Howler Snapper

Tips on Targeting Big Snapper

Damon Sherriff

Well, we are halfway through the Tasmanian snapper season! There have been a lot of mixed reports around the state. The Tamar River which is the state’s best big snapper estuary has been a bit quiet for quality fish for the second year running, while the state’s Northeast and Northwest have been fishing extremely well with both areas reporting fish of nearly 10kg. It’s really great to see these fish from a couple of years back which measured 80 to 85 cm now measuring 85 to 92 cm. I think the next upcoming years will be incredibly good, very similar to the years experienced back in the 1990s and early 2000s when there were quite a few fish over 10kg landed each season in Tasmania.

According to Victorian Fisheries, this age class of fish was spawned back around 2001 so they will be fish going on 22 years old. Although not fully grown, they are not far off. So for the next few years, we are going to have some very serious fish swimming about in our bays and estuaries. During recent seasons there has been a real lack of these big adult fish, so it will be great to see if they can get through the gauntlet of recreational fishermen and commercial shark fishermen. So far, my season has been pretty similar to last, lots of small to medium fish mainly between 50 to 70 cm; and a couple of really nice fish, one measuring 90 cm and 8.91 kg. I worked out it was the longest snapper I have caught since 2010 so I am very stoked! It will be interesting what age the fish is but I would not be surprised if it is one of the snappers that was spawned back in 2001 seasons, which was a bumper spawning season for Snapper in Victoria and possibly Tasmania as well.

It’s been interesting to watch these fish grow very slowly and get bigger and bigger each season. I remember back in the 2004 season, we had a huge influx of small pinkies in the Tamar River. My friend and I caught hundreds of them, they were like piranhas nibbling at our baits intended for big snapper, they used to drive us mad. Well, these are the big fish we are catching now. But now they are around 90 cm. Hopefully the next few years we will see a few around one metre being landed.

The big 90 cm howler.

Well here is a bit of a story of how it all happened December 2022.

I headed out of my home port and town, Bridport one breezy sunny afternoon to fish the evening in the shallows. The week before I hooked what I thought was a big snapper among a school of smaller fish. I was very busy dealing with the small school fish, they were going gangbusters, I have no idea how many I landed and released, but it was a lot.

Out of the blue one of my 8-foot live fibre snapper rods buckled over and howled off at a blistering rate, I grabbed the little Abu 6500 rocket. I knew straight away this fish was way bigger than the fish I had just been catching which were between two and four and a half kilograms. This was a really good one! It crossed my mind it could be high teens, which would have been totally awesome! After a short dogged fight, I got the big red under the boat. I could not see it, but then everything went loose. I was devastated as I have put in some very serious time for a chance at a fish like this. My first thought was a couta had bitten at my swivel, which I have had happen before, I wound in a loose line. I couldn’t understand! I had been bitten off. I have never had this happen before in all my years. The big snapper had bitten through the 24 kg mono leader. I was so upset but I got myself together and retied my rig, baited up and recast in the same spot. It was the only rod I had in the water because of the hot bite of smaller fish. My bait hit the bottom. I sat there for less than a minute and the same rod buckled over and howled off again! I could not believe it, another chance!!! I played the fish gently and carefully. I was paranoid about being bitten off again. After a hard stubborn fight, I landed my first big snapper for the season, she weighed in at 7.53 kg and 84 cm. I was very happy.

Later that evening I spoke to a friend from Victoria, who had been fishing recently in a location renowned for big snapper and he had the same thing happen three times over. He put it down to the fish having sharper teeth than normal; he said maybe they have been eating a different diet, and he was using 20kg, mono leader. I explained to him what had happened, and I suspected the snapper that bit me off was a bigger fish again than the 7.53 kg female.

So I headed out again mid-afternoon and caught some fresh calamari for bait. I anchored up just before dark. It didn’t take long to get some action from the little fish again, they kept me very busy till well after dark. There were a couple of respectable ones among them, up to five kilograms, but most were around two to three kilograms. It was about 10.30 pm and the bite had slowed up with the tide. I finally got three rods back in the water, when I had a double hook-up. I grabbed the rod closest to me. I quickly rang my youngest son Sam on Messenger and put it on video so he and his girlfriend Bianca could watch the double hook-up.

The rod on the other side of the boat was howling off, so I swapped rods thinking it was a far bigger fish. I was right!!! The fish hit top gear and ran 60 metres of mono off my Abu at a blistering pace. He arched around, heading for deeper water. I said to Sam and Bianca, this is a really good one! I got the snapper back to the boat. It was doing short dogged lunges. I would get a couple of winds and it would take it back. I knew in the back of my mind this fish was special, maybe similar to the size of fish they were catching in Western Port at the time, somewhere nudging nine kilograms. I got colour!

The fish was very long under the moonlight, I said to Sam, it’s 90 cm! He agreed through the iPhone. I decided to take this fish for taxidermy, for I have not done one for myself for quite a few years. I got my little trusty gaff ready and gaffed the big girl. I gave out a yell of happiness as I lifted it over the side. Sam and Bianca were both saying, “Put it on the brag mat!”

I said I had better wind in the other rod first. I wound in the other rod and another 60 cm snapper came aboard. I quickly released him and went back to measuring the big one. She went right on 90cm and weighed in on certified scales at 8.91 kg. This was the biggest fish I have landed since 2010. I can’t wait to have it hanging on my wall.

Bait - the important part!

To be consistent at catching really big snappers there are a few tricks of the trade you have to master. When snappers get over seven kilograms, anglers call them big snapper. They really are a different beast from a pinkie or school fish. They require more preparation, more planning, more hours and more patience. They don’t come along every day as small fish do.

One of the most important things you can do to improve your chances is become a master at catching fresh bait, small fish will take frozen second-class bait readily but big fish are fussier and fresh bait is a trick of the trade. I tried and targeted what was on offer during the season. I change my bait as the season progresses. I start with probably one of my favourite baits southern calamari, mainly because of the abundance of them early season. They are great bait fresh, but not as effective frozen. They are tough and sea lice resistant which makes them great for fishing at night on a sandy bottom. You can get quite a few baits out of even a small calamari. For a big calamari, you can get up to 15 baits out off. So you don’t need heaps of them for a decent session.

To target them, you need to find an area that either has a seagrass or ribbon weed seabed. You don’t want the area to be too deep. I normally fish for calamari under five metres, but sometimes they will be deeper over the reef. If they are in a deeper area you will need to fish them on a dropper rig with a sinker but under five metres, a squid jig is normally all that is required. The technique is to cast the squid jig out the back of the boat and slowly drift over the seabed where the calamari will be. In late winter or early spring, they lay their eggs on the seabed, the female calamari is surrounded by many male squids protecting her and her eggs. They are normally aggressive and will take a squid readily when found around their eggs. If you can mark the area where their eggs are found with either a landmark or GPS, you can normally catch all you need very quickly. It’s also quite enjoyable fishing on light gear. I love catching them, it is sometimes more fun than the snapper trip itself. Sometimes calamari are colour sensitive and a certain colour is all they will take, so have a few different colours on hand.

Southern Calamari do not like freshwater so upper reaches of estuaries and river mouths are sometimes not great areas to target them. You can also catch your bait land-based in certain areas. Some jetties, marinas and wharves have good numbers of calamari around them at certain times of the year. The best way to find information around your area is to go to your local tackle store and ask, they should be more than happy to tell you and maybe sell you a squid jig or two.

We have still got a few months of the best part of the snapper season left, so if you have not been or have not caught a nice one before, now is probably your best chance of catching a big 90 cm snapper in the last 20 years. So make the most of it, get out there, and have some fishing fun!

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Towards the end of 2022, through a good mate of mine, I was offered an opportunity too good to refuse. To fly up to Seisia (the tip of Cape York, QLD) and join him on his journey back to Tasmania. The plan was to fish the whole way home. Flights were booked and I departed Hobart at the end of October. I was repeatedly warned about the heat up there at that time of year but still managed to underestimate it. Stepping off the plane at the Bamaga runway, it took all of about 2 minutes to be completely drenched in sweat. Being the lead-up to the wet season meant humidity was through the roof and the temps were 35-40 degrees celsius every day. The contrast in weather compared to where I had just come from was a shock to the system.

However, we had fish to catch. We loaded my gear into the car and headed to the accommodation and started rigging up. With the Jardine River only being a short 30-minute drive away, we hooked the little tinny up and hit the road. No more than two hours after arriving up the Cape and we were already on the water. Greeted by one of the nicest looking rivers I’ve ever seen, crystal clear water flowing over sand, surrounded by lilies, overhanging trees and all sorts of wildlife I was keen to start fishing! Before we had even made our first cast we had already seen several saratoga and a number of archerfish cruising around.

The next few hours would provide some of the most enjoyable topwater sight-fishing I have experienced. My lure of choice was the Nomad Riptide Fatso 95. Casting around any fishy-looking zones and retrieving the lure with a basic walk-the-dog style action saw ‘toga after ‘toga exploding on it as if they had never encountered anglers before. One of the best things about fishing in such a remote part of the country! Everything about these fish from the visual aspect of chasing them to their prehistoric looks and the locations they lived in quickly saw them rocket up the list of my favourite fish.

During my time up the Cape, we were lucky enough to be presented with a couple of weather windows to get offshore and chase some pelagic and reef species. My mate Bill had been working for Cape York Adventures over the dry season and his boss Dave was kind enough to let us use one of his boats. My first taste of offshore fishing in Cape York was a jigging session and to say we had an epic session would be an understatement. Just about every drop resulted in a hookup and the best part about being up North is that it really is a lucky dip with the variety of fish you can encounter up there. We certainly ticked a few off the list despite the sharks robbing me of a few. The lures I had the most success with were the Nomad Buffalo 120g Jig, Nomad 130mm Vertrex Max Vibe and the 5-inch Holt Productions Swimprawn. These three lures accounted for everything from coral trout to nannygai, fingermark, jewfish, various trevally species and more!

Jungle perch live in some epic country but they don’t come easy.

We also got to experience some of the exciting topwater fishing for pelagics around the reef edges. Throwing poppers and stick baits around we got to witness some crazy air strikes from Spanish mackerel, pack attacks from GTs and longtail tuna bust-ups. Unfortunately, the only big GTs we hooked were violently mauled by packs of sharks within seconds of hookup and only some smaller models made it to the boat.

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After our time in Seisia came to an end, we packed the car and headed for Weipa. From Weipa, we drove an hour up the coast to the Pennefather River where we set up camp on the beach for a couple of days with some friends we made in Seisia. This turned out to be a crazy little river system and we experienced some awesome sight fishing on the sand flats at the mouth of the river. Using our light gear and throwing around small crab, prawn and baitfish imitations we caught countless numbers of golden trevally, queenfish, giant herring and even a few extras thrown in from coral trout to mackerel and cobia. Despite not being quite as big as some of the fish we encountered offshore, chasing these fish around in 1-3m of water and watching them hunt your lure down was every bit as fun. We even crossed paths with a big school of permit one afternoon and managed to get connected to quite a large specimen on a Holt Productions Swimcrab but after a short-lived battle, the hook unfortunately pulled!

Not far from where we had set up camp on the beach, there was a little land-locked pond that was loaded with saltwater crocs. A cool sight! A little further past that was a rock bar that was accessible on foot. Given that the moon was in its full phase we didn’t want to waste the opportunity so one night after dinner we rigged up some 5-inch plastics and went for a walk to see if we could find a big mangrove jack, a bucket list species for me. I reckon we had only been casting under the moonlit sky for all of 5 minutes when the paddle tail I had been slow rolling got absolutely railed. This thing put up a proper tussle as it try to head back into its cave and if it wasn’t for the 100lb leader I decided to run I dare say I would have lost it. Being cautious of the large lizards around the water’s edge I walked back and dragged this fish up onto the sand. A quick flash of the torch confirmed it was the target species and a solid jack around the mid-’50s was landed! We stuck it out a little while longer and I managed to land my PB saltwater barra. A fish of around 70cm. A quick photo before we slipped her back and then we called it a night.

Throughout the rest of our North Queensland adventure, we checked out and fished a number of cool locations from the picturesque streams flowing through the Daintree to land-locked billabongs in Lake Field National Park and the famous Catwalk in Seventeen Seventy. These locations accounted for some more notable captures and encounters such as getting up close and personal with wild cassowaries, my first jungle perch, several healthy barras and probably the most exciting being a 104cm topwater queenfish on my little 3k outfit while fishing off a beach opposite a small cafe in Seventeen Seventy. The big queenie smashed my lure off the surface in only a few feet of water and proceeded to empty my whole spool on its first run. Chasing a fish down a beach is not something

I’ve had to do many times but eventually, I got some line back on the spool and after a serious aerial display from this fish I finally got to slide it up onto the sand!

From Seventeen Seventy we decided to beeline a bit further south, heading to Inverell, an inland town found in Northern New South Wales. We set up camp on the side of a little river just outside of town for a few days and spent some time chasing one of my favourite freshwater natives in Aus. The iconic Murray cod. The river we were exploring was similar to some of the trout streams down-home such as the Tyenna. Crystal clear water, relatively small pools with plenty of rapids, so it felt a little odd throwing big obnoxious lures such as spinnerbaits in a quiet little stream. However, it didn’t take long before we gained some confidence in our approach when Bill’s lure was slammed by a nice cod less than 100m from where we had set up camp! We spent the next few days exploring this cool river and some of the gorge country below Copeton Dam where we tallied up over 20 of these epic green fish and even got to experience some heart-racing action one night when we waded upriver under the full moon throwing around some noisy topwater presentations. The sound of a cod boofing your lure off the surface in the dark while you’re waist-deep in the water can certainly have you on edge!

When our cod expedition was over we spent a little bit of time in inland Victoria before boarding the spirit where we had some fun chasing wild stream trout on hardbodies and hunting a few foxes, wild dogs and sambar to finish off what I consider to be the trip of a lifetime exploring the east coast of this amazing country we’re lucky enough to live in!