A Summer Night on the Reef - Part 2

Last week we looked at why it is worth targeting your shallow reef systems in low light periods. Let’s now take a look at how to best fish these areas for good results.

Tackle:
Standard tackle for fishing the reef from my point of view, consists of a dropshot rod in the 6 to 10kg range (heavy outfit) matched with an 806 Abu Cardinal or a Pro Tactic in the 4 to 7kg range (light outfit) matched with an 804 Abu Cardinal. My heavier outfit is loaded with 20 to 30lb Stren High Vis braid and the lighter outfit is loaded with 10lb Stren Microfuse braid. I adopt 20 to 30lb leaders on the heavy outfit and 10 to 14lb leaders on the light outfit.
I carry a full range of jigheads including 2/0 and 3/0 hook sizes on 1/6th Oz through to 3/4Oz (only come in 5/0 hook size) weights. My soft plastic arsenal includes all things Gulpy ranging from 4 inch to 7 inch plastics. If you get too confused with all the colours out there opt for a natural colour and a bright colour in each of the different soft plastic profiles. By this I mean a small profile like the 4 inch Pogy or Goby, a middle range plastic like the 5 inch swimshad or jerkshad and a larger profile like the 6 inch grub or 7 inch jerkshad. If you have two bags of each profile in a natural colour like Camo or Smelt and a bright colour like Nuclear Chicken or Mango Ripple you are well on your way to success. Here’s another good little secret (don’t tell your mates this one so you get the upper hand early!) - When you are fishing in small moon phases you can encounter a lot of phosphorus glowing in the water. When you see this – don’t tell your mates – quietly take off the plastic you are using and reach for the bag of Gulps that says GLOW! On the bag. Sneakily put your head lamp on the plastic for a few moments and then cast it out. By the time your mates have worked out all the fish you are catching are taking glowing plastics you will have the upper hand in the competition!

Rigging:
I typically use 2 metres of the lightest leader I can get away with. When the fishing is tough, light leaders will catch more fish, it has been proven time and time again. If you are worried about using light leader around the reef, don’t be – the fish will do you over just as fast on 30lb as they do on 14lb! The secret in getting back big fish around the reef is knowing when to back off on them to stop the panic factor. I have found the harder I go on fish these days, the quicker they find reef or straighten hooks (like I said I go pretty hard on some of them!). Alternatively, I have found that when I ease off the pressure, many fish have proceeded to move back to mid-water and eventually the net. It’s worth thinking about your approach!
When rigging plastics make sure they sit straight on the hook. Pierce the face of the plastic with the hook point, and thread the hook through the plastic so when you pull it through the back of the bait it lies straight on the hook. It has to look and sink naturally in the water.

Approach:
There are two ways to approach fishing the reef with soft plastics. You can opt to anchor or drift. I have published a detailed article on the merits of both techniques in this years Fishing Monthly Annual – “Catch”. Both techniques have their Pro’s and Cons.
This week let’s look at anchoring a boat and fishing soft plastics on the reef.

Anchor Fishing Soft plastics:
The first task is to locate the patch of reef you wish to fish. Following this, anchor the boat up wind of the reef and position the boat a cast length away from your prime fish holding location. Then choose the lightest jighead you believe you will need to just reach the bottom with your offering. Typically you will find it takes a few changes of jigheads prior to getting the optimal sink rate correct. The optimal sink rate should be a very, very slow sink. This is very important! A wounded or dead baitfish does not plummet through the water column. They sink, or sink and pause at a slow rate. Mid water fish such as snapper that watch a plastic sink too quickly won’t go anywhere near it. I have fished using plain Gamakatsu hooks before to achieve a dead slow sink. By pulling the plastic over the eye of the hook, the plastic will stay in place.
Having rigged your plastic, cast it out as far as possible over the top of your prime location. Then engage the reel and allow the plastic to sink with the line kept tight. The taut line will decrease the sink rate of the plastic and the movement of the boat will quite often allow the bait to pause in the water column as would a wounded baitfish. By keeping the line tight you will also be able to detect bites. Fish (especially snapper) will typically bump the plastic and then mouth it prior to moving away with it. This is very much the same as a fish taking a natural bait – the Gulp is that good!. What this means is that by striking at the first sign of a bite will inevitably result in a failed hookup. Be patient and give the fish plenty of time to take your offering. To facilitate the process I often keep my rod tip high and allow it to be pulled down to water level prior to striking.

This technique is very effective! I have taken some good bait anglers out fishing with me recently and they have been amazed at how well this technique works. One of them described it as some of the best snapper fishing he had ever seen! Take some time to practice the technique and you will quickly become proficient at it.

Happy Fishing,
Nige

Fishing for flatdogs

I love hitting the water for a fish early in summer, well before the sun gets too hot and the holiday season boat traffic drives you nuts. Flathead are one of Australia's number one summer target species, there usually plentiful in most coastal estuary systems at this time of the year and tend to be almost suicidal if you bounce a softy past their nose.



Brian Perry with a healthy summer Flathead, caught on a Lime Tiger 4 inch Minnow


WHERE TO FIND THEM

Catching Flathead on soft plastics is not a hard task, in fact I would go as far to say they are one of the easiest species to catch consistently on lures. I like to work the last half of the run out tide along the weedy edges off drop offs, channel's and areas where sand meets rocks or weed. These weedy fringes offer Flathead a perfect spot to ambush any unsuspecting food source that is pushed past their nose as the tide recedes. Its then a simple task of setting up a good drift so you can pepper all the best looking spots with a barrage of casts. If you have a good sounder in your boat you can also work little weedy bumps in depths of 5 to 10 metres, these deeper areas can produce much bigger fish, just remember the big ones are females and should be released.

Electric motors are a huge advantage when it comes to positioning yourself for a cast at the best looking spots. Our Berkley Gulp Alive Prize boats are fitted with the latest Minkota RT55SP/FP Rip Tide bow mount, its an absolute ripper

FAVOURITE BAITS

3 inch Shaky Shads and 4 inch minnows have been stand out performers for me this summer on a range of different water ways. I've been using more natural colours such as "Smelt" in clearer conditions and brighter colours like Chartreuse and Lime Tiger as the tide bottoms out and the water starts to get dirty, but to be honest I think I have caught Flathead on nearly every colour in the Gulp range. Personally I place more importance on where you put your soft bait and what you do with it once it's in front of the fish.

JIG HEADS

One of the most important parts of your tackle system when targeting Flathead is a good sharp hook. Some fish will only bite once while others will hit your lure several times before hooking up. Either way you want to make sure each bite counts and the fish stays pinned, fine sharp hooks are a huge advantage when it comes to penetrating the hard top jaw of a Flathead. Matt Fraser's new range off Berkley Nitro Pogy heads are perfect for this application and feature beautifully finished recessed painted heads with razor sharp chemically sharpened fine hooks and bait keepers that wont let your favourite Gulp get ripped off. My bite to hook up rate has dramatically improved this summer since I stuck a handful in my tackle box. I like to use the 1/4 ounce models in the shallows then move up to a 3/8 0r 1/2 ounce in deeper water or areas where the tide has a bit of flow.

Berkley Nitro POGY HEADS are the "Ducks Nuts" for catching Flathead

RETRIEVES

When it comes to retrieves the most important thing to remember is to let your soft plastic sink back to the bottom, its no secret this is where Flathead live. When your lure hits the water let it sink, keep an eye on your line as your lure is sinking, it will go slack when it hits the bottom. Then give the rod tip a couple of quick sharp jigs to make your lure jump erratically off the bottom, let it sink back to the bottom, wind in any slack line then repeat the process until your lure arrives back at the boat.

Brian Perry releasing a magnificent mid north coast monster, fish for the future

LINE AND LEADER

I find 4 pound Crystal Fireline suits most of my estuary fishing needs these days, it casts really well, sinks fast and has great knot strength as well as having the advantage of being reasonably transparent under water. I use Trilene fluorocarbon leaders that range from 4 to to 10 pound depending on the area I am fishing in and the size of the fish I think I may encounter. Flathead are fitted with a couple of sharp top teeth and some nasty barbs on the side of the head that can make short work of light leaders at times. I generally prefer around a rod length of leader connected via a 30 turn Bimini double and a 5 turn surgeons knot. If your not sure on how to tie any of these knots you can grab a copy of one of our Berkley DVDs that feature step by step tutorials with "Mad Dog".

Trilene Fluorocarbon is soft, has awsome knot strength and fantastic abrasion resistance.

Flathead are great sport on light tackle and taste fantastic cooked in a lite beer batter. I'll be out there on the weekend putting in a few casts, hopefully the fish will bite, then again they cant help themselves with Gulp.

A Summer Night on the Reef

I wrote a piece for Fishing World last year on the benefits of fishing shallow reef systems of a night. I wrote the article following some extended good results fishing some shallow Sunshine Coast reef through the summer nights. Being that we are approaching the middle of summer, it seemed a good time to revisit the thinking.

Fishing our reef systems through the low light hours is often a difficult task because many anglers are required to navigate hazardous waters such as river mouths/bar crossings. This means that many anglers only get to fish shallow reef systems through the day. These reef systems typically fish poorly during high light conditions. Catches usually consist of small cod, happy moments and juvenile reef species such as sweetlip and emperor. Many anglers fishing these near shore reefs will testify to these spots being fished out.

I'll let you in on a little secret now. These same reef systems become a whole new kettle of fish (couldnt resist the pun!) at night or during very first light. Mates of mine that fish Moreton Bay spend their daylight hours driving around in 4 to 6 metre depth water and by using their eyes and sounders, spend their time marking good looking patches of reef. After dark, they follow their GPS back to fish such reef for startling results.

My local shallow reef systems are 12 to 20 metres deep and are well known spots. I fish these reefs of a night for great results on big snapper, sweetlip and pelagics such as tuna and cobia.

The best time to fish these reefs has been on 1/4 and 3/4 moon phases and best when the moon is up above the horizon. It makes sense that when big currents are operating out wider, many fish will push into shallow reefs to feed at night without fighting strong current.

Berkley plastics and lightly weighted nitro jigheads in 1/6th Oz to 1/2 Oz come into their own in such scenarios.

Unfortunately I have run out of words for this week's spiel so we'll talk about exactly how to fish these plastics for night time brawlers next week! Until then stock up on Nitro jigheads in 1/6th, 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 Oz jigheads on 3/0 hook size, 4 inch Gulp pogys, 5 inch Gulp swimming shads, 5 and 7 inch Gulp jerkshads and 6 inch Gulp grubs,...next week we are going get dangerous and learn how to use them to great effect after the sun goes down!

Happy Fishing,

Nige

Noosa Cyclonic Fishing

Weather has been absolutely off the scale over Christmas which was heartbreaking for a lot of tourists to the area. I found Wallaby Lote Tuqiri hiding from the weather in a local cafe. He expressed his dissapointment at not being able to get out for a fish.

After the holiday season, the weather subsided somewhat and enabled us to get out for a fish. The waters have been well and truly stirred up to almost a kilometre offshore. The inshore reefs are therefore fishing very well, with opportunistic species like the snapper gorging themselves on all the available food. The rivers are pouring heaps of dirty water into the seas, and the shallow reef systems have been stirred up.

Over the weekend we fished a session on the reefs in 40 to 50 metres of water (fringing on the stirred up water). With so much food in the water we opted to use plenty of berley and drift lightly weighted 4, 5 and 6 inch plastics down the trail. We scored well with 9 snapper to 5 kilograms and several lost to the reef. The trick was in presenting plastics nice and slowly to fish in the berley trail. We used 5/8 Oz jigheads and fed about 20 metres of line at a time before engaging the reel and allowing the plastics to drift at a point in the water column for several minutes. We kept this up until the plastic got eaten. The 4 inch Pogys in anchovy produced the bigger fish, with other “wiggly” plastics like the swimming shads and grubs doing well.

The weather has gotten nasty again, so with fingers crossed it may be right again for the weekend and another shot at some reefies!

Happy Fishing
Nige

MANIC SHADS

Lure casting in the shallows has always been a difficult proposition with weed being a major deterrent to the effective use of hard and soft bodied lures.
Anything that sank or swam subsurface was always going to contact submerged or free floating weed and impede the action of the lure to a point that made the lure inneffective.
Lures with hooks that hung suspended from the lure body also made life difficult as they found anything in the lures path and fouled.
I guess the perfect snagproof lure does not yet exist but the new Manic Shads go a long way to improving your success as a topwater bait that can be also jigged or swum subsurface.
The basic bait is soft plastic body that incorporates the famous Berkley scent and some holographic flash for extra stimulus. The head is a hard resin weight with a single vertically mounted hook, much like any conventional jig head.
The real difference is the plastic collar which is attached the the neck of the head. It acts like a bib in reverse.
When the lure is cast out, the bait sinks slowly and on retrieve, the collar drives the lure to the surface. You can walk it like a dog, burn and sink it, straight retrieve it then drop into holes or down dropoofs. The retrieves are only limited by your imagination. The collar also imparts a unique rock-n-roll action that fish like Barramundi would find irresistable.
Each Manic shad comes with three tails in the pack and a single jig head. The sizes are 5" or 7" and the colours available are Blue mackerel, Bleeding minnow, Firetiger, Holographic black and gold, Rainbow smelt, and Smelt.
The hooks are heavy duty and they should be selling around the $10 mark per pack.