A few weeks back I was invited to join a group of keen Aussie Fisho's for a trip away to an almost secret seaside fishing village for a weekend with the boys chasing one of my favourite species Pagrus auratus that's right snapper. This left me in some conflict as I was also super keen to get along to The Big Day Out and catch my favourite Australian rock band COG, knowing however that tickets to the BDO were sold out and that the opportunity to fish this dream destination was rare I selected for the fishy weekend vowing to catch COG at their next Sydney appearance. As part of the fishing invitation I was asked not to reveal the location of this place so for those of you in the know you'll recognise the location for everyone else, well don't tell anyone about it if you figure it out!!
We left the busy city streets behind on Friday a.m. and by mid afternoon in sweltering heat we were unpacking the rods, reels, ice, food and tackle and preparing for a quick session before beers and dinner that evening. Now given the lack of an estuary all launching is off the beach, some use their 4x4's to launch, but the locals know the best option is to use a tractor, now I've never seen this technique before so learning the process was part of the fun and adventure of the weekend. Roll the boat off the trailer and onto the sand, using the 'drag strap' hook the boat to the strap and drag it along the sand to the waters edge, spin the bow of the boat so that its facing the shore break and then use the nudge bar to push the boat into the water, just so its floating. Then comes the launch, with skipper on the starboard side and me the 'deckie' on the port wait for the skippers call (that the waves approaching shore will allow for a break in the crashing dumping break) and then push with all the might you can muster often using 'man' power to push the boat through 1 or 2 cresting waves, jump on the back and your off... too much fun... anyway, suffice to say we managed a successful launch on all attempts and less than 5 minutes later were casting 'softies', 'gulps', 'squidgies' and 'powerbait' soft plastics (SP's) into some of the fishest washes I have ever had the pleasure of fishing!!!
Over the 3 sessions we targetted snapper Steve and I managed to catch a top notch brace of snapper.
Ranging from this beauty (4.94kg's and 75cm's) to many fish around the 800g to 3kg bracket. We used 3/8 to 1/2 ounce jig heads molded onto 3/0 'Owner' jig heads and mixed it up with SP's from 3" to 7" in a variety of colours and brands. We concentrated our efforts around the change of light and and tide and fished hard reef and the associated drop-offs plus the washes of headlands and bombora's in water ranging from 6 - 29 meters.... AWESOME!!
If you are interested in targeting snapper why not purchase our Australian Fishing DVD "In Search Of Old Man Snapper" and subscribe to this blog. As over the next few weeks I will be detailing the rods, reels, lines, leaders, jig hooks and soft-plastics required for this style of fishing. Plus I'll also be covering the basics of what terrain to fish, and what techniques to use... So keep your eye out for a multi part blog with all the info you will need to get kitted up and out onto the water to target this magnificent species...
Till then hope you all had a great Australia Day and did your bit to keep it real and got out on the water for good old fashioned fish.
Catchya
Dan T
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1 comment:
Very nice Dan. Look forward to reading more
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