tailor jacks
Marqus Chapman and a nice lure-caught mangrove jack.

Tin Can Bay – tailor, jacks, and flatties

G’day crew, I cannot believe it’s January 2023 and I’m writing the first fishing report for the year.

Last year was a wild and quick ride for most people, and this was no different in the shop – where did the year go?

On the fishing front, 2022 wasn’t the easiest year on the water.

The weather didn’t let up for the first half and then we had to battle with the water quality in Tin Can Bay – it all added up to fairly tough fishing from the tinnie. But in saying that, the anglers who braved the weather, got out and thought outside the box were rewarded for their efforts.

I must say that the fishing over the past couple of months was quite good and I’ve personally had some cracker sessions in the local systems.

Recently, we had a session where we boated 13 different species in one day, in one creek and all tossing lures.

At one point, I had a double header of tailor on the Lucky Craft Pointer 78XD, then two very large mangrove jack came up from the depths and smashed the tailor on the rear hook, leaving me with one tailor and no jacks.

tailor jacks
Howard Rippon and his first mangrove jack taken on lure, with a bit of help from his dad, the author.

 

You don’t see that sort of thing from sitting on the couch.

It’s moments such as these that help make up for a couple of doughnut days, that’s for sure, and keep us coming back time and again!

So, what has been on the bite over the past few weeks?

By all reports, jacks are starting to fire.

We have several customers who are dedicated jack fishos – they’ve let us know that fish have been caught up to 50cm plus size recently.

The majority of jacks have come from fishos fishing at night with a mixture of live and dead bait.

During daylight hours however, lure fishing has been red hot, with the standout lure of choice on my boat being the faithful Lucky Craft Pointers 78XD.

Jonathan Mallard with a nice 63cm flathead.

 

Normally, after a fish or two in, the other angler on the boat will ask what you’re tossing and give me one!

For the past few weeks, Chartreuse was the dominate colour and out-fished everything on the boat.

From jack to flathead to the toadfish that seem to never go away – it’s no use if it isn’t chartreuse.

There were loads of tailor in the system recently and they made for a bit of fun when the bite slowed.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE!!!

About Chris Rippon

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