A wobbling wrist means a wobbling rod tip and your stickbait will start working with a short and sharp left to right movement commonly referred to as ‘walking the dog’. In fact, some small surface lures are branded as ‘dog walkers’. When whiting are pursuing my surface lures I find it important to maintain my composure and keep the action rolling …

Jacks also respond to a wide variety of lures and techniques. Casting surface poppers tight and parallel to structure works well, as does casting soft plastics and hard-bodied minnows tight to structure. Trolling hard-bodied minnows along the rock walls and broken reef areas of the rivers also entices plenty of jacks and allows you to cover a lot of quality ground. When …

G’DAY everyone, in this month’s article I will offer you a few tips for chasing the hard-fighting mangrove jack. January and February have always been my favourite months to target jacks because they tend to school up and feed more freely before the cooler winter period arrives. Unlike some of the systems in the far north of the country, the Gold …

The puffs of sand, mud or shell grit created by the bib of the lure hitting the bottom are what I believe create most of the strikes because the whiting instinctively smash the lure out of hunger or territorial aggression. Perhaps the whiting interpret the lure and puffs of sediment as being a prawn, yabby or some other type of bait …

I always try to set my lures about 20m behind the boat and my trolling speed is a slow idle. It is difficult to put an accurate speed to this technique but I always imagine that my boat is moving at a good walking pace. Another vital link in the chain is to remember that when you commence trolling, you …

August coincides with fantastic tailor action on the lead-up to the moons in the lower reaches of the Tweed and Gold Coast river systems. Tailor tend to spike in activity around the tide changes and in particular the first couple of hours of the run-in tide. They can often be easily located by either bird or surface activity as they …

When it comes to soft plastics and metal blades, once again I mostly look for and choose smaller presentations because this methodology supplies my clients and I with more fish and a wider variety of species, with the bonus being trophy-sized fish are also on the cards. I would like to mention that many people over the years have boarded …

Alternatively, try an assist rigging system with a fine piece of fluorocarbon attached to the eye of the jig head and either a trailing small single hook or treble positioned near the tail of the plastic. Small surface lures such as poppers and stickbaits no longer than 60mm are great fun to use on whiting in shallow water of a …

  G’DAY; I hope you had a great Christmas and new year holiday break. There is no doubt the mighty mangrove jack are bucket-list fish for most anglers in southeast Queensland and northern NSW due to their aggressive, hard-fighting nature and the fact that they will respond to an array of well-presented lures and baits. It should also be mentioned the …

you can try outside the normal cast and retrieve pattern is a simple one that I have nicknamed tea bagging. Tea bagging is based on fishing the deeper holes where I locate bait on my sounder and positioning the boat directly over the top of it. I commence the same three short lifts as mentioned but instead of winding the …