From Little Things — Steve Starling

FROM LITTLE THINGS

By Steve ‘Starlo’ Starling. Soft plastics often out-fish baits on snapper — a fact that relatively few Tasmanian anglers have yet twigged to!

As well as being a hit at the time of its release, Paul Kelly’s 1991 protest song “From Little Things Big Things Grow” has gone on to become an iconic Aussie tune, even being picked up by advertisers to sell superannuation funds. But it’s core message has applications in fishing, too. Because little things truly can make a huge difference in our sport.

Little things regularly influence our fishing results. Things like dropping your leader or tippet diameter by a few fractions of a millimetre, changing you hook or fly size, or varying your boat speed while trolling. On occasions, these seemingly small shifts can spell the difference between outstanding success and abject failure: between the dreaded donut day and an absolute blinder you’ll be talking about for years to come. And

From that moment, I began incorporating a deliberate pause into every retrieve, just prior to the lure’s turn-around point, and that’s exactly how, when and where I hooked most of my fish for the rest of that trip.

Interestingly, it has also been yellowbelly that have prompted my latest ponderings on the impact of subtle variations in lure retrieves. I’ve been fishing Lake Windamere in central western NSW for this species since 1989, and the invitational tournament I kicked off there in 1992 is still going strong as it approaches its 30th year. It’s amazing to look back and observe the changes in tackle, tactics, techniques and lures across those three decades.

Today, you’re not seriously in the game at Windamere unless your either grubbing the trees with a curly-tailed soft plastic or chucking a metal blade like an Ecogear ZX or a soft vibe such as a Jackall Mask, a Transam or a Zerek Fish Trap: ideally a black one fitted with small, sticky-sharp assist hooks.

For several years, the go-to method for working these sinking vibration lures consisted of short hops off the bottom, interspersed with brief pauses. I hate to think how many goldens have been brought undone by that exact retrieve. By the way, it’s also a deadly presentation for Tassie bream, silver trevally and even trout!

However, most fish eventually seem to “wise up” to specific lures and popular, predictable presentations. Just as surely, switched-on anglers are constantly looking for new twists to boost their strike rates.

For the past few seasons savvy golden perch anglers have been adapting and mixing up their presentations of these go-to lures, often producing results on days when everyone else is struggling doing the same old things as they did in the past.

sometimes, even very subtle variations in the way we work or present a lure or fly once it’s in the water can radically improve our catch rate. I know there aren’t any golden perch or yellowbelly in Tasmania (or at least, there shouldn’t be!), but please bear with me while I tell you a quick story about these mainland freshwater natives, as it’s applicable to many Tasmanian species as well: I’ll never forget my very first experiences with golden perch in dams during the early 1980s. I was fishing with lure maker Rob Smith, chasing yellas on the edge by casting-and-cranking hard-bodied deep divers. We were doing reasonably well, but Rob was kicking my butt… until I accidentally discovered a subtle retrieve trick that turned it around for me. Those lures dove deeper and deeper as we pulled them away from the bank until they reached an area directly under the boat. Here they would actually swim past a point where the line was perpendicular before turning and suddenly climbing out of the depths. A lot of our strikes were coming at that moment, when the lure turned back on itself and began to rise. However, on one retrieve — just a few cranks before my lure reached that critical flip-around point — a fly managed to crawl in behind the lens of my sunglasses. I stopped cranking and raised my hand to deal with the sticky little intruder… and the rod There aren’t any yellowbelly in Tasmania, but the lesson they’ve was almost ripped from my grasp taught Starlo about subtle variations in lure presentation are by a fired-up golden perch! certainly applicable in the Island State’s waters. www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.

Many of these presentations involve various forms of shake and shuffle that see these sinking lures staying in almost constant contact with the lake bed, rather than “hopping”. I’m sure the end result is very reminiscent of a foraging yabby. Bream anglers familiar with working crab imitations like the Tassie-spawned Cranka Crab will immediately relate, I’m sure.

The take-away message is that today’s “hot” techniques, lures and retrieves won’t necessarily be the best ones next season, next month or even next week. If your results begin to slip, it really pays to mix it up and try some new twists. Sticking to the same old patterns that worked for you in the past — especially in the face of diminishing returns — really isn’t all that smart. Remember, it was the scientific genius Albert Einstein who famously said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Maybe Albert was also a fisherman!

Okay, so let’s look at a few subtle but important tweaks you can try on some of your key Tasmanian species this summer:

TROUT

Trout fishers — whether they soak baits, cast lures and flies or troll their lines behind a boat — tend to be a fairly conservative mob. Many stick to tried-and-true offerings year after year, and present them exactly the same way they always have, which is often the same way their parents did it. That’s fine if it works, but if it doesn’t, why not try something different?

Steady retrieves with lures, stable trolling speeds, the rhythmic strip-strip-strip of a wet fly or the dead drift of a dry or nymph are all great when they’re fooling fish, but if they’re drawing a blank, you may need to mix it up a little. Pauses in lure retrieves, sweeps or whips of the rod tip, throttle adjustments and course directions on the troll and more erratic fly retrieves — including lifting a nymph through the water or “skittering” a dry — can all potentially push a trout’s button on the day.

Underwater camera footage from downrigger bombs of lures trolled close behind the weight typically show many more follows, feints and uncommitted nips or nudges from trout and salmon than full-blooded strikes. It seems these fish are attracted by the steadily swimming lure, but not convinced enough to actually eat it. A sudden but often subtle change in the speed, cadence or running depth of the lure is sometimes the trigger that’s needed to light their fuses. Think about this every time you chase trout!

Gun Tasmanian fly guide Roger Butler of “Red Tag Trout Tours” knows that a very subtle tweak of a dry fly — just enough to create a tiny flicker of movement — can sometimes be enough to trip up a stunning trout like this one.

BREAM

Bream are one of the quickest of all fish to “wise-up” to popular techniques. I warmly remember my first sessions on the Derwent, Scamander and several other Tasmanian estuaries early in the 2000s, throwing the then-new Squidgies soft plastics that Bushy and I had designed for big black bream. It was ridiculous… A bit like shooting fish in a barrel! We racked up cricket score catches and certainly attracted the interest of many local anglers.

I’ve fished a lot of these same systems again over the subsequent two decades, and I’m here to tell you that it’s no longer anywhere near as easy to catch those same bream! There are still plenty of fish in these waters, but today they’re as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I guess they’ve seen a few lures since 2002!

Think about showing the bream you chase something different and varying the way you present it… or go back to things you haven’t used since the early days. Chances are, the fish may have forgotten them, too.

With the range of snapper appearing to expand each summer in Tasmania and their numbers also on the increase, there’s a great opportunity for you to try some of the highly effective lure fishing techniques that work so well on the mainland (including a few that have already seen their glory days on the other side of Bass Strait, but haven’t worn out their welcome down south yet).

An 80 to 110 mm soft plastic tail — especially a straight-bodied fluke, stick, flick bait or whip bait — rigged on a jig head that’s only just heavy enough to get it to the bottom and then cast well ahead of a drifting boat is a great way to pin snapper. But again, mix it up. Try using two outfits, each one rigged with a slightly different tail and jig head weight. Cast one as far as you can ahead of the drifting boat, let out some line, engage the reel and drop the outfit in rod holder. Then cast the other and do the same. Pick the first outfit up, work the lure and recover some line, then swap over and do the same with the second rig. Repeat this process until the lures are straight up and down under the boat, then slowly retrieve them… It works!

So too do metal lures like the various “slow pitch” and “micro” jigs, octo-jigs like the Lucanus, and newer Tiger Baku Baku from Shimano, plus many others. Try them. You might be pleasantly surprised.

These yellow-tailed hoodlums are another good news story in Tasmania these days, with more anglers chasing them each summer. But if ever there was a fish that can switch from firedup and foolhardy to sneaky, suspicious and downright uncooperative in the blink of an eye — and back again just as quickly — it’s the kingfish!

The thing to remember about kingies is that they are inquisitive, competitive and sharp-eyed. They’ll be all over something new, flashy or erratic, but they may still refuse to eat it. Try not to give them too good a look at anything. Keep presentations fast, jerky and unpredictable. Use flash, splash and dash. But the biggest tip I can give you for kingfish is this: hook one and the whole school is likely to fire up, throwing caution to the wind. They turn into hungry seagulls chasing their flock mate who has the chip! One way to cash in on this competitive pack mentality is to try and keep one hooked fish in the water at all times.

Jo Starling with a chunky kingfish she fooled using a fast-moving jig on a wild and woolly day at sea. I hope this article has given you a few things to ponder this summer, and a few new tricks to try. I’ll be down for a visit in early December, and to attend the National Recreational Fishing Conference in Hobart. If we run into each other on the water or elsewhere, please take a moment to say hi! Steve Starling

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