This is the last edition of ‘Gone fishing with Jonno’, but don’t despair, I’ll be back next week with a revamped fishing report called “One More Cast”. One More Cast will feature a range of fishing articles, tips and advice from some of Shoalhaven’s best anglers, including Greg Reid from Bay and Basin Sportsfishing and Mark Fisher from Outback Rods. From catching to cooking your catch, building fishing rods and targeting specific species, we are going to have you covered.
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This week the fishing around the local area has really hotted up with a strong southerly current bringing more marlin to The Banks. The higher barometer has worked a treat on the bass and estuary perch, having them smash lures off the surface, producing some pretty exciting fishing trips.
Inshore, snapper are being caught on soft plastics lures around the Culburra area and in Jervis Bay. With the moon entering its dark phase over the weekend the prawns should run so it’s probably worth heading out to get a feed of these tasty grasshoppers of the water. The dark phase of the moon is the best time to target estuary perch (EPs) on surface lures and over the past week we had some awesome early morning sessions on the “barramundi of the South”.
Using surface lures that look like prawns, we had EPs woofing them down like there was no tomorrow. One morning they were so fired up that one came up and smacked a lure that was bobbing under the rod tip on top of the water beside the boat. We were also sight casting to them - this involves watching the EPs come up the surface chasing a prawn then casting a lure right in front of their noses.
Surface lures around the 5cm to 8cm range work the best and look for ones resemble prawns; this is what we call in fishing “matching the hatch.” Matching the hatch involves selecting lures or flies that resemble what the fish are currently feeding on; in the case of EPs that is their favourite snack, prawns. EPs are also partial to cicada lures as well, in fact some of the biggest EPs I have caught on surface lures have been when I’ve been flicking for Australia bass using cicada lure patterns.
When using surface lures for EPs you need to use a longer light weight spinning rod, something in around the 7ft and above range, Shimano’s 7ft 2” Finesse Bream Rack Raider teamed with 1000 sized reel is ideal. Use 2-4kg gel spun line, with a rod’s length of mono 2 or 3kg leader, affix your lure using a ‘loop knot’ as this will allow it to work properly on the surface.
If you are using a prawn look-alike lure, it only makes sense to use a retrieve that resembles a prawn skipping across the surface so we use a “walk the dog” retrieve, with lots of pauses. Here is a link to a good instructional video on how to do the Walk the Dog retrieve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3HWHmNAAU. If you see an EP come up and have a crack at the lure during the retrieve, pause and then twitch the lure, this should activate a strike.
The best time to target EPs on the surface is on dusk, at night or during the early hours of the morning during the last two hours of the run out tide. Now you need to target structure, so around bridges, rock walls, weed beds and snags are the go.
Warning! - catching EPs on surface lures can become addictive, but it’s a good kind of addiction.
The One More Cast team is looking forward to bringing quality fishing articles and we are also going to continue our weekly #Widewardofsports videos.
