new every day, eh? After all, it is northern Aus where we speak proper. Cheers.

Can relate to cut-off point with the 10 year old.

Thanks for that. The figure of 10 hz (600 rpm) is what scientists tell us about barramundi (lates calcarifer) lateral line operation in this part of the world. I believe that while they can't hear the frequencies in use by the sounders (50, 83, 200, 800 khz etc), they can hear the ping of the sounder when the transducer crystal gets hit by the sounder burst of energy. I guess that's what you're referring to. The frequency of the ping rate depends on the pulse repetition freq, I guess. Mostly that's preset automatically. There may be something in what the pros say about their electronics. Lateral line fishing is not a well known feature here. Be interested to know about US bass though. I reckon there's been some scientific study on it there somewhere.

Lateral lines pick up vibrations in water. Lateral lines cannot pick up acoustic signals. So.……..does anybody know what the cut-off frequency for the lateral line actually is? The barramundi in Aus has a cut-off upper response frequency of 10 hz (that's 10 cycles or second or equivalent to 10 x 60 cycles per minute = 600 rpm). Electric trolling motors spin the prop at anything from 100 - 600 rpm depending on current. So stealth mode on a electric trolling motor isn't stealth mode at all. Its stealth accompanied by a brass band (electric propeller spinning at up to 600 rpm sending out signals for lateral line in all directions). Was wondering if bass had similar lateral line characteristics? Or can anybody point me towards somebody who might know, please?