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Contents
Features: Snapper Secrets - 10 Graham Fenwick Photo Feature - 16 Spearfishing Sydney Photo Journal - 22 Valley of the Kings - 40 Moreton Mission - 50 Ningaloos most Wanted - 52 FingerMark - 68 Southern Exposure - 60 The Search - 78
Regulars: Editorial - 6 Spear?Tips - 8 The Pioneers - 30 Adventure Through Latin America - 32 Travelling Spearo Mulloway - 56 Spearing Sydney - 64 Greathshot - 70 The Phantom - 84 New Products - 88
artin Andrew M rotfish Par Bluebar Arnott Pic: Brad
Cover
Photo: Erez Beatus “Free”
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by Tim Macdonald
A
nyone who has come in contact with a snapper underwater knows how much of a challenge they present and the reward of a successful hunt. It can take a lifetime of searching without success. This issue I am going to go through some of the methods I use to target snapper and talk through some of the important things to remember when using these strategies. Some of the principles for chasing snapper without burley are exactly the same no matter what you use as cover. For example, when you aren’t burleying for them, you aren’t drawing them to an area so you need to find areas that the snapper frequent to have any chance of laying eyes on a fish. Again, you need to lock away all of the places you have seen them in your memory, remembering the conditions on the occasion you saw snapper. This is important as often those areas will hold the snapper when the conditions are similar. Now if only finding them was the end of it! Some of the best areas to find and shoot
snapper are areas like: the up-current side of dropoffs, boulder areas on the sand line, weedy areas adjacent to good gutters, gutters leading into shallow water can also be good as well as wash areas up against islands and shore lines. The other area you will find them is mixed in other schools of fish. Now you have found them you need to get a shot into one. As with hunting them around schools of surgeonfish, finding cover and somewhere to hide is important. This is not always easy, especially when the snapper are sitting mid water. Where possible, try to find cover even if only for part of your body. If you can only find a small area of cover, I would suggest hiding your head and upper body as snapper are masters at reading your movements. Hiding your eyes is important as snapper can easily spook when they make eye contact and realise that you are watching them. At times I will hide up against a rock in the shade even though I am not covered by anything the shade gives some cover to your eyes. Up-current side of drop-offs: Here snapper will often sit midwater which makes it really tough to stalk them. They will often see you coming as you
drift onto them. Recently I drifted onto a school of big snapper sitting in front of a drop-off. Sometimes the easiest way to approach them in this situation is from above (lesson learnt from Gordy Jensen, the Gladdy dive bomber). Get directly above and come down as quickly and quietly as possible and hope to catch them unawares. This is the method that brings the best results. You can try and dive to the bottom and see if bottom time makes them relax, but in this setting the snapper are usually really wary of you by the time you get to the bottom and a long wait is still not going to see them relax. Also, the up-current side of the drop-off is often deeper so it means lying on the bottom in the deepest water. Drifting onto a dropoff is often a better place for burleying old fish frames than taking snapper without burley. Boulder areas on the sandline: This is one of the areas you can have really good results when chasing snapper as the boulders always provide good cover to hide amongst. The best approach to hunting snapper in these areas is to find where they are sitting in the area. Make sure when you are approaching your hunting area you are scanning the bottom for a hiding spot.
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