Fishing Gear

AFTER catching my first fish on a soft plastic about 35 years ago, I have been hooked and have fished many styles, types and colours of plastics, learning to rig and fish them a stack of different ways over the years. Soft plastics are relatively inexpensive, look real, feel real and with a squirt of scent they even smell and …

IN recent months we have been faced with strong winds, big seas and even COVID-19 lockdowns limiting fishing options. So what can you do? Sort out your fishing tackle, of course! In this article I outline a number of fishing tackle storage and preparation strategies I use so I’m well placed to find the gear I want in a hurry. …

THE Gold Coast Broadwater has been fishing remarkably well and has had a great variety of fish on the bite. School mackerel normally appear in the southern Broadwater at this time of year because they begin their annual migration from the north. I have never seen this many though – we’ve had large numbers of schoolies feeding every day for …

IF there has been a positive to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps it is the realisation that we as a nation rely too heavily on imported goods. Personally, I’ve been buying Australian made as first preference for more than a quarter of a century. Taken almost to the point of obsession, I’ve been fishing exclusively with Australian-made lures …

AS a charter operator, mess and disorganisation seriously get under my skin. Now, if you know me personally I am one of the messiest people about, and the console of my boat is a clear indication of many moments of mayhem. Lures with rusty hooks stacked on top of each other and hidden underneath is a pair of line clippers that …

I’VE now lived on Cape York for more than 30 years, so I reckon I just about qualify to be called a local! As somebody who has been up and down the main access track, officially known as the Peninsula Development Road, many times, it is often very amusing to read some of the questions posed by those who are …

FINDING the perfect lure is an almost impossible task. Most fishers overlook the hooks on their lures even though hooks are the most important aspect of fish catching ability. So what treble hooks should you choose when upgrading lures? With so many options available, it can be somewhat confusing trying to decide, but each has its place in a tackle box. …

THE plan right up until the Sunday afternoon of a long weekend was to head out early on Monday for an offshore saltwater session chasing mackerel. When rolling the weather dice, sometimes things don’t go your way. While loading the boat on Sunday arvo, I did a last-minute weather check, only to find the wind was getting up earlier than …

EXPLODING in the US, the Ned rig is basically a stand-up presentation built around a mushroom-style jig head and a buoyant soft plastic, meaning in the water the plastic is either fleeing on the retrieve or rapidly standing up in a claws-up ‘defensive’ pose or tail-up ‘feeding’ pose on the pause. On the pause, the buoyant plastic moves around naturally …

WELCOME to autumn. February definitely brought the heat and, finally, rain to most parts of Queensland, setting things up nicely for autumn fishing Gladstone style. Closer to the coast, rainfall has ensured the rivers and creeks get a much-needed flush of fresh water. Though I feel for the struggling farmers who missed out on relief from drought conditions and my …