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Cracking a Jack
By Nickfish
Over the Christmas holidays I set myself a goal to catch myself a Central QLD mangrove jack. I've only ever caught two mangrove jack before and they were both in Cairns on a charter. I wanted to achieve two things, firstly to catch my first CQ mangrove jack and secondly, to find some new honey holes where I can catch jack consistently. Previously when targeting jacks we have hooked and dropped them fishing in Corio Bay and Causeway Lake, so I was keen to explore these areas more.
We first started exploring areas such as Corio Bay while chasing bream and I had been smoked by fish that I knew were jacks by their hit and run. Also places like the Causeway Lake, where people line up along the banks during the run through tides, hoping for a jack. After many bust offs, and just as many hitless trips, I've started to figure out how to actually target and catch these fish, whether it be on lures or on bait.
I have found that weightless baits are preferred, whether it is alive or dead. When I'm fishing on the rock walls, I cast it right up in the snags and have the bail arm open, while keeping a small belly in the line. When the line starts to tighten up, I count to two. I do this because mangrove jack have a fairly small mouth, meaning that they can struggle to take large baits sometimes. This is where the tricky part comes in. You need to take long enough so that the hook is in their mouth… but you need to be quick enough so that jack doesn’t run you straight into the snag.
When fishing in the mangroves I like to have a fairly light sinker attached to the braided mainline above the trace. This allows the baitfish to still have some movement with the 40-60lb fluorocarbon leader and a 3/0 to 4/0 circle hook. A few of my favourite baits include winter whiting, silver biddies, mullet and mullet strips. All of these baits will sit beautifully on a weightless or lightly weighted hook.
Mangrove jack are known for their explosive lure hits, coming in and hitting hard. If you're not ready, they're gone within a matter of seconds. I have found that mangrove jack prefer paddle tails over any other lure type most of the time. Jack will eat any sized paddle tail around three to five inches in a slimmer profile. Personally, I like the ZMan 3” MinnowZ, 3.5” Trick SwimZ, 4” DieZel MinnowZ and the 4” Scented PaddlerZ. Colours such as Smelt, Smokey Shad, Sexy Mullet, The Deal, Slam Shady, Beer Run and Mood Ring are all favourites.
I rig these plastics on a TT ChinlockZ weedless jighead, which makes the presentation virtually snag proof, so that I am able to get it in where the fish are hiding. All I do with my paddle tail plastic is skip cast it up the back of the mangroves. As soon as it hits the water, I commence a slow roll until it's about one and a half metres out from the structure and then rip it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they won't chase it out, so I don't waste my time fishing in empty space.
When I fish the rock walls, I like to let the plastic sink to the bottom first because the mangrove jack will sit at all levels down the rock wall and this will allow the lure to work throughout the water column. Crustacean plastics can also be very effective, especially around small shallow creeks and rock walls. The ZMan 3.5” EZ ShrimpZ and 3” Scented ShrimpZ work perfectly, with Holographic colour my favourite in the 3” Scented ShrimpZ because it takes one the colour of the water, just like a real prawn does. Favourites in the EZ ShrimpZ include Rootbeer Gold, Fried Chicken and Sexy Penny, and I prefer it for rock walls rather than the creeks.
In terms of retrieves, I fish them with a hopping action, which brings them with the tide, while I wait for the jacks to come in and smash it. The Scented ShrimpZ I rig with a really light ChinlockZ SWS jighead, skip them up, retrieve them just out and drop them down. More often than not they will be hit it on the sink.
The setup that I've been using for my jack fishing is an Okuma Cerros baitcast reel, which is extremely smooth, making it ideal for lure fishing and continuous winding. It has 5kg of drag, which is plenty of drag to turn a mangrove jack's head away from the snags. I have this paired up with an Okuma Komodo 601MH 6’ 4-8kg medium heavy action rod. This means that it will bend from the middle third of the rod, which is ideal for tackling big running fish like mangrove jack and barra. I find that a 6’ rod is perfect for fishing for mangrove jack because it will have a pinpoint accurate cast and you can cast it effectively in very tight creeks.
I have this combo spooled up with 30lb Platypus Bionic Braid. A quality 30lb braid is good because it is still light enough that it has a lot of feel and I can load plenty lot of line onto the spool, while having heaps of stopping power for a jack. This then has an FG knot to 60lb leader. The reason for heavy leader is because jacks have canine like teeth that will slice through your leader like butter, as will the structure that they reside in.
I put all of this exploring and information together, gathered four mates and headed out on a trip to the Causeway Lake at night. The Causeway is known for its jack fishing on the run through tides, however I wanted to try and get one when it wasn’t running through because I knew they can’t just vanish. They had to be hiding in there somewhere.
We had a bucketful of silver biddies and mullet, ready to fish our spot. Within forty minutes I had already lost two big fish that I suspected were jacks. I then had a little nibble from a bream and I gave the half chewed bait to someone who was on the boat and was fishing in the middle of nowhere, away from snags. I said “here use this, you might catch a good bream or flathead” and she said “sure”.
About ten minutes later I had landed a Moses perch and we were all dealing with that when I heard someone else say Layla’s got a fish. I went ok, suspecting a little bream to be beside the boat. I couldn't be any further away from the truth… it was a 45cm mangrove jack. I quickly stuck the net under it. Although it wasn’t the fight that should have given her a run for her money, especially because she had very little fishing experience, it was a cracking fish to say the least.
We had finally done it. We had cracked the CQ jack. Thanks to the research and exploring we now have several spots to continue to catch mangrove jack, hopefully successfully and consistently. Jacks are great fish to target, especially when the barra season is closed, they pull just as hard and they're just as good on the table.
Cheers, Nickfish