Noosa Spanish Mackerel - High Speed Spinning

Apologies for taking so long to get back on the blogging!!! Its been a busy start to the year that hasnt had me at my computer as much as I would have liked - but no excuses, I will lift my game....promise!


We have had some pretty ordinary mackerel seasons over the past few years on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, but finally we are seeing some improvements. We have had some good sessions on spotted mackerel in the past few years but the spaniards have been a challenge. This year has seen some good fishing for spanish mackerel for several months now which suggests we should be in for some good mackerel fishing in the months ahead.
Good strategies for catching mackerel on our Sunshine Coast reefs include trolling hardbodied lures and live baits, drifting and floating dead baits and high speed casting and retrieving lures. The optimal strategy can depend on a number of variables including current speed, fish movements and depth that bait and pelagics are holding in the water column. Fish that are mobile or holding deep in fast currents can be difficult to target with an anchored boat. In this scenario trolling to cover more water is often a favoured technique. Mackerel can also be incredibly fussy at times, and experimenting with various approaches is often required before a successful strategy can be determined.

My favoured technique is casting and high speed retrieving of lures when chasing mackerel. It allows you to fish relatively light tackle and enjoy the battle from the initial strike to the boat. Due to the light but robust nature of the latest technology , the tackle we have on offer these days makes it all the more enjoyable. I was able to put my new 7’ Diablo 6-10kg rods and Soron STX60’s through their paces on some of these pelagic speedsters on the weekend.
I managed to snag one of those days last week where the current allows you to anchor on a patch of bait and by berleying – hold concentrations of mackerel close to the boat. These sessions invariably mean lots of fast and furious action that leaves you with sore back and arms but a grin that lasts for days! A mate of mine and I headed offshore early and using the sounder quickly located a good patch of bait shadowed by some reasonable arches. After anchoring above the bait and getting a berley trail working – it didn’t take long for rods to be bent and drags to be screaming. We fished for a couple of hours and boated 8 or 9 fish and hooked around 20 – so lots of fun had by all!


High speed spinning through a berley trail can be tiring but is well worth the effort. Having initiated the berley trail, the technique involves casting a metal lure (also known as slugs, or slices) down the berley trail as far as you can cast. Allow the slug to then sink down through the berley trail to a position that is ideally beneath the trail. This depth depends largely on the current and may take some experimenting to establish. If in doubt let the lure sink to bottom. Having let the lure sink, simply crank the lure back as fast as possible. The rod can be whipped around to give the lure more action, but usually just winding back at full speed will do the job. This week I used a mix of Halco and Spanyid lures to catch fish. Casting these lures is made a lot easier by using quality line. To assist my high speed luring pursuits, I have been using the Code Red braid in 20lb matched to 20/25lb Vanish fluorocarbon leaders of around 2 metres in length. This style of fishing is addictive so be careful – you may suddenly find yourself with a huge collection of chrome lures and big forearms!

I got active and took some video footage of some of the action - apologies for the quality, I have only but a small handycam and the upload took care of the rest of reduction of quality. It looks much better on my PC - promise! For a viewing simply hit the link below. Any questions just sign up and post a comment below this blog. I do look at comments and will reply.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6183188303147768960


Happy Fishing,

Nige

Tales from the back of the boat - Taree.

Taree Tales from the Back of the Boat

You know when you get the funny scratchy feeling at the back of the throat? You just don’t feel quite right and you’re not sure what’s coming. More to the point you don’t want to think about what’s coming.

That was me the day before leaving for Taree for the first NSW round of the bream ABT year. After weeks of excitement and anticipation I felt like I was about to get the mother of all head colds and looking at the forecast of temperatures in the mid thirties all I could see was discomfort. Still, too late to back out, so off I trundled to what a fellow fisho described as “the second hardest tournament waterway in the State”. It was just getting better and better!

Awoken at 5am on the Friday it was Pre-fish Day and after a night of little sleep brought about by a combination of too much medication and more than a little excitement, my spirits lifted a little as the boat slid off the trailer into the calm Manning River and before I knew it we were shooting up river at sinus clearing speeds. Funny, even through bleary eyes and a foggy head I still couldn’t help thinking how much I’d missed the tournaments.

The one (and probably only if you listen to my boater) constructive thing I did the night before was to spool up a couple of Abu Cardinal 702LX reels I had the chance to give a whirl over the weekend

Ordinarily I don’t like using gear I haven’t got to know on comp weekends but after the first few casts I realized I needn’t have worried. The 702LX is a solid little reel and the fit on my beloved Pro-Tactics was spot on. My finger reached the spool nicely and the cranking was smooth and positive. The Carbon Matrix Drag was a big step up from the single oiled felt washer on my old reels and now I had a choice of drag settings other than on or off!

As usual with Abu’s there’s always a nice touch somewhere and on these it’s the engraved mark on the inside of the spool indicating correct spooling depth. The dreaded knots caused by over-filling never appeared and the Stren Microfuse peeled off without a hitch all day.

Pre-fish day was good, bream were in short supply but certainly could be seen and flatties kept the boredom at bay for most of the day. In fact the highlight of the day was fishing a small area of racks that provided me with a searing run that had the Carbon Matrix drag on the little 702 singing. Regaining some line and with the fish just off the boat we saw a huge flash of silver leaving me thinking ‘No not today…big fish tomorrow!’ I needn’t have bothered….getting some more line in saw a flatty running a good 80cm hanging onto my Gulp Shrimp. The flash must have been a big bream spooked by the commotion.
I went to bed happy that all my gear was working well, I was casting well and despite my head feeling like it was stuck in some lift doors I was positive about the coming weekend.

Day One saw me fishing various banks using topwater lures and un-weighted Gulp Shrimps and fish were coming thick and fast. Sadly they were all under size but it kept my enthusasium up. Still feeling groggy the morning was so hot and humid I probably spent as much time mopping my brow as I did fishing but the discomfort still took a step back every time a hookup occurred. Casting under trees and into mangrove roots the first legal fish came around 9am. A small topwater lure on 4lb Berkley Trilene Fluorocarbon leader and 2lb Stren Microfuse was slurped off the surface and the Pro-Tactic/702 combo did the rest bring a nice 31cm bream to the net. My boater followed suit 5mins later and seemed very happy with the way the day was progressing. Sadly that was it for legal fish for me and although we continued to catch fish it was only my boater who managed to scrape his way to four fish. Just the one for me but happy I didn’t doughnut, I felt I’d fished well given the heat and went back to the ramp fairly upbeat.



Day Two say a dramatic change in the weather…it started cold and windy! The change had everybody re-thinking their tactics and I was soon reaching for the Gulp shrimps thinking it was going to be plastic time and probably deep plastics at that. Fishing a few different banks with my boater we picked up a flatties but spent much of the time grimacing at the wind. We decided to up stumps and try and find a sheltered spot with a bit of structure. As my fair weather fisherman side came bursting through I wondered if that was the right idea and maybe we should tough it out. As it was we found a nice stretch of bank just catching a gentle breeze and as the wind dropped and the sun occasionally came out it wasn’t long before we were getting a few hits to keep us interested. And it wasn’t much longer before the hits started coming thick and fast, not deep as I had thought but still in the higher parts of the water column.

Fishing a section of old oyster rack poles similar to the ones Berkley’s Scott Towner is fishing in the picture, un-weighted Gulp shrimps and small topwater lures were again getting hit by bream of all sizes and at times double hookups caused chaos on the boat as we both tried to steer fish over and around the obstructive racks and snags. One thing I was impressed with was the 4lb Trilene Fluorocarbon leader I was using. Often I had to let the Pro Tactics exert their will and often I was wrapped around some pole or other but the Trilene held firm and took a fair beating before being prudent I replaced the leader. You know it’s a good session when the cup of coffee and snack bar sat untouched on the deck for over an hour!

In the end despite the excitement I was only able to take two legal fish with me to the weigh in but it was just enough to hang off the top ten placings. Reflecting on the way home I was actually quite happy. I had fished reasonably well, cast well (didn’t donate too much gear to the trees and bushes!) and above all the Pro Tactics, the Abu 702’s, the Stren, the Trilene and numerous other Berkley bits and pieces had performed beautifully all weekend. The only issue I had was down to knots and a sneaky peak at Berkley’s Scott Towner’s rods soon saw that solved on the first night.

I made mention in the very first Tales from the Outside that one thing I’d learnt from Berkley Pro Team members was organization and integration of your tackle was vital to give you confidence in the tournaments and being in no shape to battle bream and my gear his weekend was a perfect example of that. In fact one of my boaters made a passing comment from the front of boat. “You like your Pure Fishing gear don’t you”. Certainly do my man, certainly do.

Until next time, good fishing.

Gatesy

Ps. Many thanks to my boaters for a great weekend, members of the Berkley Pro Team for their invaluable advice and the boys from bream.com.au for a great event and helping out with a few pictures.

Pps. Again for the record I have no agreement or affiliation with Pure Fishing and only ramble on ‘cos the kind folks at Pure Fishing let me. When they stop making gear that delivers the goods, I’ll stop rambling on…promise!

Team Pflueger wins In Tassy

This past weekend [Jan31/Feb1] we had the 2nd round of the Tasmanian BREAM classics at the Swan River on Tasmania’s east coast. Fishing with Derwent bream guru Leigh McKenzie we managed to record our second win from two starts. Below is a rundown our how our weekend went and what we used to record the victory:

GULP! 6” Natural sandworms: Yes they still work!

The GULP 6” sandworm is one of the most popular GULP soft plastics of all time. I have caught stacks of fish on it myself and had some of my best results using this lure. While its not a secret weapon by any means it does seem to have become the “forgotten hero”! Without it I might not be writing this article!

Day 1:
After a reasonably successful pre-fish, where we located quite a few fish we headed downstream from the start and hit up our first spot. The plan was to mix it up. Leigh fished a hard body while I fished a Gulp sandworm. Two fish in the first three casts had the blood pumping. Somewhat to our surprise the sandworm was smacking the fish one after the other! By 7:35am we had upgraded, by 9am we would have boated 20 fish and already had a five fish bag of 5kg. All on the humble 6” GULP sandworm.

As the tide changed the fish moved on and so did we. We headed upstream and fished surface hard bodies over weedy/sandy flats. The action conditioned to be hot with a further half dozen fish in the next half hour including one upgrade at over a kilo.

Heading back to the weigh in we had managed to hold a lead of only 5grams over second place. With a meager 25grams separating the top three teams.

Day 2:
Heading out on day two is always a good feeling, although it does come with extra pressure as everyone is gunning for you. With the success of day one we headed back to our spot with instant success. First cast a 35cm to fork in the well, followed by another two fish in the next half hour. The tides seemed to change a lot on day two which turned the fish off. Time to make the toughest call of the weekend, stay and wait for the fish to come on the chew, risking potentially not getting our bag or move on and go searching for fish? We chose to move on which proved to be both the right and wrong decision. We caught a bag on top water and upgrade a number of times and managed to get home by around 500grams for the win! In hindsight we could have stayed and got a bag once the tide changed. Another team went into where we had been fishing after we left and pulled a 5.6kg bag on GULPs!

Anyways we made the call we did and we aren’t regretting it. A win is a win. The gear I used consisted of three different combos:

Pflueger Supreme 7'1" 2-4kg, 7' 1-3kg, and 6'6" 2-4kg rods matched with Pflueger Supreme XT reels loaded with 3lb Stren Microfuse and Berkley Trilene Leader.
Lure/Jig head: 6” Natural GULP sandworm, 1/16th size 1 nitro jighead.

Don’t ever right off the almighty 6” GULP sandworm!

Pat Sullivan

Check Out Monduran Barra Action

Cracking Barra Patterns at Monduran

The barra fishing has been tough across most of Queensland's lakes for the past few months. This wasn't enough to deter me from trying my luck at Monduran Dam recently. Either the barra are getting smarter or the conditions haven't been right for some time. They simply refuse to bite like they did over the last few years. It's highly likely that the increase in fishing pressure has contributed to the situation.

That said, we headed to one of the busiest stretchs of water on Lake Monduran - "B" Arm. This section of water is easy to navigate to and has plenty of open sections without trees. Therefore, it appeals to lure trollers as well as casters. The reason we headed to this stretch of water wasn't its popularity but the water quality was much better. Here, there was good visibility in comparison to the rest of the lake which was green and murky.

You have probably heard it time and time again - fish the points. The same saying applies to Monduran. Look for any major points that are positioned near big bays or on the sharp bends of the creek. These areas hold plenty of baitfish and cruising barra are likely to travel around them when they are on the move. By spot hopping between a series of points we were able to score a number of barra. We'd fish an area thoroughly for at least an hour before moving to the next spot. This meant we concentrated our efforts on the most productive areas for the whole time. Rather than exploring when the action was slow we just waited for the next bite to happen. Being confident in your chosen spot is vital when fishing this way.

The end result after a day of fishing Monduran was eight barra lander plus several dropped fish and stacks of missed strikes. The Lures The most succesful lures were the 6" Berkley Hollowbellies. Tennessee shad and blue back herring were two of the proven colours. We rigged the baits on the new Nitro Button Jigs. These heads, designed by Matt Fraser, are the only choice when it comes to fishing any of the big hollow plastics on the market. The oversize keeper barbs keep the lure in place and there's no need to muck around gluing plastics to jigs. The extra strong hooks are also a bonus as they would certainly take some effort to straighten unlike some other jigs and prerigged plastics on the market. I rigged my baits on the 1/2 ounce jighead and found that on a steady retrieve with a few pauses the lure stayed down in the cooler water below 4 feet deep.

The Key to Success

I outfished the other two boys in the boat 5 fish to their 3. I put this down to several factors. I was using a spin outfit rather than a baitcaster. This was spooled with 20lb Fireline Tracer braid. This lighter line was much thinner than their 50lb lines fished from baitcast reels. It gave me the ability to work my lure deeper and quicker due to less resistance in the water. The combo also gave the ability to cast long distances. The fish weren't holding tight to the weed edges but scattered out in the open. Long casts meant the lure was spending more time in the water.

Another benefit was noticed when it came to fighting fish. Many barra are lost when they jump. The lighter drag on the spin outfit helped to keep them in the water after the initial hookup. It was then a matter of following the barra through the trees. With the larger fish running up to fifty metres from the place they were hooked, there were plenty of trees to drive around to untangle the fish. Still, none were lost and I put this down to the light but smooth drag, the tough line and the rod action.

The Standout Performer

The standout performer was a new outfit that's certainly worth a look if you're into catching big fish. The rod was a 6'9" 4-8kg Diablo spin stick. This was armed with a Abu Garcia Soron STX40 spinning reel. The reel was spooled with 20lb Fireline Tracer Braid and topped with a 5' 60lb leader of Vanish fluorocarbon. Apart from impoundment barra, this rod is also suited to heavy estuary work and light inhore spinning. Already I've used it on mackeral, tuna, snapper and the Brisbane River's huge theadfin. With such versatility, it's certainly worth checking out.