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Tackling Urban Pelagics
By Jacob Iedema
Finding Fish
Far northern NSW and SEQ can provide incredible fishing for pelagic species in the estuaries and shallow water urban environments. Target species can consist of trevally, queenfish, tailor and occasionally school mackerel. These fish often frequent urban areas, making for great fishing for determined local anglers.
These areas include canals, marinas, creeks, bays and inlets. Pelagic speedsters can be easier to locate than most think, as their feeding habits and behaviours cause them to continuously visit specific areas and stay for extensive periods of time. Repeated feeding patterns can also attract impressive schools of pelagic fish species at times.
Understanding seasonal migration and movements will by far improve one's catch rate, with the most obvious species being tailor as their winter spawn run up to Fraser Island brings massive schools of tailor into these areas. Mackerel are rare but are more common in summer and autumn. It can be assumed that trevally and queenfish are summer species as they are more common in northern waters, however they are worthy targets all year round.
Key structures to search for active pelagics are rock walls, depth variants, canal intersections, dead end canals, occasionally estuarine flats, rock bars, back eddies, deep bays, current worn banks and points, around slightly turbid or brackish water plumes and areas of concentrated bait.
An exciting way to target these speedsters is to cast at surface disturbances that are created by schools of baitfish that have been forced to the surface by active fish. This usually makes for some pretty impressive surface strikes. The most adrenaline pumping way to target pelagic species is by far to cast surface lures at schools of busting fish. When fish are in a frenzy and are smashing baitfish at the surface, they will attack any surface lure with more power than ever!
There is usually one pelagic species that is more active than others on any given day, so being able to change plans and tactics quickly will boost success. Understanding the system you intend to fish will assist with searching for fish as it will narrow down likely fish holding areas.
Expect the Unexpected
When fishing in these areas, expect to come across school jewfish and exotic species of trevally such as cale cale, diamond trevally, pennant trevally, bluefin trevally, golden trevally, longnose trevally, bigeye trevally, and giant trevally. Also lesser and giant queenfish are common, along with the occasional mackerel.
Putting in the hours on the water is the key to success with pelagic species and when weather conditions are less than ideal, the fish activity can be highly unexpected. For example, low barometer days with a strong southerly can reward effort, with actively feeding fish. Another example of this, is on days of constant passing showers. Surface activity in between the rain can be off the charts. These are the potential target species or by-catch that frequent our waterways and some of the techniques used can really raise a heart rate!
TechniquesÂ
There are a myriad of techniques that estuarine pelagics fall to, however some will prove more successful in distinct weather conditions and fish moods. When fish are active and fast moving, soft plastics, hardbodies, blades and surface lures work best. Any lure that stimulates a reaction bite from fish will be rewarded when fish are active.
Pelagics however don't always feed with lightning fast slashes on the surface. For example giant trevally can feed a lot more subtlety, often developing 'lockjaw' as they can be very moody and lazy, often found sulking under structure or feeding on tiny bait. In canals with juxtapositional pontoons on bends or main channels, trevally often swim laps of sections like these whilst chasing down an easy meal if one presents itself. When fish are in this dormant stage of activity it pays to resist the urge to throw big 'reaction bite' lures and lighten up your gear. This is because these slow moving and rather finicky fish are a lot more aware of their surroundings and will not use excessive energy to feed.
In these environments pelagic species customarily fight relatively clean and don't run to structure, so light gear makes the fight more enjoyable and limits the chances of pulled hooks. Having a range of outfits to suit the various techniques that can be utilised when chasing these shallow water bullets is ideal as techniques can be altered throughout each session.
The Gear
Lure Styles:
My favourite surface lures to use for active pelagics include 70mm-120mm 'walk the dog' style surface lures or 60mm-90mm poppers. Hardbodies up to 120mm that dive to around 1m-3m are good for late mornings when the fish activity dies down, especially if used with either an erratic or a violent twitch-pause retrieve.
Finally blades, vibes and soft plastics are great around structure and when fish are schooled up or active in deeper water. Soft and hard vibes up to 85mm are best and blades around 1/4oz are best, however it all depends on the ever-changing conditions.
Plastics up to five inches catch trevally, however under four inches works best. Curl tail, paddle tail and jerkbait style plastics all work for trevally, matched with an appropriate jighead. It's all up to personal preference and confidence in what lure one may choose to use. If the confidence is absent in a plan, how long will it be exercised for? The biggest tip for lure choice and selection is match the hatch. The closer a lure looks to the food source of any chosen system, the less hesitant fish will be towards it.
Rods and Reels:
The three setups that will cover all the bases of urban pelagic fishing are an ultra-light spin setup (1-3kg), medium-light spin (2-4kg) and a medium-heavy spin setup (3-5kg to 3-7kg).
The ultra-light setup is for when fish are present but are not willing to feed, so a slower finesse presentation is required to tempt fish to bite. This setup is for fishing soft plastics around structure and down deeper as well as small blades, surface lures and small finesse minnow lures.
The medium-light setup is for when fish are feeding without hesitation in relation to what they attack. Keeping gear light has multiple advantages as it prevents tearing out the fish's mouth, limits pulling of hooks, maximises casting abilities and is a lot more enjoyable to fish with.
The final setup is a medium-heavy spin rod. This setup is for fishing bigger lures to entice a reaction bite from bigger fish as well as giving insurance that is needed when fishing heavier structure.
Line:
Braided line is a must for all lure fishing and quality flourocarbon leaders are required to maximise your chances in urban environments that get fished a lot. The only exception to this is when fishing surface, where a monofilament leader is recommended as the weight of the denser leader material (fluorocarbon) can drag a surface lure under the water and limit its action.
Hitting the Water
Getting out to your local waterways and putting in the hard yards, learning as much as possible about particular systems will increase success. Research can be done to an extent with maps and articles, like this one, however learning the fish movements in estuarine systems can be difficult as each waterway is different. Covering ground, trying new techniques and keeping track of catch rates and successes will improve one's understanding of finding these speedsters.
Also correlating success with weather conditions narrows down specific techniques to apply when fishing similar conditions when fish were caught. For example, in low barometer and overcast conditions fish can move shallow and focus their primary attention to surface or subsurface food sources, while ignoring deeper presentations. Or high barometer days with low light conditions may cause frenzies that shut down as soon as the sun rises and fish move deeper in the water column. Time on the water is key, so get out there, start targeting these exhilarating fish and get those small spin outfits screaming!
Cheers, Jacob
Suitable Gear:
Fish Inc. Lures Fly Half Popper
Bagley Rattlin Finger Mullet
TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jigheads
ZMan 2.5" GrubZ
ZMan 2.5" Slim SwimZ
ZMan 3" Slim SwimZ
ZMan 3" MinnowZ
ZMan 3.75" StreakZ
ZMan 4" StreakZ Curly TailZ