This article builds on concerns previously published on this website: April 2022 edition of the NSW Freshwater Fisher There is continuing concern that Snowy 2.0 is a $10 billion white elephant, despite the project being well underway. From a recreational fishing point of view, it will introduce noxious and pest fish into the headwaters of … Read more
NSW – Online map helps anglers access new fishing spots … so how good is this?
Threadfin are fantastic table and sport fish with big tails and plenty of vigor and would pull a similar sized salt water Barramundi backwards. They also have a well earned reputation of being finicky and difficult to catch.
Bream are a species that grow slowly. By the time they reach the minimum legal size they are typically around 5 or 6 years old. So please consider catch and release.
Flathead are definitely one of the easier species of estuary fish to catch on fly. They will respond to a wide range of traditional and specialist flies and you will catch them as a by catch when your fishing small flies (from a flathead’s perspective) to species such as bream and whiting and relatively big flies (from a flathead’s perspective) even when fishing for barra.
I started making soft plastics in gar fish colours about a year ago in response to identifying that a lot of the buffing of big barramundi that you hear at dusk and into the night is barra targeting garfish. I have now added gar fish inspired colouring to my articulated bugger range and have found that to be a great dawn and dusk time fishing colour combination.
Since I perfected this tie of the FG knot I have not suffered a failure of the knot and it has accounted for heaps of big barra.
For those many years that I lived in the Snowy Mountains region of NSW loch style fishing for trout was absolute favourite fishing preference. This is my check list of items I take on every trip when targeting trout on fly from boat.
To enjoy and be successful in the task of catching big fish on fly a good starting point is to have the right back up gear, fly fishing gear and tools on hand. So here is my “check list” of the items I think you need on hand when targeting big fish on fly.
Soft plastics are a great offshore option. I particularly like dropping Alpha Gar and Alpha prawn soft plastics on 1 to 2 ounce weighted jig heads or elevator jigs so as to cheat fast tidal runs and have a chance at connecting to big predators.
