Diagnostic features: Tailor are greenish blue or blue on the back, and the sides and belly are silvery. Their fins are pale green, tinged with yellow and the base of the pectoral fins is bluish. Both jaws have numerous strong sharp teeth, and the lower jaw protrudes. The caudal fin is forked with broad lobes.

 

Habitat.

Tailor inhabits coastal waters of all Australian States except for the Northern Territory. They will go as far up as Fraser Island in Queensland to Onslow in Western Australia. Catches of tailor are much less common in Tasmania and western Victorian waters. They are also very rare in South Australia and the Great Australian Bight.

Tailor are present on the continental shelf to a depth of about 50 metres are occasionally found offshore near the surface. They are a schooling fish that is most commonly found along surf beaches, rocky headlands and right up into the brackish waters of the estuaries and bays.

Common Names:                   Choppers, Green Backs and bluefish

Best Baits:   Live yellowtail, slimy mackerel, mullet, squid, tommy ruff, garfish, pike and sweep. Strips of squid and calamari. Fillets of yellowtail, slimy mackerel and garfish.

Best Lures:  Surface poppers and crawlers, deep and shallow diving minnows for casting and trolling, metal slicers and slugs, large and small soft plastic stick baits, deep water jigs and crank baits.

Edibility:  6 to 8 out of 10 (If bled straight away after capture)

Australian Record: 12.100 kg’s

Where to find Australian Salmon and Tailor

Depending on what state you are fishing you, where you find Australian salmon you can usually find tailor, but remember this is not always the case. Salmon and tailor can be caught while fishing off the rocks, from the beach, out of boats and from the shore in estuaries, creeks and bays, and also on close inshore reefs.

I have found that over the years the best time to target Australian salmon and tailor is usually at dawn, dusk and on over cast days, but I have also caught them during the middle of the day when the sun has been very high in the sky.

The next time that you are going to target a few Australian salmon and tailor from the rocks I would plan my outing to coincide with the sun just coming up or just starting to set. You will also need to either locate some there is some white water either breaking over a shallow reef, gutter or ledge. I have found that it doesn’t seem to matter at what tide (high or low) you fish for them, as long as it is either rising or falling. There has to be some movement in the tide.

If fishing off the beach for Australian salmon or tailor is your preferred type of fishing I would firstly learn how to read the beach formation (refer to my beach and rock book) and try and locate the deeper gutters on the beach. These gutter could be in the shape of a horseshoe, it could run parrel to a rocky headland or just be a deep hole that only exists at high tide. The are also great gutters that can be found at or near the bottom of the tide that cannot be accessed at high tide.

In the estuaries, bays and harbour where you find schooling Australian salmon and tailor you will need to locate those concentrations of baitfish. Find the baitfish and you will usually find the feeding Australian salmon and tailor.

Just think back to the last time you were out on the water and you noticed that current line and didn’t give it much thought. Well the next time you are out, locate the current line and try trolling along its length. Baitfish will hold up underneath the floating debris for protection from the birds flying overhead and the tailor and Australian salmon know this and will patrol this current line looking for a feed.

Breakwalls at the entrance to a river are another great place to target Australian salmon and tailor. I have fish off many a breakwall over the past years and one that comes to mind is the one at Port Macquarie. The last time that I fished here there had been 2 weeks of continual rain and the tailor were biting their heads off on the first two hours of the run out tide.

Whether I am chasing Australia salmon and tailor in a beach gutter, off the rocks or out of a boat I am always on the constant look out for circling or diving birds, especially seagulls.

Fishing Techniques:  Tailor will put on a feisty display of acrobatics while trying to dislodge the hooks from either a bait or lure, from their mouth and many an angler has cursed when these hooks have managed to pull free. I have found that if you watch your line you can usually tell when a tailor is about to head to the surface and start those acrobatics. It is at this time (before they leave the water) that I will slowly and slightly drop my rod tip down towards the waters’ surface, while at the same time not allowing any loose line.

Nine times out of ten this will decrease the strain being put on the line and also decrease the fish’s lever advantage to try and dislodge the hooks. Once the fish is back in the water you can then start to slowly raise the rod tip and apply pressure on the fish by winding in the line.

This technique can be applied whether you are fishing out of a boat, off a beach, from the rocks or off the shore.

It doesn’t matter whether you are casting out pilchards or garfish rigging on a set of ganged hooks from the beach, off the rocks or out of your boat for Australian salmon or tailor I find that the slower that you wind in the garfish or pilchards the more takes I will get. While winding in the garfish or pilchard I will have to rod tip at about a metre from the surface of the water. This will allow me to either strike in a sideways or upwards motion to set the hooks.

Once I have hooked the fish I will then keep my rod tip at between 60 and 90 degrees to the water’s surface. This will allow me a bit of lee way if the fish make off with a powerful surge. 

If slow winding in of the bait is not working on the day I would suggest that you try varying the speed of the retrieve until you have found the speed that they like and then just keep repeating it.

One thing that tailor have plenty of, its teeth. Over the many years that I have spent chasing tailor I have only once been bitten by a tailor. What had happened, was I in the process of landing a tailor of around one and a half kilos, and as always I swung the tailor up to my chest to grab hold of it. To my surprise it actually went down inside my jacket and proceeded to bite me. That was until I grabbed the thrashing fish and held it to my body and everyone that was fishing alongside me that day thought that it was very funny. I still swing tailor up to my chest to grab hold of them, but I now make sure that my jacket is done right up.

 

Suggested baits for Tailor

As a kid one of the main whole baits that I used when targeting Australian salmon and tailor was garfish. It didn’t seem to matter whether I caught the river garfish or the ones from the ocean rocks. But, now days like many other anglers I tend to mainly use WA pilchards on a set of ganged hooks. You could also try using whole yellowtail, cowanyoung, blue and whitebait, yellowfin and river pike, slimy mackerel and mullet on a set of ganged hooks.

When using ganged hooks there are a number of things that will determine to size and number of hooks used in a set of gangs. This is why I will have a range of gangs that I carry with me when either fishing from the shore or out of a boat. The range that I have will start from 3 x 2/0’s, 3 x 3/0’s, 4 x 3/0’s, 3 x 4/0’s, 4 x 4/0’s, 3 x 5/0’s, 4 x 5/0’s, 5 x 5/0’s, 4 x 6/0’s, 5 x 6/0’s, 4 x7/0’s and 5 x7/0’s. This range will cover me whether I am using a small white bait and up to a yellowfin pike of around 40cm’s in length.

For example, if you are using a sea gar compared to a river garfish you will usually find that the sea garfish is longer and fatter than the river garfish. Therefore you will (depending on the size of the bait been used at the time) have to upsize the hook size and number from 4 x 4/0’s in a river garfish to 4 x 6/0’s in a sea garfish. This example can also be related to when you buy a block of frozen pilchards and the actual size of the pilchards in the block vary.

Now there are 3 main things you need to remember to check when using gangs in a whole bait; all of the hook points must protrude outside the body of the bait, the last hook point must be down near the back of the bait (whether it has been rigged head or tail first) and when rigged the bait must be straight. 

I have also caught plenty of Australian salmon and tailor on strip baits, like bonito, frigate mackerel, yellowtail, cowanyoung, striped tuna, yellowfin and river pike and tailor. These strip baits can also be rigged successfully on a set of ganged hooks, but are also very effective on a fixed or sliding snood. You can also use the fixed or sliding snood rig when using whole live fish.

Tackle Requirements:           Whenever I am targeting tailor with ganged hooks I will always have a range of hook sizes and numbers. For example I have 5/0’s x 5, 4 & 3 hooks, 4/0’s x 5, 4 & 3 hooks and 3/0’s x 4 & 3 hooks. This range of gangs will allow you to pick the correct combination for the size of either pilchard or garfish that you are using at the time. Make sure that the hook point and barb is out of the bait, not buried in it.

You could also try using metal slugs and big hard bodied minnows for tailor as well.

Suggested outfit for beach and rock:

Rod – Shakespeare Ugly Stik Gold USG-SP1202LM

Reel – Pflueger Salt PFS70

Line – Trilene Sensation in Clear

 

Suggested outfit for boat – casting:

Rod – ABU Nanotech Nexus NNSP610LM

Reel – ABU Orra SX20

Line – Berkley Fireline Exceed and Sensei Fluorocarbon leader

 

Suggested outfit for trolling:

Rod – Ugly Stik Platinum USP-GB1512

Reel – Pflueger Salt PFS60

Line – Berkley Fireline Exceed and Sensei Fluorocarbon leader OR Trilene Sensation in Clear

For any further information about tailor and many other fish species have a look out for my book on “How to catch Australia’s Favourite Fish Species” published by Australian Fishing Network (AFN).