Jibbon Bommie

[Larkin]

Headed out this morning around Jibbon. 3-4 boats out there today - bite was very slow all morning. Didn’t see anyone catch anything of note.

Fished soft plastics - caught about 10 baracouda, so many around today. Hooked a few big slimies - plenty of those too and of good size.

Managed a nice 48cm snapper on the streaks curly tail. Left and hit up the flatty spot. No big ones - fish from  35-45cm around ATM

Got a gurnard on a double together with a flatty

Had barotrauma so kept it - anyone rate these as a table fish?

Neighbour came by and left with the snapper and a couple of flatties - giving all the rest to a couple of other work colleagues that missed out last time.

[noelm]

That's a Latchet, not as good eating as a Gurnard, and you caught BarraCOOTA, not Barracouda (cuda) nice Snapper and Flathead!

[Yowie]

Like Noel, I could see the pointy nose bones indicating a Latchet. Have not eaten them, however, fillet it and skin the fillets and remove rib bones. Similar to flattie fillets, but not as good in flavour.

A good eating sized reddie.

The slimies are turning up now.

[Isaac Ct]

Not a Gurnard, but they do taste nice. Have kept one before and nice firm white flesh like a flathead. Nice bag of fish anyway, well done. Hopefully you can find some squid soon to add to the feast.

[Larkin]

1 hour ago, noelm said:

That's a Latchet, not as good eating as a Gurnard, and you caught BarraCOOTA, not Barracouda (cuda) nice Snapper and Flathead!

Thanks Noel 👍 ended up with a full basket!

My first time catching a latchet, will try it out.

The fish I caught 10 of were Australian striped barracuda - sea pike. the smelly ones. Like this one pictured below. They kept smashing the plastics.
 

Caught a couple of the silver Baracoota last week -  None this week though.

1 hour ago, Yowie said:

Like Noel, I could see the pointy nose bones indicating a Latchet. Have not eaten them, however, fillet it and skin the fillets and remove rib bones. Similar to flattie fillets, but not as good in flavour.

A good eating sized reddie.

The slimies are turning up now.

I’ve never tried one, so will give it a go. 

Fair bit of bait out there at the moment - seal was out there in amongst the bait schools - and I saw what looked like a small shark around 80cm do a backflip out of the water 15m away from me - although it could have been a large fish with a similar shape. 

1 hour ago, Isaac Ct said:

Not a Gurnard, but they do taste nice. Have kept one before and nice firm white flesh like a flathead. Nice bag of fish anyway, well done. Hopefully you can find some squid soon to add to the feast.

Thanks Isaac, will try any fish once. 
How’d you cook it?

[wazatherfisherman]

Good bag of fish again! Those Pike are great bait for Kings and Mulloway but are difficult to keep alive on the hook

[Isaac Ct]

10 hours ago, Larkin said:

Thanks Isaac, will try any fish once. 
How’d you cook it?

Crumb and pan fry. Just like a flathead. But the flavour is delicate so you could also just cover in seasoned flour and shallow fry. Just a heads up, the return you get of them isn't the best and watch out for the spines around the head, they are worse than flathead. Pin bones are in a funny spot as well, sometimes I don't even get them.

[bessell1955]

That is a great haul.

[Larkin]

10 hours ago, wazatherfisherman said:

Good bag of fish again! Those Pike are great bait for Kings and Mulloway but are difficult to keep alive on the hook

Thanks Waza!

There were so many about - in amongst the slimies - never thought about using one as live bait though. 👍 next time will give it a go.

3 hours ago, Isaac Ct said:

Crumb and pan fry. Just like a flathead. But the flavour is delicate so you could also just cover in seasoned flour and shallow fry. Just a heads up, the return you get of them isn't the best and watch out for the spines around the head, they are worse than flathead. Pin bones are in a funny spot as well, sometimes I don't even get them.

I’m going to try - might just flour it to get a good idea of how it tastes.

2 hours ago, bessell1955 said:

That is a great haul.

thanks Bessel - it was slow early on, no real bites for hours until the change of tide.

[Larkin]

3 hours ago, Obsessed Fisherman said:

Do you use a heavy jig head and let the soft plastic sink? I still don't know how to use soft plastic on boats, fishing in deeper waters.

Hi OF, 

I’ve been fishing plastics in water between 25m - 45m depth for snapper. Areas where there is not too much current.
I use a 3/8oz jighead in 5/0H hook 90% of the time. Sometimes I’ll go up to 1/2oz jighead if the current is stronger. You don’t want to use a heavy jighead so it drops like a stone - you want it to waft down slowly in a natural motion. It takes a while to get down to the bottom like this.

The main plastics I use are Streakz curly tail in 5inch, Jerkshad in 5inch, Jerkshad in 7inch. I also smear S-Factor attractant on my plastics.

I look for structure on the edges (where reef meets gravel or sand) of reefs where rocks jut up or there are ledges with drops (I’ll research at home using navonics “relief shading” overlay on my phone, and then sound it up on location). These type of structures will usually hold bait balls / baitfish. Really any bait balls over anywhere on reef is worth a try esp. if you can see larger fish underneath or following the bait.

The technique is simple - cast far out over the bait ball as you drift and leave the bail open to let the plastic waft down. No retrieving. It takes 3-5 mins to get down - bail is still open. If you see line peel off on the drop, flick bail and pull up. If nothing, open bail and let it waft down again. Once it gets down to the bottom I’ll start working the plastic back up - small jerks and wind up a little then more jerks until your up around 10m off the bottom and then drop it down again. If I get a hit but no connect, I’ll straight away open the bail to let it drop, then do a couple of jerks and drop again - it will usually get hit again. After I’ve done this I’ll wind it all the way back in fast (no point working it all the way up the whole column when chasing snapper) and cast out again - preferably over bait again.
So the whole action is - cast, waft down, work it up 10m, then waft down again then work it up 10m, then wind in and do it all again. It’s about a 5min or so action.

Ps.If you close your bail while it’s dropping, the plastic won’t get to the bottom as your drift speed will raise it up.

The way I’ve explained it to people is: imagine your a snapper - your down below watching the baitfish above waiting for some scraps of food to come down - suddenly this wriggly worm looking thing (why I like the streaks) drops down from within the bait ball and they just see it as food coming down and ambush it. 
 

This is the way I’m fishing these SP’s - I’m sure others do it differently or use other techniques. 

And keep casting - don’t give up after a few casts.