Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Saltwater-Estuary » Trick'n'Trevs
Trick'n'Trevs
Adam Neild
Trevally of one variety or another are available in most parts of the Australia. Adam Neild takes us fishing for a few trevally in his local waters of Queensland's Sunshine Coast. Let's check out Adam's techniques so that you can give them a run in your local waters.
One good thing about fishing the Sunshine Coast is the trevally. There are a variety of trevally species that you will encounter in the rivers, the most common one being giant trevally. You may also stumble upon golden trevally, cale cale trevally, big eye's or even the humble diamond trevally. Though some of them require different techniques, I will be mostly referring to giant trevally in this little article.
Scoring myself a little bit of time off work, I armed myself with the ZMan 3" MinnowZ in various colours, matching them to 1/4oz 3/0H TT Lures Tournament Series jig heads (now available in HeadlockZ HD jighead). Fishing in roughly 4-5m of water, I generally prefer 1/4oz jigheads. Some people are so caught on up finesse fishing these days, with the theory being that lighter is always better, but I find a slightly heavier head gives the Trevally something to chase back down to the bottom? when you give the lure a couple of second pause. A lot of the times this escaping plastic will trigger a strike.
With the water quality being fairly clean I found a nice natural looking colour to be my choice in plastic. The Opening Night 3" MinnowZ being the right choice on the higher end of the tides and Houdini being the winner on the lower end, when the water was dirtier.
My structure of choice is bridge pylons. I find the trevally love sitting in eddies created by the pylons of bridges, just sitting head into the current waiting for baitfish to wash past. Fishing so close to the pylons, I find you need to fish a little bit heavier to be able to pull the trevally away from the pylons before they gain the upper hand. I like to use a 2-5 or 3-6kg rod with a 2500 size reel, spooled with 8lb-10lb braid and 10-14lb Leader... depending on how game you are feeling on the day! The other good thing about fishing this kind of structure is that you really have no idea what will be sitting around the pylons feeding with them. I find tarpon, mangrove jack, bream and even sometimes jewfish to be a common bycatch.
Trevally can sometimes be fussy eaters, so I like to mix up my retrieve on the day to see what will trigger the fish. My preferred technique is to cast 200-400mm to the side of the pylons, making sure you cast 5-6m past the pylon so as to allow the plastic to sink, especially if the fish are hanging deeper. I like to give the plastic a couple of small hops along the water column, with a 2-4 second pause so the plastic will sink rapidly to the bottom. This is commonly when the trevally suck the lure in, especially when the plastic is heading into the eddie created by the pylon, which is the main strike zone.
Once you feel that the plastic is starting to go past the pylon, give it a quick burn away as this can trigger a strike as the trevally reacts to the lure getting away. I also like to use another fast burn technique where I cast to a similar position, slowly wind up the slack and once I feel my lure is deep enough I do a quick steady wind straight past the pylons, with a pause every couple of metres for a split second. This is a great technique when the Trevally are in a fired up mood and just want to chase a fast moving bait.
Hopefully this little article gives you some insight and ideas on targeting these beautiful sportfish that are found in most our estuaries throughout Queensland, as well as most other states.