Barramundi Fishing with Osceola Outback Adventures

I recently had a pretty incredible opportunity to check another fish species off of the bucket list.  After this years ICAST show in Orlando, we had the chance to get out and fish with Osceola Outback Adventures for Australian Barramundi.  We didn’t even have to travel all the way to Australia to do it.  In fact, we hopped in our rental and drove about 45 minutes to St. Cloud Florida which is just outside of Orlando.  This is the only place in the northern and western hemispheres that you can actually fish for Barramundi.

For those of you that may not know, Barramundi are a hard fighting, voracious fish that make really good table fare.  Osceola Outback Adventures is actually a Barramundi farm that is located on about 100 acres in the middle of the state.  There are several ponds within the property.  The main pond is the trophy lake containing about 5,000 hard fighting Barramundi.  One of the ponds next to it supposedly has trophy bass in it up to about 10 lbs.

Last year they had a freeze at the lake and the fish died off.  The owner, Byron Hennecy restocked the lake in November with 1lb fish to replenish the stock.  I mentioned that these fish are voracious eaters, they in fact can grow at a rate of about 1/2lb per month.  The fish while we were there were up to about 8lbs.  He said that next year if we go, they’ll be in the 12lb class which is pretty incredible!

Needless to say, we were mighty excited about the opportunity to fish these Barramundi.  Coming out of the show, we brought along some of the new Okuma Nomad Xpress Travel Swimbait rods to do some “product testing” with.  These are all four piece travel rods that come in a nice soft travel bag which is perfect to throw behind the seat of your car in case you happen upon some fishy water. The models we had were 7’11” heavy action and perfect for the type of fishing we were doing. I had this paired up with the soon to be released Okuma Helios SX baitcast reel. This thing was nice!

When I first walked up to the lake I saw a nice weed mat along the left front corner.  Visions of exploding fish coming through the mat danced through my head.  In looking through the box of baits I brought, I quickly tied on a Savage Gear FRUCK bait.  Yes, most peoples say “What the Fruck is that?”  Its a soft bodied half frog half duck bait.  Perfect for throwing on weed beds. I had 17lb mono on the reel tied to the Fruck.

Byron, the owner, told me I needed to tie on 50lb leader for these fish as they are mean and will break you off.  I was way too excited and just went for it.  He shook his head and laughed and well low and behold, I made a nice long cast across the mat and had an instant blow up.  Missed it and kept working it across the mat.  About halfway back to shore, I see a large wake coming from under the grass then a huge explosion.  This is it…fish on!  Well, at least for a second.  I set the hook, he rolled, and that was about it.  Reeled in my empty Fruckless line and felt the line for about two feet above where the hook was only to feel completely nicked and frayed line.  I immediately walked over to Byron and he just laughed.  I tied on the 50lb leader and was good to go. Tied on another Fruck and off I went.

I managed a few fish out of the weeds out of a good 30 or so blow ups.  I found that the Barramundi, although ferocious, didn’t completely commit to the baits like a bass do.

From there I decided to tie on a jerk bait.  The lake itself is pretty shallow dropping to a staggering 4 feet or so of depth.  With all of the weeds, you clearly can’t go too deep, so the jerk bait made some sense.  I tied on the Savage Gear Jerk Minnow that I had in my box and went to work.

Oh yeah, the lake is catch and release so you have to use barbless hooks the entire time.  They also don’t want you to use treble hooks.  I pinched my barbs, cut off the middle hook and off I went.  The jerk bait bite was pretty insane, and I think at one point I went 8 casts for 8 fish.  I did notice that you had to keep the bait moving.  Byron mentioned that if you slow it too much, or give it too much of a pause, the fish will dart and flash at it, but wont commit.

My co worker Gene was getting a few fish on a swimbait, but decided to tie on the jerk bait as well.  He definitely got in on the action once that happened.

We had another group of friends show up from Phoenix rods.  We let them know what the hot bite was on the Savage Jerk Minnow, and they instantly started to get bit on jerk baits of their own.

I switched it up once again and went to the small swimbait.  I tied on the Savage Gear 3D Baitfish in paddle tail.  The Golden Shiner was the ticket on these Barramundi.

The swimbait bite was a lot of fun.  I slow rolled it along the bottom and watched fish after fish slash at it and eventually completely engulf it. There is nothing like the drag screaming off of a swimbait bite.

Looking for fun?

These fish are just plain fun.  I managed close to 50 fish in the three hours we were there.  If you happen to be in Orlando on business, or maybe at one of the Disney parks with the family and need some fresh air, be sure to look up Osceola Outback Adventures.  It was a blast and definitely worth the trip.

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Happy fishing!

Davey