Tips for improving your catch........... by Sean Conlon

Tips for improving your catch in southern Moreton Bay

WHEN conditions were right over the past month, the fishing rated from good to great. But when conditions were off, fishing was downright tough.

Now, when I get into this article, remember one thing… these are my theories only, whether they’re right or wrong. My opinions have been forged by spending a great deal of time on the water and over time taking notice of what makes a difference.

There are other views out there on the same subject that differ, but that doesn’t mean they are right or wrong either. With fishing, get as much information as you can on everything and decipher what you think is right or wrong, then make your own decisions.

So, what do I mean by saying ‘when conditions are right’? Well, when we plan to go on a fishing trip, there are factors we can control and those we can’t.

With my charter fishing, I try to plan my clients’ trips around the things I can control – to give them the best chance of catching fish on the day. You have to remember that when I take people out on a fishing charter, they’ve taken a day off work or cleared their schedule in order to go. So, it may not be the optimal day weather wise, but I have to look at the things I can control on that particular day to give my clients the best chance of a good outcome.

Of course, issues can occur during the day when we’re out that I can’t control, which can make things a lot harder. Without going into each one of these – because individually they could be a whole article on their own – here are the aspects I have control over:

• Target a species of fish that is in my area in quantity at the time

• Fish early morning and late afternoon – sunrise and sunset

• Consider the tide ‘size’ that will give the best chance of catching that particular species in the target area

• Look for the best moon phases to target that particular fish on – this is very important

• Look for the right type of ground and spots for the species being targeted

• Use the right technique for the target species

• Use the right fishing equipment.

Even Benny found enough time to sneak out for a fish with the author and picked up a 75cm flathead.

For technique and gear, consider the rods, reels, line, lures and correct retrieve for the particular species you’re targeting and, if bait fishing, the best fresh bait and rigs to use when targeting the fish you’re after.

The main factors you can’t control are the weather, if the area has been heavily fished prior to you getting there so then the fish would be shy or not there, and – one of the biggest that can be overlooked and can have a major impact on your day on the water – the barometric pressure. Which brings me to the main subject – barometric pressure and the effect it can have on fish.

Well, I’m not a scientist, so I don’t actually know how it directly affects the fish, but from a fishing perspective, in simple terms, if the barometer is rising, fish tend to be more on the bite and for a falling barometer, fish can go completely off the bite. I don’t need to know what it does technically or physically to the fish, but I do need to know the impact it has on fish responses.

When there’s a very high BP of around 1030 hectopascals, I find fishing gets a bit tougher. Same as when we have 1005hPa. When the BP is around 1020hPa, the fishing is much better – hence, the old saying ‘1020 and the fish are plenty’.

The one thing that can almost destroy a whole day of fishing is a falling barometer. It can start off nice and early at about 4.30am and will usually rise 3-4 hPa, then from around 9-10am, the barometer will slowly fall through to 4.30-5pm roughly 3-4hPa.

When this happens, you’ll find the fish usually go right off the chew, and it doesn’t matter what you do, they’re very hard to catch.

So, what does that mean to you when you’re heading out? Well, the warmer months are coming, and this is when the above scenario will occur.

If you’re the type of person who gets their boat out at 8am in the morning, heads out and starts fishing from 9am to 3pm and you’re not getting the results you want, you’ll probably find this is one of the main causes for the poor fishing. How can this be rectified, so we can put the ball back in our court, so to speak?

John’s son-in-law snuck over from England and scored a nice southern bay flathead.

We need to get out nice and early as the sun comes up and be fishing with the rise in BP that generally occurs in summer until 9-10am.

If you have a tide change with the sun coming up, you’ve put a few of those other factors together and, suddenly, you’ve given yourself a very good chance of bagging some nice fish.

Now, if you’re the fisho who goes out at 8-9am, you’ve probably missed the rise in BP and so when you get out there, the pressure is falling, and everything gets very tough. My suggestion is to take notice of your barometric pressure more and get out nice and early.

One of the reasons we don’t usually go out late in the afternoon in Moreton Bay is because the afternoon sea breeze kicks in, making it quite uncomfortable.

When there’s a slow drop in BP from 9-10am through to 4.30-5pm, there’s usually a northerly wind, which is why we have the saying ‘no good northerlies’.

Many times, it’s because the BP drops slowly throughout the day. We combat this by getting out early in the morning and fishing the early morning rise in pressure.

However, if the weather allows, the BP will start to rise again from 4-5pm to 9-10pm. Fishing this rise in pressure at sunset can also help to improve your chances of getting some fish too.

Now, if you’ve never looked at barometric pressure before and you’re wondering how to check what the BP is doing, most of us have a smart phone, so go onto a site such as seabreeze. com.au, find your local area and check out the graph with the temperature and the BP.

You can watch it in real time as long as you’ve got phone coverage out on the water. The reason I’m talking about BP is because of a charter I had with one of my regular clients John.

John had a ball picking up several flathead in one session, all on soft plastics cast into shallows with a steady barometric pressure.

The previous Saturday, I’d caught plenty of fish – all catch and release – and had a great day out with clients.

Then John comes out on Tuesday – the moon phase and tide are good, we know our techniques, we know our areas, but we had a late start.

Now, this shouldn’t matter too much because we are in the cooler months of the year, but not long after we started, a northwest wind picked up and was stronger than predicted. We basically worked hard all afternoon for a 60cm flathead.

John is the type of client who likes to know why the fishing was tough when everything we were doing was correct.

So, we checked the barometric pressure and sure enough, there it was, dropping three or four points from the time we’d started fishing, which shut our fish down and made our day rather difficult.

Sam with her personal best flathead, a 70cm fish caught on a Zerek Bulldog Crank.

Now, John had another charter booked with me on the Saturday, which was only four days later. Everything was much the same – the fish should be around, we had a good tide, we were still on a reasonable moon phase, we didn’t head out early because we were chasing a certain tide, we left at 8am and fished exactly the same areas using the same techniques. Long story short, we caught flathead after flathead.

That says to me that the fish were in those areas on the Tuesday but that something happened to put them completely off the bite, and the one thing that stood out was the falling BP. I checked the barometric pressure that Saturday afternoon when the fishing was good, and we’d had a nice steady even pressure of 1018hPa for most of the day.

I have seen this happen time and again over the years, where if we’ve had a tough time, the main factor that keeps popping its head up – if everything else is reasonably correct – is the barometric pressure falling 3-4hPa throughout the day, making for tough fishing.

This is another consideration on your checklist to tick off, that may help improve your fishing and, if you want to learn more about this type of thing, book a charter.

Come out, we’ll put a couple of things into practice and chat about a few of the factors that can help you increase your catch rate – simply by making a plan and knowing a few little extra things before we go fishing.

I hope this helps a bit – though when putting words on the paper, sometimes it’s tricky to convey what’s in your head. As we all know, with our jobs and our lives, we are time poor, so if you can learn more to optimise your time on the water, then why not?

Remember, knowledge is the key. Until next month, stay safe on the water and, if you’re interested in any of our tuition classes or you want to do a fishing charter, give me a call 0432 386 307 or send me an email at seanconlonsfishing@hotmail. com or check out the Facebook page Seano’s Inshore Fishing Charters and Tuition.