Bountiful autumn transition period

Alex Bellissimo

alex@bellissimocharters.com.au

We have had a great run of weather. We’ve had only low to medium rainfall events, and the swell has not been consistently gigantic, as it was nearly half a year ago. I have found that autumn weather tends to be pretty stable, so seize the opportunity to fish the later part of autumn as the transition period provides a broad variety of species.

ROCK FISHING

Snapper numbers have certainly increased with the cooling of the weather and water temperatures. The offshore boat anglers are catching larger numbers in 10-25m of water. Translating that for the rock fishers, that means that the snapper are in pretty close.

Wash fishing for snapper is a great method to fish for them. You’ll be using a lighter outfit compared to the snapper angler distance casting. A good choice is a rod around the 10-12ft size, like the Daiwa 109MH, suited for line classes from 7-15kg. Complement your rod with a 5000 size reel, such as a Daiwa 5000 BG MQ, and you have a match excess salt off the pilchards, and put them in a colander to drain. Then all you have to do is pack them in a clip seal bag and pop them straight into the freezer. 12-15 pilchards per bag is enough for 24-30 baits in a session, if you chop them in half. On your fishing trips you should also bring prawns (king, banana or endeavour), and some squid cut into strips, so you have all baits covered. For berley, all you need is wet mushy bread, chopped up pilchard, and chopped up prawn heads. Light ball sinkers and 2/0 to 3/0 hooks are the standard set up for fishing the washes off the rocks. If you want to learn how to do it, and many other techniques/species, check out my contact details at the end of the column.

Lately, snapper from 32-45cm have been caught, with the odd bigger fish thrown in as well. Kingfish, trevally, and bream have also been part of the mix.

A few quality groper are also available for anglers who want to target this great species. Typically, most groper anglers refuse to use anything other than a red crab. However, sometimes catching these crabs is not practical. There can be a number of reasons for this. For example, you may want to fish a rock fishing ledge that does not have cracks, and/or there might be no carpet of red weed close to the water level where this species of crab lives. Additionally, it may not be the low tide period or it may not be safe enough to catch the red crabs, because the waves are a bit too big to get to the spots where they are.

The alternative is to use those crabs which are found above the high tide rock area, under boulders, in the cracks and above the high tide ponds. You can gather these crabs by hand or with a crab spear.

Heavy gear is required when fishing for groper. Line class in the 24 kg range is good when wrangling with a sizeable blue groper and a rod to suit the line class preferably one from 10-12ft.

Goran Drapac with one of several fish he caught in a recent session. Flathead are often a bycatch whilst fishing for tailor and salmon off the beach with whole ganged pilchard baits.

The pelagic action continues with late season bonito, some kings, salmon made in heaven. With this outfit you have a great wash fishing outfit for snapper and common bycatch species, and it’s a great rock blackfish outfit as well. And a sensational lure outfit for plastics and metals for the pelagics too.

Back to the snapper, and what my clients have been catching them on. Pilchards are a great option, but these soft baits can be demolished if there are loads of yellowtail, sweep and mados around. You can make your pilchards last a little longer by salting them to make them tougher. A 20kg bag of swimming pool salt is cheap and never goes off, and for the average angler it will last for years.

To salt your pilchards, place them in a bucket and add approximately one big handful of salt for every 15 pilchards. Put a lid on the bucket, and check it after a couple of days. You’ll find that the pilchards are now firmer. Add a little bit of water so you can get the and tailor. Whole pilchards on gangs, is a basic way to catch all of the pelagic species. Metal lures from 30-40g using the wash fishing outfit iI mentioned earlier. Bait Junkie soft plastic Jerkshad in the 5 to 7 in size with jig heads from 1/4 to half oz work well. if f there are too many tailor around I recommend to step away from the soft plastics because these sharp teeth will rip them up!

So spots to fish for all of these species are Bluefish’s east front, The northeast face of Bluefish, Little Bluey which are the ledges at the south face lookout of Shelly Headland, South and North Curl Curl ledges and North Whale ledges. preferably fish any of these ledges in a swell size of up to 1.2 metres max.

There has been a consistent run of pelages on the surf beaches as well. salmon and tailor are fairly abundant on a lot of the beaches. The outfit i mentioned above is great for spinning off the beach. I did not mention the metals. I tried out the new OT Jig from Daiwa. They work absolutely amazing, cast really well with there realistic slim profile, amazing colour range and i have caught lots of pelagic species on them. Try out the 30-40g sizes which is close match to the white bait that often frequent the beaches. Aussie salmon to 2kg and tailor to 1kg is the average lately. The tailor preferably in the lower light to dark period. The salmon can be caught throughout the day but better during the similar your top swivel of your rig and tie a 1/0 or 2/0 Mustad 92554 and a half pilchard. You may be able to catch the culprits being either bream or even silver trevally which frequent the beaches at this time of the year. Most anglers have given up on the whiting at this time of the year. I find that they can be in good numbers. There on the verge reliable tackle shop can be sparse because there beach wormers are targeting other species. But call your tackle shop as this may not be the case. Whiting up to 37cm , bream to 35cm and nice flathead to 50 cm all caught whilst fishing for whiting. And you may encounter more species when fishing for them as well. time period to the tailor. The traditional three hook rig with a whole pilchard is a great way to catch them as well. Note if your getting pecks whilst using a whole pilchard they can be other species. You can tie a 30 cm length of 20 lb mono or Flurocarbon leader off of migrating before the water temp cools down to that frigid 18-19°C or less. That temperature decline can vary from year to year so it pays to keep a tab on the water temps. As usual the gun baits are either beach worms or pink nippers.

Jus briefly on the jewfish. Definitely worth a shot for them this month. Beaches to fish are Manly, Curl Curl , Dee Why, North Narrabeen, Newport and Avalon.

Whether you are rock fishing or beach fishing have a few Daiwa OT Jigs in your kit. You don’t want to be caught out if you have a burst of salmon or tailor or other pelagics gong nuts in front of you and your not ready to roll.

• For rock and beach guided fishing or tuition in the northern Sydney region, visit www.bellissimocharters.

Buying live bait at your