With the weather being a little kinder towards us in the past week than previously, we have seen many fortunate fishos fishing both inshore and offshore with plenty of good results. Staff member Jeremy was keen to have some input this week and he truly is a knowledgeable and experienced angler.

“I’m sure everyone’s heard of the superb land-based snapper fishing we’re currently experiencing this season and this week was no exception with anglers coming instore to report their catches off the rocks. Catches have been mainly coming from the Moles and the various metro rock walls/groynes. Remember, this time of the year they aren’t as far out as you might think and sometimes they are right within regular casting distance. As always to increase your catch rate berley the area with quality berley, a good method for land-based fishing is to use an onion bag filled with shredded mulies/tuna tied to some rope attached to a stable object. This is a sure-fire way to increase your catch rate as a steady flow of oil and shred slowly disperse, attracting the attention of anything from the humble herring to a steam train of a snapper. My choice of rig to use when snapper fishing from the rocks is a 9-12ft rod paired with a 5000 Daiwa/8000 Shimano size reel, 40-50lb braid and a 60-80lb leader. This is then tied to a three-way swivel (Shogun 3-way 3/0 size is perfect) with about 20-30cm of leader going one way attached to two snelled 6/0 or 8/0 Shinto Octopus hooks and the bottom of the swivel attached to about 60-80cm of breakaway line (of lighter breaking strain in case of snag) to a sinker suitable for the weather conditions at the time.

As for the boaters, remember distance isn’t always your best friend and as mentioned beforehand, this time of year inshore pinkies are firing closer than you might think. Sound around until you find baitfish and structure, then berley, berley and more berley! My preferred method of berleying on the boat is to have a slowly dispersing burley cage/bag just tied to the bow of the boat and a berley bomb attached to some rope which is lowered to the seafloor. This ensures that you’re covering as much of the water column as possible and focussing on the area directly beneath your boat/drift pattern. Baits on unweighted snelled hooks or 5-7” soft plastics such as the Madeye Paddleprawns, Z-Man JerkshadZ and McCarthy Paddletails with a jighead weight to suit the water depth/conditions are dynamite for catching pink snapper.


Jeremy's brother Jeffrey with a 20kg kingfish on plastic

Offshore fishing, there have been a few good days of weather which allowed myself to get  offshore and fish in and around the 40m mark. The go to in my arsenal was a 2oz TT Jighead attached to a Z-Man 7’ Jerkshadz in Bubblegum. The Fishing Gods really turned it on and within a few hours we had boated our quota of demersals, consisting of mainly pink snapper, dhufish and plenty of arm stretching sambos which truly tested our 20lb gear! Yet again for those new to offshore fishing, sound around until you find some good ground such as rises and drops in water depth and either anchor off the reefs and fish with plastics or bait or figure out a drift pattern and fish the drift with metal jigs, plastics and bait suited to the water depth.


This big baldie was caught by customer Kristian 


Another Jeremy and good customer of ours with a solid snapper

Now for fishing a little closer to home. Our river systems aren’t firing as much but this isn’t to say there isn’t any activity in the water. This time of the year it is harder going and it doesn’t help that our recent rainfall have stirred up the water and made the already finicky bream even more lazy. However the big winter bream are still out there and if you have a couple of spare hours here and there, now is the time to try and break your personal best bream. Aiming for areas which you know produce well in the summer time is a great way to try snag yourself an elusive 40cm+ bream.

That’s it for this week, now with a few parting thoughts. If you’re like me and wanting to try something new the finesse fishing scene is getting larger and larger with the aim of testing your knowledge and skill with our plentiful bread and butter fish such as herring/skippy and yellowtail on 1000 sized reels throwing small metal micro jigs and plastics to entice these fish. Although they are small, they do make up for great amounts of fun and are easily accessible to most anglers. Till next week! “


Staff member Dan and his old man, Bert (pictured) also got out this week and got into some pinks amongst plague proportions of big skippy.