I've only fished twice this winter for Barra in the lakes and they have been eaten several times on both occasions on both weedless and exposed hook presentations.
Good mate Eric Grell scored this fish at Lake Monduran with me recently using a standard jig head setup while I was smashed by a good fish using a weedless hook setup but failed to get a solid hookup with no damage to either lure at all.
I'm currently working in with TT Lures to develop a standard style exposed hook jig head that is light enough to fish these plastics very slow over heavy weed cover without sinking to fast and fowling to maximise the time the plastic is in the strike zone.
Top left and bottom right are the new lightweight jig heads we are playing with but more on them and better pics at a later date
Rigged on 8/0 or 6/0 worm hooks with no belly weight they float for surface presentations and still cast really well or on 1/6 or 1/8 weighted worm hooks they can be fished in very tight weed or timber cover without fowling.
2 bites came from casting the weedless rigged plastic up onto this weed around the shrubs and slowly pulling it to the egde and twitching it out slowly gliding it down the face of the weed edge.
This fish was caught at night using the un-weighted worm hook setup and I think this setup will get plenty of attention as the weed beds become thicker in the warmer months and the lures can be fish slowly through it on the surface or just below at night.
There is a possibility that Australian Soft Bait Company may be importing these plastics in the 4 inch and 6 inch models in the future and they can also be rigged with belly stinger hooks quite easily via the belly slot without having to cut or modify the plastic.
I've used a lot of different plastics for Barra on the dams in the past and I'm really looking forward to using these Z- Man Swimmerz more on the barra lakes this coming summer.
Paul
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