Tamar River Snapper — Damon Sherriff

Tamar Big Reds

by Damon Sherriff

The author with an 8kg fish taken from the river this season

The Tamar River is a tidal estuary that is approximately 60 km long. It has 3-metre tides which creates a very strong tidal flow in this narrow estuary which is also known as a river. The Tamar is mainly a mud-based estuary that is stirred up by the strong tidal flow and makes the river run discoloured, very similar to Victoria’s Western Port Bay. The fishing technique for Snapper is also similar to Western Port. Running Sinker Rigs with a 3 to 6-ounce sinker is quite often needed to get your rig down to where the Snapper feed.

The last 20 years has seen the number of snappers explode in the Tamar. 30 years ago when I first started fishing for Reds I was catching between 4 to 10 fish per season. Nowadays the trend of my catch rate is around 50 to 70 fish per season with a lot less time spent. There are schools of fish in the estuary now were back in the olden days I was fishing for ones and twos. It’s great to see this emerging species doing so well not only in the River but also increasing in numbers all over the state. The size of the snapper in the Tamar varies from location to location and also the time of the year. If you are chasing big fish, 8kg plus you are best spending your time early season, just as the water temp starts to climb. Once the water temp hits around 18 degrees the big fish go off the bite and the small school fish move in for the summer. These fish are fish from 2 to 4.5 kg. Once the water temp starts to cool off after summer the big fish normally turn up for about 4 to 6 weeks again. Normally the end of April the water temp drops to around 12 degrees where their metabolism slows down and they become sluggish and difficult to catch from not feeding at all, plus the amount of slimy rock cod which do the opposite in the cooler water temp. There are areas in the river which are nursery areas for young fish. Some of these fish are under the legal length to fish up to 2kg. These little fish are our future big fish. One of the biggest nursery areas is the bays around Beauty Point. Lots of juvenile Reds inhabit this area. The biggest fish are normally caught upstream. Where the mix of the fresh and salt draws them in. Mainly around the Batman Bridge is the best spot to chase a trophy fish. I was lucky enough to live at Batman Bridge for nearly 25 years. I caught some truly beautiful fish there, 13 of which were over 9.1 kg (20lb) up to my personal best which is 11.6kg (26 lb).

A lot of the really big fish I have caught from the Tamar have been taken in the shallow bays just out of the mainstream of the current. Snapper can be lazy fish at times, grazing around these bays in the very shallow water of a night feeding on square back crabs and small toadfish which they love. Big fish are very rarely caught around structure out of the estuary and are normally on the dark or black mud bottom. Small fish tend to hang around reef and structure and are normally caught in the deeper channels.

The best time of the day to fish is the change of light especially if this coincides with a tide change, a tide change throughout the night also can be very productive. Try to find a slight contour edge, even if it is only half a metre deep. It is enough for fish to travel up and down this edge throughout the night looking for food. I normally don’t fish any deeper than six metres of a night and I have caught big fish in as shallow as two metres.

Baits For Big Reds

Bait is one of the most important factors of catching mega reds. I can not stress enough how important catching fresh bait is when chasing big fish. I won’t go fishing if I don’t have it. Sure you can catch school fish on frozen bait. But once a big Snapper reaches 20lb it becomes a different beast, it’s over 20 years of age and has probably seen a few hooks, nets and other man-made fishing tackle in its lifetime. They become very fussy, sometimes crushing your bait and pinching from your razor-sharp hooks without even moving your rod tip. They become wise and wily and don’t make mistakes often. They often refuse frozen bait only biting on the freshest bait. So if you are serious about catching your trophy, become an expert at catching fresh bait before you fish, it makes a huge difference. A big snapper normally comes about in 2 fishing trips, the first trip to catch your bait, the second trip to catch the big red.

Snapper will take a wide variety of baits. Some of my favourites are fresh squid, cuttlefish, octopus, barracouta, mullet, salmon, garfish and cod. Yes, that’s right cod, just because the fish is not shiny and pretty and silver does not mean it is not attractive to the big red. In the Tamar, normally after Christmas, the snapper starts to feed on toadfish. They catch them in very shallow water around the shores. Every now and then a big fish would be found floating on the surface of the river. In the early days, people used to think that pollution was killing them. But I know now why this was happening, now and then a big red would get an inflated toadfish stuck in its throat which would, unfortunately, be the end of the big red.

I am an old school angler, I have been lucky enough to have fished with some of Victoria’s most successful Snapper Fishermen. Geoff Wilson, the author of many snapper, whiting and mulloway and knots and rigs books, took me under his wing when I was a young man. He came over to Tasmania and fished the Tamar with me several times. I also travelled to Victoria and fished the Grammar School Lagoon with him, I loved reading some of his early snapper magazine articles, he wrote about the lagoon and him catching 20 pounds plus Reds from a small sand spit. It was truly inspirational. It was a dream come true when I got to do it in real life. Geoff and many other Victorian anglers mainly used overhead reels through the fifties to the nineties. So I grew up using overhead casting reels, I still use and collect vintage Abu Ambassadors. I use 6500s, 7000s, 8000s and 9000s all for Snapper. Probably the 7000s are the most suitable for fishing in the Tamar. I spool them up with 10 kg mono. I use a 2.1 - 2.4 metre double-handed casting rod. I don’t use braid for snapper. I find it can be too hard on them. A lot of the bigger fish are very lightly hooked, sometimes only on a tiny piece of skin on the outside of the mouth, this happens when they suck in your hooks, crush your bait and spit your hooks out. Normally there is nothing left on your hooks except crushed bones. Hooks can pull very easily on these lightly hooked fish, so mono has stretch which cushions their dogged runs. The rod must be soft as well, too stiff a rod will pull hooks on a lightly hooked fish. I fight big fish very gently. With a low drag pressure, about 2kg. Too heavy a drag will pull hooks, so a gentle lift up, and wind down motion is recommended. The only time I would recommend braided line bait fishing for snapper is in very deep water.

I run 3 or 4 rods for snapper. If you use any more than that you tend to not give your rods the attention they need. Keep a close eye on your rods. Check your baits regularly, cod are renowned to bite a couple of times and then go quiet with your bait in their mouths. I have had several live cod been taken by big reds while waiting to get bait checked.

Fresh bait is one of the biggest keys to success

The One That Got Away

In 1997 it was a stellar year for me fishing the Tamar, I caught 3 Reds over the magical 20lb mark. Two fish weighing in at 21lb and a big fat 24 lb female. One spring pre-dawn morning I was fishing with my brother in law. I noticed I had a cod bite on one of my rods. I was busy baiting up another rod at the time. When I saw I sharp bite out of the corner of my eye, by the time I had focused on the rod, the little Penn 209 overhead reel was howling off at a crazy rate. I pick up the rod. The fish stopped running and I could feel big head shakes, then a tail whack and off it would run again, I knew I had a truly big beast of a red on. I was trembling, I knew this fish was something very special, possibly bigger than my PB. Possibly a 30 lb fish. I played this fish so gently. It seemed like I had the fish on forever. It was taking so long to get in. I keep mumbling to my brother-in-law Sam, this is the one, this is the fish. I had the fish under the boat, only meters away from capture. When the unthinkable happened. The hook pulled!!! I was gutted, I wound in the rest of the line. I noticed there was still something on my line. I pulled up a 35 cm mangled cod. With one of my two 6/0 hooks hanging out of its mouth, the massive snapper had eaten the live cod and got pinned on the hook hanging out of the cod’s open mouth. It could have been the fish of a lifetime? After this, I have had the same thing happen several times, but only the big run, the big reds didn’t find a dangling hook. I have just wound in a crushed up body of the reds victim. Damon Sherriff