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Adapting methods pays off
  |  First Published: March 2006



If you spend enough time on the water you’ll soon realise that what works one day can be a waste of time the next. Obviously, anglers try to fish the optimum tides and moon phases for the species that they target. Unfortunately this usually occurs in the middle of the week or when it’s blowing a gale, so most anglers fish whenever they can for whatever they can.

I’ve got some English mates who come out every couple of years and we always get together for a fish. This time they only had one day to fish and with a 20 knot southeaster predicted, a full moon and over 3m of run-in the tide it was always going to be hard work to get them on to decent fish.

We tried the reef first to no avail, and with the wind starting to pick up we pulled the pin and started to troll our way back to Fraser Island. We had only travelled a couple of miles when the sounder started showing good bait schools and within minutes we had a broad-bar (Spanish) mackerel on the deck.

With a fish in the esky the pressure was off and from then on we had enough action to keep us busy for the rest of the day. We finished with a mixed bag of mackerel, mack tuna, sharks and a baby black marlin that all feel for lures wide of Rooneys Point.

Even though the conditions weren’t in our favour, our persistence and willingness to adapt our methods until something worked paid off – a good tip for every angler.

ESTUARY

Bream over 600g have been hammering soft plastics up the Mary and Susan rivers and a few lizards are being taken from the surrounding flats. Big Woody and Little Woody islands have fished well for coral bream and blackall; this should only get better as autumn progresses.

The artificial reef is worth a try for an early season snapper and there are still a few cod on our local sheltered reefs. The southern gutters and the coral patch would be my pick for March if you can get out there. Some of my best coral bream have come in the March/April period from these areas.

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