Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
When it comes to fishing the ‘fight hard and bite even harder’ fish, two species are on the top of the list for many anglers – amberjack and yellowtail kingfish. Jigging tips
And we are lucky to have both of these in huge numbers in southeast Queensland! Jigging tips
Though there are always good schools of these fish year-round, now that the water temperature is getting cooler, the next couple of months are when we’ll get bigger fish off the Sunshine Coast and in Moreton Bay.
My go-to fishing style for these brutes has to be jigging.
While they are suckers for a well-presented live bait, a fast-retrieved jig is absolutely irresistible to feeding AJs and kingies.
Jigging for these fish is generally a little easier because the ground or reef they’ll be feeding on will be a pressure edge that has to have current running over it.
So, positioning your boat over the ledge you want to fish is a bit harder – when trying to feed a live bait into the depths with current pulling your boat away – compared to dropping a heavy slim-lined knife jig into the bite zone.
Generally, the grounds we search that will be holding AJs and kingies is hard ledgy bottom in around 50-100m.
These ledges can be as small as 1-2m in height or up to 20m, as long as you can see bait on the sounder tight to the ledge and you’re in the middle of the tide window, there is a good chance a predator will be in the zone.
And more often than not, our jig-eating friends amberjack and kingfish will be around and in feeding mode!
If you haven’t targeted these species before, a good starting point is humble deep-water snapper grounds.
These species all haunt the same type of grounds, so it’s a pleasant surprise when a solid snapper eats your jig too!
Always have a good sound around the ledge you want to fish.
