Pirtek Fishing Challenge
TAILOR
FLATHEAD
Lures: Most lures work y well on flathead. Lures such as soft plastics, vibes, lipless crankbaits and hardbodied lure all take flathead.
Lures: Tailor are highly predatory and will chase down most offerings if they’re hungry. Metals, hardbodies, topwaters and soft plastics will work well, however tailor will make short work of plastics with their razor sharp teeth.
WHITING
BREAM COASTAL
Bait: As mentioned, almost anything found or bought should catch bream, including white bread, which is an under-used favourite.
Tactics: Whiting love clear and shallow water where they grub around for yabbies, worms and other tasty tidbits. By targeting these areas with your baits or lures, you’ll encounter plenty of whiting, as well as other interesting by-catch.
Lures: Small hardbodied divers, smaller than your little finger, cast around rocky shores and worked with a slow, steady retrieve are hard to beat. When fish go deeper, tiny soft plastics with according jighead size is a sure-fire way to pin a bream.
Tactics: Rainbow trout are an opportunistic predator in streams, meaning they will investigate anything that comes into their domain. Rainbows can sometimes be very fussy, particularly when there is a specific hatch of insects or baitfish in the area. Drifting baits, or casting small lures and flies is a good tactics in rivers. In dams and lakes they can form huge school in deep water, and this is when they can be caught trolling lures. Bait: Baits of worms, crickets, grasshoppers, mudeyes and shrimps can all be successful. Lures: Small spinners, soft plastics and hardbodies are for trout in shallow water, and winged lures trolled off a downrigger are fantastic for when trout are schooling deep.
GOLDEN PERCH Size Range: Up to 75cm, commonly caught at 25-50cm. Tactics: Golden perch are predators that like a moving target. This makes lures and live baits popular, however they also love to hunt down worms and grubs set on the bottom. Lures cast around fallen timber in rivers and standing timber in lakes are all successful, especially around first and last light. Rigs: Running sinker rig and a paternoster rig are both good options with 20lb braided main line to 20lb leader. The same line weights can be used for lure fishing. Bait: Baits of yabby, live shrimp, worms and even smelly dead baits are successful. Lures: Lures like Australian-made hardbodied lures, spinnerbaits and lipless crankbaits all do damage on yellowbelly.
GREAT DIVIDING RANGE
Size Range: Up to 1m, common from 30-50cm.
Bait: Worms and yabbies (nippers) are two baits that are rarely met with failure. Lures: Small hardbodies, plastics, and more recently, surface lures have all taken plenty of whiting in the last decade. Often, the bigger whiting will be the ones that take lures.
CARP Size Range: Up to 1m, but more commonly encountered at 30-60cm. Tactics: Carp feed by smell and taste and are therefore attracted to things that give off scent, making smelly baits effective. Carp will also get up into shallow water and grub along the bottom looking for aquatic insects, and this is where fly anglers can have some fun. Rigs: A medium running sinker rig, paternoster rig or float rig with 6-20lb braided line onto a 10-20lb leader, lighter in clear water free of snags. Bait: Baits as varied as scrubworms, corn, bread, dough, shrimp and grubs are all attractive to carp and the use of berley will increase your success rate dramatically. Lures: Carp rarely take lures, but will sometimes be taken on lures as by-catch, occasionally confusing surface lures for berries. Fly anglers can target carp in shallow water by sight fishing with small nymphs.
MURRAY COD MURRAY DARLING BASIN
RAINBOW TROUT
Rigs: A running sinker rig with a long leader, tiny long shank hook is enough to fool a whiting, even in shallow water. Light braided line around 4lb with a 2-4lb leader is an excellent balance for the anglers throwing lures at wily whiting.
COASTAL
Size Range: Up to 50cm, more common from 20-40cm.
Size Range: Up to 50cm, common from 25-35cm.
Rigs: Bait: Running sinker onto a #1 or 1/0 hook will work for the bait anglers. For the lure brigade, 2-6lb braided line connected to 6-10lb fluorocarbon or monofilament leader is perfect.
COASTAL
Bait: Flathead will eat anything they can fit in their mouth, whether it’s live, dead, big or small.
Baits: Live baits of herring, mullet work well for larger tailor, but dead baits of pilchard, garfish also work well, particularly in the surf.
Tactics: Bream can be found in every saltwater river, creek and coastal lake in the state. Bream love structure – especially rock – and if you find crud-encrusted rocks in the intertidal zone, you can be sure that bream hang around it at some time of the day. Keep the gear light when bream fishing, as they can be spooked by heavy weights and lines. If you want to catch a bream on a lure, make sure that it’s small – smaller than your middle finger. They’ll eat nearly every bait you can find or buy
Rigs: A running sinker rig with 6lb braid with a 15lb leader is sufficient for bait fishing. The same goes for lure fishing, but try to attach your lures with a loop knot where possible.
Size Range: Up to 1.8m, common from 40-80cm.
Tactics: Murray cod are a structure-loving, long-lived, hyper aggressive and territorial species. Therefore, lures or baits fished or cast around big snag complexes repetitively usually get a response eventually. Rigs: A running sinker rig is all you need to connect with a cod if you’re bait fishing, and 20-30lb should be your minimum line weights for both your mainline and leader. The same goes for lure trolling and casting. Baits: No bait fishing allowed. Murray cod can only qualify if caught on lure or fly. Lures: Murray Cod will eat a variety of surface lures, hardbodies, lipless crankbaits and spinnerbaits. As with bait, lures should be big and annoying to achieve the best results.
MURRAY DARLING BASIN
Rigs: For lure fishing, light braided line around 6-10lb with a fluorocarbon or monofilament leader from 12-20lb will suffice, however expect a few bite-offs. Running sinker rigs, paternoster rigs and ganged bait rigs all work for tailor, it just depends on what bait type you’re using.
Tactics: Flathead are classic ambush predators that use camouflage to their advantage. Drop offs, weed edges, hard rock and mud edges are all favourite haunts of flathead. Flathead feed hard when there is tidal movement.
MURRAY DARLING BASIN
Tactics: Tailor are a migratory pelagic species that can be found in rivers and estuaries, coastal lakes and bays, but are at their best in the surf and off oceanic rocks. Beach angler often target tailor in and around the surf gutters, and those fishing rocky headlands can often expect a few tailor too. Tailor will take live and dead baits, even quite large ones, and will readily chase down fast-wound lures.
Size Range: Up to 1.1m, commonly caught 30-65cm.
COASTAL
Size Range: Up to 110cm, common to 40cm.
MARCH 2017
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