Page 32 - Bush 'n Beach Fishing mag

Josh with a lovely athead caught on a Z-Man Slim SwimZ in Midnight Oil colour – perfect for sunny conditions.
Don fromTackle Giants explained a few of the ner points of slide baiting and drone shing.
Page 32 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, October 2020
Any aggregation of weed on the line and the rods were quickly back on the vehicles and we were off to the next area of cleaner- looking water.
This included even the middle of the day.
I did my best throw- ing a few very long casts with lures and my Alvey Orbitor SR200, but only managed sev- eral stray fish.
Tackling tough conditions Mon a Fraser Island trip
Y second Fraser Island trip this year
Fraser Island
by SEAN THOMPSON
was a particularly chal- lenging trip for a few reasons.
lessons from our trip and the weeks follow- ing.
joined gang hooks for school fish around dawn and dusk.
We had weed along most of the eastern beach, while on the western side we had regular strong north- west or southwest wind blowing in our faces.
In general, direct westerly wind can help to push weed out but anything with a bit of northerly seems to push weed back in.
However, after dark, strips of bonito on two gang hooks accounted for some better than av- erage fish caught from the back of the gutter using size 8-9 ball sink- ers.
But all was not lost.
An interesting thing about tailor season over the past month was that fish came on when cleaner water was pushed into deep shore gutters on high tide.
On the eastern beach, we tested the water by doing quick gutter hop- ping checks.
On our last full day, we noticed about a dozen schools of tailor 200m out.
Another thing we did was kept our ears to the ground for reliable updates from Drew at Gardiner Fisheries Tackle Shop at Rain- bow Beach and Don Butler and his crew from Tackle Giants.
Another successful tactic was berleying gutters with smashed- up pilchard to bring fish in.
The lesson could be to try lures if you can see fish but can’t reach them.
As it turned out, the Tackle Gaints staff were on the island and did a free slide bait- ing and drone fishing course, which was ex- cellent.
When bait fishing, I am an unashamed fan of fresh, individually quick-frozen pilchard on Tru-Turn swivel-
* continued P33
Jump on the Tackle Giants website for vid- eos and information on where to buy gear – true experts in this field – they are whole- sale distributers for As- sassin Australia, King- fisher Australia and CutaCopter.
While gutters and weed concentrations changed day-to-day, there were a couple of
These were the biggest tailor of the trip.
www.bnb shing.com.au
Bait choice and long casts were another factor when fish were scarce, particularly slightly after dusk.
Try and time a west- ern-side session with a light southeasterly breeze, because any- thing too calm can make fishing a bit tough.