Fine Tuning for Reds

Terminal tackle, baits and tips for Tasmanian snapper

Damon

Sherriff

In this article I will discuss terminal tackle, tackle, best baits and how to catch big snapper with some helpful advice for the novice and expert alike. Well it’s getting to the end of the season, and what a roller coaster of a season it has been, high water temperature, lack of bigger fish, plenty off smaller fish and fish not turning up in regular haunts. It’s certainly been difficult and believe me I struggled to find some decent fish during the first half of the season. I try to target the larger fish and had only landed two fish over 75 cm before Christmas which is not flash, when in 2019 my diary stated I landed over 15 fish over 75 cm to 86 cm before Christmas. That year my total tally was 273 which is pretty incredible.

This season has started to improve at a rapid pace since Christmas and after a slow start it’s looking promising. Now since Christmas, my boat has taken another 8 snapper of fish over 75cm up to 87 cm. Which is pretty good fishing for Tasmania. It’s the end of March and my total tally is 154 fish since June. Most of the snapper have been eaten and a large percentage of the frames have been donated to The Tasmanian Fish Frame Collection. Other fish have been released if they have been captured in water below 15m. I don’t like letting fish go deeper than that, they suffer badly from barotrauma. There is a very slim chance of survival even if the air bladder is spiked. Most look like they swim off but later on down the track they come back up some times hours after capture. So if you prepared to catch fish over 15 m. Be prepared to take your catch. Because letting them go, they will they more than likely will become food for the marine environment.

Technique

I only bait fish for snapper, I find it by far the most successful method to capture big fish. I know lures work and anglers in Tasmania are starting to have success with them. But I love bait fishing, I love the bait rigging, the casting, the waiting and the howling run of a big fish. I love looking at maps and finding new marks. Then fishing them and capturing a big fish from it. There is nothing more rewarding, I also love the bait collecting, often a separate fishing trip in itself. It’s a great way to fish.

Timed To Perfection

Every mark has a code, but the code is never set in concrete, it can often change at any given moment, timing is the most important thing to get right when it comes to catching a big snapper. It allows you to cut your fishing hours back by fishing the peak bite time, which is affected by the tide, time of day, moon, and location you are fishing. I can’t tell you exactly when to fish because every spot is different. The only way in finding out the timing of a spot is by fishing it. If you have some success make a note of all the factors, time , tide and moon. Next time you head back to your spot try the same tide and timing, more than likely they will be feeding in the same area. Keep a diary too, especially if you have multiple fish spots so you can see what time of the year they hang around the area, because it’s never permanent. Fish and snapper have tails and the will move on eventually. Be prepared to change you timing as well. It can change quite quickly. I have had fish biting only on a run in tide change and only bite on the run in for a period of a few weeks. So don’t get comfortable and get stuck in your ways. It’s the worst thing you can do sometimes. Be flexible and be prepared to move if the bite goes cold.

Bait Collection

To be a good snapper fisher you must first become an expert at catching bait. This is by far the biggest advantage anyone can have. Fresh bait will out fish frozen bait, I have seen it time and time again, especially when chasing big fish. Yes sure, you will catch snapper on blue bait but most of the time they will be pinkies or schoolies under 70 cm. If to choose to target true big fish there is nothing better than fresh bait, it’s that important. I will not go snapper fishing with out it these days. It does not matter too much what it is, Australian salmon, whiting, mullet, garfish, cuttlefish and calamari all make excellent snapper baits and there are many more. Things that don’t look good to us sometimes are the best baits that work. Don’t get into the “shiny silver fish are the only ones that work” because snapper don’t see it that way. Big fish will often be full of toad fish, leather jackets and sea horses. I mainly use a bait rig or sabiki style rigs for collecting bait, you can buy them at your local tackle store. They only cost about five dollars. A squid jig is a must for a snapper fisherman. Brand is personal preference, but the Yo-Zuri ones are very effective.

If you are chasing calamari for bait, find a shallow area with a sea grass or ribbon weed bottom and drift over it with the jig a short cast out the back so it’s only a couple of foot up off the bottom. Hopefully eventually you will get a strike. Mark the spot with a land mark or gps so you can go back to the same spot because more than likely there will be others there. You will get plenty of baits off one calamari. If cut into rings it’s possible to get 10 to 15 baits out of a big calamari. Cuttlefish and octopus are also very good baits for snapper, but sometimes a bit harder to source.

Garfish are definitely one of my favourite baits. You can dip net them after dark with a prawn net and a flounder light or burley with bread and tuna oil and fish a small bait of bread dough or maggots under a float which is a great way to catch gars. You probably need about a dozen nice size sea gars for a session. I cut them in half if they are large gars. The head half works particularly well.

Terminal Tackle

When it comes to the pointy part of snapper fishing the are many good quality hooks on the market, for me I only trust the best hooks money can buy. I have always used Gamakatsu Black Octopus hooks up until 4 years ago. I won a snapper photo competition on Facebook with one of my old photos of a 11 kg Tamar female snapper. The competition was run by Australian company Reedy’s Rigs which are based in Melbourne. The owner of the company Brett Read is an extremely passionate snapper fisherman himself and has gone to a massive amount of trouble in research in designing and manufacturing his own range of high quality snapper fishing hooks and rigs. Anyway, I won this pack of 25, 187 octopus hooks. I tried them and have not looked back. All of my snapper taken the last 3 season have all been caught on 187 suicides or Reedy’s Ultra rigs. They are a superb product and I can’t recommend them enough. One thing I must state with the hook is make sure they are 100 percent sharp at all times. Snapper have very hard mouths and a surgically sharp hook is a must, especially for big fish which have a tendency of crushing your bait and spitting out your hooks. Pre-made flasher style rigs are worth the money. There are plenty of different brands about and most are okay. But the Reedy’s Rigs Ultra rigs is are my personal preference. They have surgically sharp Japanese Dominator Circle hooks in them. Also they have been tied out of special UV flasher material which glows in the deep water areas. They are available at all BCF Stores in Tasmania.

Leader material I use is Platypus Hard Armour Supple Trace in 24kg. I used to use 28kg Jinki before that but it got a bit hard to get for a while but this also a good product. I like to use small ball bearing swivel especially in areas like the Tamar which have a fair bit of tide, these are hard to get as well now by themselves. You have to buy the coast lock ball bearing snap and cut the snap off. But if you are fishing an area with no or little tide flow crane swivels do the job. An ezy rig or sinker slider is also part of my rig. They allow you to change sinker weight without cutting your line. They also allow you to take your sinker on and off quickly for safe rod storage.

Rods and Reels

Once again they are many good brands available these days. We are very lucky to have such a choice of good tackle. Okuma, Silstar, Shimano, Daiwa, Abu Garcia all make rods and reels suited to snapper fishing. Being a bit of a reel collector, I like to use the reel my mentors used back in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. I use vintage Abu Ambassadeur overhead reels. I find the cast amazing once you have mastered them. They last for a very long time. They are capable of dealing with the big by catch you have to deal with when snapper fishing. And the best thing of all they are simple and easy to work on. I have been using them since back when I was a teenager and I can’t see me changing in a hurry. But everyone has their own favourites so stick to the brand that works for you.

Rods are once again personal opinion. I like to have a long 7.6 to 8 ft one piece, long butt casting rod which suits the abu’s. But for tread line user’s, it’s normal to use a shorter 6 to 7 ft rod which will also do the job. It is important for the rod to have a soft enough tip to dissolve the head shakes of a lightly hooked fish.

I prefer to use monofilament line for reds, it has much better abrasion resistance than gelspun lines. Also big fish are often lightly hooked. Because of the snappers super tough mouths, they have very little fleshy bits around their mouths to hook into. Often big ones are foul hooked on the outside of the mouth, sometimes only by a small piece of skin in the corner of the scissors. Braid is too hard on fish hooked this way and you will definitely pull your hooks on these fish, where mono you have a good chance of still landing it. So mono it is for me.

Find Some Old Books

One of the best ways to learn for bait anglers is too read up. I used to buy and read all the old magazines articles and books when I was a young man obsessed by snapper fishing. There are many old tricks in these old books which have been long forgotten. Authors such as Geoff Wilson has written some brilliant articles of snapper through the 70s 80s and 90s. There are some valuable information in these articles and I highly recommend if you plan on targeting big fish you hunt them down. He is also too author of the world renowned Geoff Wilson’s Fishing Knots and Rigs Books.

Siglon PE, is made from EX-PE fibres and offers a tightly woven braid that provides superior abrasion resistance, a very thin diameter and minimal stretch. Available in 8 carrier PE (PEx8) and 4 carrier PE (PEx4).