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If you want to try a deadly new fishing technique that will see you hooked up to some of the best sports fish in the country, then fishing with surface lures are for you. Just a warning though, the strikes and hook-ups you get are very visual and can cause trembling knees and is not recommended for anyone that excites too easily or has a heart condition. Surface fishing with poppers and stick baits could be the most exciting and visual form of fishing you can do!

What to target
Fishing with surface lures will work for just about any predatory fish from bass and cod in the freshwater, bream and flathead in the rivers to salmon and tailor off the beach to mackerel, tuna and kingfish offshore. The style of fishing is deadly on just about any fish in all types of water from little freshwater streams to deep offshore. The key is to match your popper or stick bait to the type of baitfish your target species will be hunting. Don’t be put off by using large poppers and stick baits. For trevally and mackerel I usually use a 200mm long stick bait and I find that this is like a lollipop to these predatory fish.

Lures
Poppers and stick baits are the two most common types of surface lures you will use. A popper does exactly what its name suggests and splashes and ‘pops’ water when you sweep your rod back. While a stick bait is a minnow style lure with no bib that typically darts frantically on the surface as you work the lure back. On both styles of lure you need to ‘work’ the lure to get the desired action that is irresistible to fish. This simply means that you sweep the rod to work the lure and then wind up the slack and repeat. On all styles of surface fishing pausing the lure for a brief moment in between your winding is a deadly technique. It is usually when the lure is stationary a fish will race in to enquire and most of the time this is when it strikes. Mix your technique up and try both long and short pauses and even try spinning it back quickly to see what will work best. I find spin tackle works best with surface lures and longer rods at least 7 foot in length. That way you can belt your lures way out and cover more water with each cast.

Terminal tackle
This will depend on what you are targeting and most styles of surface fishing will require some finesse to your rigs. Light fluorocarbon leaders will work great in creeks and rivers, especially when you are targeting fish in the shallows. When you are fishing the blue-water for hard fighting species such as trevally, mackerel and tuna then you will need to upgrade the hooks and split rings that come standard on most surface lures. I’ve seen big Giant Trevally literally snap split rings and straighten hooks like they were nothing. While fishing for these brutes is a completely different game from bream and bass, you really do have to go overboard on your terminal tackle and I will generally run 200lb mono leader, especially if I’m fishing shallow water or near a reef edge.

Continue reading “The secrets to surface fishing” →

Sharking fishing from the beach is becoming more popular and you will find that you can do this from most beaches in Australia. If you want to catch and release huge shark well over 100kg, hear your drag singing louder than ever before and want the fight of your life, this type of beach fishing might be for you.

Where

Most beaches around the country will be good to target sharks from, however there are better beaches than others to try your luck. I’ve found that beaches that more isolated and remote tend to fish better. Some of my favourite places in QLD to target sharks are from Fraser Island, Stradbroke Island and Moreton island, however there are many other places that will fish equally as good. Always use common sense when fishing for sharks as you shouldn’t fish anywhere near swimmers and other beach goers. Keep in mind, that catching a 100kg + shark is a very real possibility so you have to be mindful of where you fish.
You will find that some places fish better than others and what you will be looking for is ideally a beach that has deep water close to the shore in either a drop off or a gutter. We have always found that beach fishing on calm beaches has been a lot easier to get your baits out compared to a surf beach.
Getting your baits out into the right depth can be the biggest challenge of land-based shark fishing. Many people will opt for an ocean kayak or small inflatable boat as the baits you will be using will be large and the fishing reel you will be using will most likely be a large overhead so casting will be impossible. On a recent trip to Fraser island we used a small drone to carry our baits out past the breakers. To make this work we used a small piece of fencing wire bent up at the bottom to form a hook. We looped a small piece of light fishing line from the sinker and when we flew the drone out to the right area we dropped the bait by spinning the drone around. This took a fair amount of fine tuning, but when we got the hang of it, it worked flawlessly.

Gear

The type of sharks you are likely to tangle with could be anything from small whalers up to 4 foot in length to enormous tiger sharks. Most commonly you will catch whalers, bull sharks and the odd hammerhead. These are very powerful gamefish and you will need to fish with some very heavy duty gear if you want a change of stopping them. A large overhead with a capacity of at least 500m of 50lb is a good start for most of the big sharks you will encounter. However, even with this heavy duty gear it quite possible to hook something that is unstoppable and will leave you scratching your head. The actual rig will need at least 6ft of at least 200lb wire, but I tend to go heavier as many sharks will simply bite through it. For hooks, I would recommend a large circle hook around the 8/0 to 10/0 size. Huge hooks, but we’re not dealing with little fish here!

Baits

The best baits are oily fish such as tuna and bonito, but the biggest shark I’ve ever caught off the beach was caught on a whole tailor. When we can’t catch our own bait, I just opt for a frozen sea mullet which can be found in most of your local tackle stores.
Safety
You have to consider that there is a real danger when dealing with a 100kg + shark and you should never take any risks. Avoid the pointy end at all costs and use the wave to help you leader the fish on the sand. I use circle hooks as these always hook the fish in the corner of the mouth and are easily removed with a very long set of pliers. Once a photo is taken, release the shark to swim away. Sharks are very resilient fish that release very well.

There’s no doubt about it, when the mackerel are on there will be more sickies called in and parking spaces at the local boat ramp will be non-existent. Mackerel fever usually hits the SE QLD and northern NSW coastline from December to May and unless you get to the ramp before 5am on a weekend, there’s very little chance you will get a space to park your vehicle and trailer. It’s one of the most popular forms of fishing on the QLD and NSW coast and for good reason too; mackerel are one of the most exciting sports fish you can hook, grow massive and also taste great! It’s little wonder why us fishos come down with a case of mackerel fever at this time of the year.

Floating pilchards
This is one of the more deadly ways to hook a mackerel and accounts for more mackerel than just about any other technique. It’s super simple and produces great results, especially on the spotties. For this technique you will need three ganged hooks, a small length of 3lb single strand wire connected to a small black swivel, which is connected to your leader or mainline. A few metres up your leader or mainline you attach your float. I typically use a small piece of Styrofoam box or a party balloon blown up to the size of a grapefruit.
Anchor up on a like piece of inshore reef with good concentrations of bait and slowly float your pillie out. I try to set one around 50m from the boat and another at around 30m and a third rig with no float at all and a small split sinker so it sinks down the water column slowly and naturally.

Trolling
Towing a spread of lures around is another great way to catch a Mackie. I like to run bibbed minnows that swim from around 2m deep to 10m. Get a mixture of deep divers and shallow water lures so you can cover a range of depths. These lures need to be able to swim well at 7 knots or more. Mackerel are such a speedster that the faster you can tow the lures, the better your results. I find 7-8 knots works the best for me. Some lures that have worked well for me are the Rapala X-Raps and Halco Laser Pros and I like to have at least one red and white lure in the spread as well. Troll on reef edges and areas that are holding lots of bait for the best results.

Live bait
Many of the locals down in NSW from the Tweed to Coffs tend to fish with live bait over any other technique. Once you can find yakkas or slimies you will catch mackerel if they are around. Without a doubt, slimy mackerel out fish yakkas about 5 to 1 and if you are lucky enough to catch a pike on your bait jig, then your change of getting a Spanish mackerel have increased yet again! Rig your live baits up with a two-hook rig running 30lb single strand wire between. Your first hook is best to be a smallish hook and that is used to tow the bait from the nose. The second hook can be a slightly larger 5/0 or treble that gets pinned in the tail of the bait fish. It’s this rear hook that will get 90% of your hook-ups as a mackerel always hits a baitfish from the tail or rear section. Once I have rigged my live bait, I like to just put the outboard in gear and very slowly troll the bait around the reef. I usually flatline one livie on the surface and one down deep a few metres off the bottom.