Fishing tips

Thrown a lot of lures in the last 2 weeks.

few tailor in the first week, one under-sized jew.

had some red hot surface fishing for tailor yesterday on the low tide change.

which was early afternoon.

this was the lure which did the damage.

Just informed by a mate of absolutely red hot Spaniard run where he was fishing in SE QLD yesterday and today. They’re on their way.

Bait everywhere around here. Yesterday was the day except the surf was too much fun. Shame we’ve got a couple of days of northerlies to take a steaming dump on all that glorious warm water.

Two of the tailor were injured from severe slashing wounds, either mackerel or sharks.

wasn't set up for live-baiting or I would have swum one out.

Never seen spaniards here before Boxing Day but water has been warm enough .

anyone here squid fish?

Yep

I don't target them, but when they show up in the lights at night, will throw some jigs at them for a fresh feed.

best jigs..any recommendations? total novice here.

get mid-range Japanese made jigs.

local knowledge about colours, if you can find it.

I’m Gold Coast.

Go see the Tackle guys at Tweed Tackle.

I like the yozuri in orange or pink. As FR says, mid size range. They work well in Central Qld to FNQ.

Ive thrown a line in now and again but I don’t actually know a thing about fishing. Keen to get started with the kids. What’s a good way to start?
Kids are 4 and 6, short attention spans. South coast NSW.
Keen for any ideas on types of setup, lures or bait, species to target etc etc. any good or recommended online resources? It’s a bit of a madhouse on YouTube and I can’t be bothered wading through it all.

Look up Alvey sidecast reels, the small ones. Or small handlines. Pretty much child proof. I'd go dead prawns, small hooks, sand areas for little whiting and bream. Much better at night

easiest, cheapest and most bullet-proof way.

buy cheap handlines.

buy loaf of white bread.

go to nearest river/wharf/creek etc etc.

burley up by throwing in white bread bits.

mould a bit of bread on hook and drop into feeding fish.

If kids dig it and want to carry on, you can buy cheap rods and reels from Kmart.

you're total cost is less than $20 for handline/bread set up.

Buy some chips for the other half of the bread and a bottle Fanta and lunch is sorted too.

Win/win.

If they have short attention spans then just the act of burleying up the fish is exciting.

you can be run and done in 10 minutes with a few solid bream to show for it.

freeride76 wrote:

easiest, cheapest and most bullet-proof way.

buy cheap handlines.

buy loaf of white bread.

go to nearest river/wharf/creek etc etc.

burley up by throwing in white bread bits.

mould a bit of bread on hook and drop into feeding fish.

If kids dig it and want to carry on, you can buy cheap rods and reels from Kmart.

you're total cost is less than $20 for handline/bread set up.

Yep, always said this. and most importantly, no sinker. let the hooked bread float with the rest. It's also a great visual for the kids as the bream hit the bread.

They may get spooked after a couple of fish landed, but its by far the easiest way to catch them.

Been fooled a few times by bream boofing bread off the surface. Get all excited, then realise that someone has just thrown their lunch in the water.
It's funny how there'll be big bream happily scoffing down bread off the surface in the middle of the day, but no matter what you try you can't catch them

Roadkill wrote:

anyone here squid fish?

Yeah in Vic generally for Calamari but get odd squid and cuttlefish, also done it in Indo pretty much same deal i know you can do it at night, but just do it during the day with decent squid jigs, just cast and slow retrieve with few jerks here and there just keeping it above weed beds.

Its one of those things they are either there or they aren't, normally if get one you get a few more.

the key for big bream boofing bread but super wary is chicken nuggets.

super fine guage hook, no sinker, light line.

hide the hook in a bit of chicken nugget with the point exposed, and float it into the burley trail.

hang on.

obviously seagulls can scupper that plan.

you need a kid on seagull distraction duty.

Thanks for that little nugget FR.

Ha ha!

freeride76 wrote:

the key for big bream boofing bread but super wary is chicken nuggets.

super fine guage hook, no sinker, light line.

hide the hook in a bit of chicken nugget with the point exposed, and float it into the burley trail.

hang on.

A few years back we were hooking some thumping bream on prawns and the surface activity made me think a school of Garfish had moved in, so we changed our rigs and used bread on a float. I was wrong about the Garfish but we kept catching the bream on bread which was a first for me.

"Hang On" is an understatement freeride76. Light gear with 2kg line meant the oyster leases opposite us snapped off more fish than we landed. Best fun I've ever had in 40 years of fishing.

If you want to have fun with the kids Garfish are the go and they are 10 times tastier than bream.

Great tips everyone. Thanks. Good tip on the bread. Saves me buying more crap that might not get used. Need the payoff to get them interested then like everything else they’ll probably be hooked (hehe) and get obsessive…

In good proud dad surfing news, the 6yo is getting up 4 times out of 5 on his foamie and the 4yo is now happy enough to ride the whitewater to the sand on his guts.

More ocean related activities the better I figure

Don't mind chasing the green eyes (calamari) off the rocks. Mostly a winter recreational thing for me. I like a super flat day with no wind and clean water.. I've never chased them in estuaries or jetties etc though.
Just on the jigs though , it pays to have a few of the cheap ones in your kit. Handy for working out depths to the weedbed and other snags without sacrificing your more expensive ones . As well some of the best squid I've caught were on the cheap kmart jobs.
I always run one jig on a static float and cast and retrieve another one.

Does anyone know anything about the reproductive behaviour of Barra?

Short story long, did a stint up in FNQ many moons ago and as surfing was limited, would wet a line at any opportunity. Used to catch all the usuals (Threadfin, Fingermark, Jacks etc.) but never managed to catch the elusive Barra. Anyway, one day we drove up to Cooktown and were gonna fish overnight just off the Jetty across the road from the pub. Done it a few times and got some nice fish in the past but again, no Barra. On that particular night which was right in the middle of the dry, it was quite cool and oily glassy and was lovely just chucking a few lures around and setting a few baits while sinking a couple of cans.

The fish weren't really biting but the strangest thing happened. Just out of nowhere, something quite amazing to witness and beautiful to watch- in the moonlight just below the surface of the water, drifting in the lazy current were about half a dozen HUGE Barra, I'm talking 100cm +. Now I'm sure many of you know, Barra are protandrous hermaphrodites, which means they're born male and when they reach full maturity they become female (a bit like Blindboy). Along with each of these big girls there were probs about ten much smaller males slowly rolling and weaving in and out of each other but always around the big female and lightly brushing against her. It was the craziest sight, sort of like an underwater ballet, it was mesmerising.

Anyway, my mate and I snapped out of our trance and threw lures at them left right and centre. Sadly (or fortunately) they weren't interested and totally ignored them and just kept on drifting down with the current doing their little ethereal dance of love until they faded out of sight. My mate and I just stood there, speechless, having seen something that has probably been seen by very few.

I'll never forget that and feel privileged to having been witness to it.

lol thanks for the laugh zen. Going by what you've said, I'd say the Barra prefer their ladies mature.

I can add: bro is aquaculture grad and was involved with tanks full of tiny Barra at one time. So I got to go inside and watch them. They all hung there at 45 degrees in the water, were separated horizontally, and a prick to grade. If one got a bit bigger than the others in it's section, it would eat them, so Bro had to realise which one was getting bigger, isolate it and move it up to the next holding bay, or no fish. I reckon if you survive that, you can be whatever gender you wish to be.

great fish to catch no doubt...also the most tasteless overrated fish ever. Just like Trout, great to catch....taste meh.

Barramundi?

freeride76 wrote:

Barramundi?

yeah..

kinda stuffed that post up with lack of info :)

Tasteless and overrated?

go wash your mouth out.

Barra? From what I remember they tasted alright. But if I could choose between keeping one and eating it, or letting it go to catch another one, I'd choose letting it go. I'd rate the experience of catching one over the experience of eating one.
They're so much fun to catch, big surface hits, big head shaking jumps, and they try to bust you off.
Hungry things too

Farmed Barra isnt as tasty thats for sure but freerange (or whatever they are called) barra are tasty imo. there used to be a place in Newtown where i lived that sold barramundi and some other fish i forget and both fillets were exactly the same and tasted the same but barra costed more...what a scam.

Fly fishing for trout is almost as fun as using poppers for gt''s..i reckon trout is tasty but i eat any fish including tuna..when i was homeless i lived on canned tuna for a few months.as long as it had curry flavour or chilli it was tasty..cant stand raw tuna though.

I love Tuna, especially raw. Chutoro (middle belly) is beautiful.

Smoked trout on warm, buttered toast with a little mayo and fresh chopped dill and that's as close as you can get to perfection for me.

Done a lot of fly fishing in the past, fresh and salt and the whole experience of landing a fish on a fly is a thrill that's hard to beat. Have to agree though, poppers for big GT's is pretty damn fun too.

Flyfishing is super fun, I used to go back to NZ 3/4 times a year...covid has put a halt to that. I have never liked the taste of Trout. Slow growing cold water fish are the tastiest.
John Dory is the best tasting fish...imo.

zenagain wrote:

I love Tuna, especially raw. Chutoro (middle belly) is beautiful.

Smoked trout on warm, buttered toast with a little mayo and fresh chopped dill and that's as close as you can get to perfection for me.

Done a lot of fly fishing in the past, fresh and salt and the whole experience of landing a fish on a fly is a thrill that's hard to beat. Have to agree though, poppers for big GT's is pretty damn fun too.

Have you tried Ayu, Zen?
Ayu, freshly caught and cooked over coals, is pretty much as good as a fish eating experience can be.

Smoked Kahawai. Underrated and so so good.

Raw Trevally is great.

Hapuku/Groper is good lightly seared.

Danish fave: Smoked Herring on rye bread with raw egg yolk and chopped chives.

can't go with you on the Kahawai there IB.

that's trap bait for crays, not human food.

freeride76 wrote:

Tasteless and overrated?

go wash your mouth out.

Hard to beat fresh caught saltwater Barra. Up there with the best when cooked right. Best between legal and 70cm. No bigger.

Thanks Fitzy.

Roady, I love Ayu. Eaten it dozens of times. One of the fish you eat head, guts and all.

Tried fishing for them once with an Ayu master. Very different way of fishing. Google how they do it. I wasn't very successful unfortunately.

X2 on the John Dory. One of the best eating fish in the sea.

I agree that freshwater Barra is overrated.

We used to cast net cheribin in the irrigation creeks around Kununurra when we worked at Argyle Diamonds. Take those tasty little buggers and live bait them for the Barra in the rivers. Excellent fun.

Caught horse Barra on livies off the spoil bank at Hedland which was a pleasant surprise ! Barra in Exmouth gulf too if you want a bit of secret fishing action without journeying too far from the waves.

My top five fish across all values ( taste, yield, sport,aggression, appearance, fishing style, general iconic status bonus points )

1/ Spanish Mackerel
2/ Coral trout
3/ Baldchin groper
4/ red emperor
5/ yellowfin tuna

@Zen.
Cooktown wharf Barra have destroyed the morale of many a hardcore fisherman. I have watched tourist's come down day after day, all day with live baits, trying their luck for the elusive barra. Only to go home empty handed.
The funniest is to watch the locals come down at the right time and right bait and bag one in minutes, turn around and walk home. The tourist's just sit there stunned.
Those barra under the wharf get pestered day after day, week after week, year after year. They aren't stupid.
And the moment closed season starts, they show up in numbers ready to spawn.

My favourite eating fish would be MJs. Not that common around here (nth nsw) so mostly release them. Then there's tuskfish, smaller estuary cod. Moses Perch are lovely if you can get one big enough to keep. Could go on and on, there's so many nice eating fish. Biggest problem is having to clean, fillet, cook, so most fish go back alive

zenagain wrote:

Roady, I love Ayu. Eaten it dozens of times. One of the fish you eat head, guts and all.

Tried fishing for them once with an Ayu master. Very different way of fishing. Google how they do it. I wasn't very successful unfortunately.

X2 on the John Dory. One of the best eating fish in the sea.

I've fished for Ayu a few times, a couple of hours out of Tokyo. So much fun...and so fricken hard.

On the opposite scale of deliciousness is Hoya (sea pineapple). I lived in Iwate Ken, Japan and got offered it quite a few times. The most hideous thing I have ever eaten.

I find it hard to argue with that list Blowin.

I'd have to have tailor on there though.

This area has the biggest tailor outside WA.

Big tailor on poppers on light gear go very, very hard. Insane jumps.

I like eating the smaller ones, generally try and release the big ones if I can (not always possible fishing off rock platforms).

I fished of that wharf in cooktown in 94 , it was 1.00 am and there were 2 local old girls fishing and chatting away . I had a handline cast out to the right hand side with a dead herring as bait , meanwhile I was fishing of the front with rod and reel. . I jagged an oxeye herring just as the local copper rocked up . He grabbed the oxeye and started cutting it up into bait size pieces while explaining to me how to swim and release a barra if I caught one as it was out of season. ( $10,000 fine I think ) he looked over and said who’s handline was that ? I said mine , just put it there for something to do . He assured me I wouldn’t catch anything where it was positioned and I didn’t really care . Anyway 5 minutes after he left the handline was bouncing all over the wharf and on the end was a beautiful barra and perfect eating size . I looked down from the wharf thinking how the fuck am I going to be able to swim this thing as the tide was out and it was about 20 ft to the water . The two old ducks were watching and laughing at me then sung out ‘ she’s right love , that’s a cooktown salmon , take it home and enjoy . My mate said just jump in the car and take it back to the motel . Carrying this kicking barra back to the car I went arse up in a puddle of brown shiity water so when I got back to the motel I gave us both a shower . This thing was still alive and all l could think about was getting caught and fined so I jammed it into the fridge freezer and bolted back to the wharf . First cast back I got a mangrove jack and my mate was spewing as he hadn’t caught anything . When we finally returned to the motel, the barra was on the floor in front of the telly , having kicked its way out of the freezer . Next day we nervously headed back to cairns with the illegal barra at the bottom of the esky . Dumb thing to do I admit but when young I didn’t always think things through. It was a great trip and lots to see up that way , black rock mountains are amazing and those cooktown salmon sure do taste good .