A collapsed bank is exactly what it sounds like: a section of bank that has been undercut and slipped into the water, taking mangroves, mud, grass or timber with it. What is left is a pile of cover sitting right on the edge, with bait living in it and barra sitting on it.
They are special places to hunt for barra. A good one will hold fish at some point every single day, and it will stay that way for years. Mark it, and you can keep going back.
The three kinds
Collapsed banks generally turn up in three forms, and each one fishes differently:
- A mud bank collapse in a river
- A channel collapse in a flood plain drain
- A mangrove edge that has slid into the water in an estuary
Mud bank collapses in rivers
These are the most commonly fished and the easiest to find. Up in Fog Bay, the Finniss River is a great example of a river that produces them, but the same thing happens right across the tropics. The river needs to be reasonably deep, mangrove-lined, fed by a flood plain, and tidal. As the seasons cycle, mud and silt shifting through the run-off and the tidal flow undermine the bank until a clump of mangroves simply slides down the face. They can be as small as a boat or as big as a house block.
You can often pick them on Google Earth before you go. On the water, sound them up to see whether fish are sitting on them — but if one looks good, fish it anyway. You do not always have to see barra on the sounder for them to be there.
On the ones we fish, the barra tend to sit on the up-current side, on the mud just in front of the snag pile, and they show up well on the sounder if you scan nice and wide. Ways to work them:
- Troll diving hard bodies past them
- Work soft or hard vibes around the edges
- Park up-current on the spot lock and work a floating hard body back over the pile, so it dives, floats up, dives and floats up again
- Our favourite: a weedless soft plastic put deep into the cover once you have sounded fish sitting in it
When to fish them: around halfway up the incoming on a neap tide in the morning works well. Fish that were sitting at the river mouth on the first of the push move up and disappear off the troll runs, and they often use these collapses to transition through — along with the mullet, which hide in them for a while too. The top of the tide and the turn can still be okay, as long as you can get your lure in without it getting washed down and snagged. Once the river starts running out hard it tends to dirty up, and the fish head back out towards the mouth.
Channel collapses in flood plain drains
This is the one that can turn into that big session you have always dreamed of. It happens through the wet season, when a good amount of fresh water pushing down from the top of a flood plain scours out the bank until it collapses — generally black or grey clay with thick grass matted on top.
The grass mat holds it all together and gives the bait somewhere to hide. Rainbow fish and tadpoles pack into it, and the barra follow. The collapse also creates small back eddies and colour changes, and those eddies give migrating barra a stopover and staging point as they push up a tidal river on a big incoming tide.
When to fish them: the top half of the tide, particularly on the big tides. Push up ahead of the tide into the fast-running flood plain water, tie up or anchor beside the bank, and wait. As the tide pushes up and slows the water down, the smaller fish come through first. The bigger barra arrive later — coming up to eat those smaller fish — over the last hour of the run-in and the first hour of the turn. They drop back out early in the run-out; they do not like getting caught in that fast flowing water. The little fish stay up the top, tucked into the collapses and eddies where it is safe.
Slid mangrove edges in estuaries
This is the classic one around the big harbours, Bynoe Harbour and Darwin Harbour among them, and along the coast. You can pick them from Google Earth and your charts: the mangrove species that does this grows very dense, shows up as a darker green, and has few outlying trees in front of it. These are the tall, skinny trees, and when they fall they create laydown snag piles all crisscrossed together — especially in little pockets where several have fallen on top of each other.
When to fish them: these are bottom-of-the-tide spots. By then the drains have usually gone quiet, and if you do not have rocky points in your area, a slid mangrove edge serves the same purpose. In some ways it is better. A rocky point is a wall; a collapsed mangrove edge is genuine cover. They hold barra on the low, and often other species in the same spot — it is not unusual to pull golden snapper out of the same pile.
They stay good into the first hour of the push, as nice colour changes form up and the barra moving back up the system use them as a rest stop and a feeding spot.
The long stretches of collapsed tall mangroves are also a good high-tide option, and through the first part of the run-out until you get forced off. It is worth remembering when the schooling fish you are marking up in the deeper channels are being finicky. Barra sitting up in heavy cover have their guard down a bit, and are often easier to trick.
How to work a long stretch like that:
- To cover a lot of edge, go along with a shallow-diving hard body with a tight action — something not too intrusive — and put a cast in every metre or two
- When you start getting flashes or follows, slow right down and work that patch meticulously with a weedless soft plastic
- On the early run-out, start slow and careful with the weedless plastic to draw a dozing fish, then switch to floating hard bodies as the tide falls and the fish become more active
Why they are worth the effort
Collapsed banks are save-your-day spots. On a fly-fishing trip, if the anglers have missed a few shots on the flats — which happens often — a collapsed bank lets them prospect and catch barra in a known spot, without the pressure of sight casting to moving fish.
They are not all equal. One out in the middle of the river with the current smashing straight into it is less likely to hold bait. Go around the next bend to the back eddy of a corner and you are more likely to find bait, and fish.
What to take from it
All three kinds have their own nuances, but at the end of the day they are fish magnets. If you find a good one, put it in your sounder — and probably do not tell too many of your mates.
Then keep records. When a spot is fishing well, check the live tide on your sounder and write it down, or leave a note in the sounder itself. Get one area nailed first — every collapse, every tide, every wind — and you can transfer what you have learnt to the next arm of the system, and the one after that.
Common questions
What is a collapsed bank in barra fishing?
A section of bank that has been undercut and slid into the water, taking mangroves, mud, grass or timber with it. It leaves a pile of cover right on the edge that bait live in and barra sit on. A good one can hold fish every day and stay productive for years.
When is the best time to fish a collapsed bank?
It depends on the kind. River mud bank collapses fish well around halfway up a neap incoming in the morning. Flood plain channel collapses fish best over the top half of a big tide and the first hour of the turn. Slid mangrove edges in estuaries are bottom-of-the-tide spots, and stay good into the first hour of the push.
What lures work best on collapsed banks?
Weedless soft plastics put deep into the cover are our favourite, especially once you have sounded fish sitting in it. Diving and floating hard bodies cover ground quickly to find where the fish are, and vibes worked around the edges are another good option.
Where on a collapsed bank do barra sit?
On the river collapses we fish, they usually sit on the up-current side, on the mud just in front of the snag pile. Scan wide with your sounder and they tend to show up well.
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