Facts

CARRUM SNAPPER WIDE

GPS MARKS –

S38 07 096

E144 58 011

S38 04 610

E144 59 858

Port Phillip Bay is currently loaded with snapper and they are literally there for the taking. Use the GPS marks as a guide, but not a final destination.

The key is to get to an area where fish are and then sound until you find them. No point being where they were yesterday or last week.

Early mornings and late afternoons are great out wide. In saying this, some of my best fishing here has taken place on hot calm days between noon and 4pm.

The fish here are grazing and you just have to wait for them to swim past.

I use Shimano 3500 bait runners spooled with 15lb Maxima line. The rod is a Shimano IFISH Port Phillip Snapper. It has a nice soft tip and hooks the fish in the rod holder as the blank loads.

The rig is simple yet effective. The trace is 1m of 20-30lb Nitlon DFC. It is joined to the mainline via a size 3-1 black rolling swivel.

On the leader there is a size 1 ball sinker, a lumo bead and a size 5/0 chemically sharpened hook all allowed to run freely.

Another hook finishes the rig when it is tied via a blood knot to the end of the leader.

Put out a good range of baits and spend time on the water. Berley will make a big difference. I go through about 10kg of pillie cubes in a normal session. A hand full of cubes often results in a fish.

Snapper love to eat almost anything. Favourites with anglers include pilchards, silver whiting, scad, garfish, sauries, red rackets and the list goes on.

They all work, the key is to keep trying alternatives until you find success.

Snapper are a school fish so you should use this to your advantage. If you get a bite throw out a heap of berley and you may turn it into a second, third, fourth or even fifth all at once.

Spend the time sounding fish and don’t stop until you find them. I will sound for over an hour on occasion if I can’t find anything worth sitting on.