Sooty grunter are the bandits of the northern freshwater. Their willingness to attack lures, and tendency to hang out in groups make them a much-loved sportfish for visiting southern anglers, however they possibly don’t get the recognition they deserve from local anglers. Their abundance and aggressive nature can make them seem too little of a challenge to some, but with appropriate tackle they are as good as anything!

Tailor have a big following on the east and west coasts from bait fishers, who target this highly migratory species using dead baits in the beach gutters. While this is an artform in itself, many fail to acknowledge the great sport they can provide for lure anglers. As an added bonus, tailor shapes up pretty good on the plate as well, and being a schooling fish, once a school is found, multiple fish can be taken in short time.

The blue swimmer, blue manna or sand crab is one of the tastiest crustaceans in the southern waters of Australia, and is relatively easy to gather and harvest. Compared to the larger mud crabs in northern waters, collecting a feed of blue swimmer crabs is pleasant and doesn’t involve pushing into muddy creeks with mangrove forests, mosquitoes and crocodiles!

Southern calamari are a bread and butter species for many anglers in our southern states, and can often save a slow day if other species such as King George whiting and snapper aren’t biting! Their abundance and willingness to take baits and jigs makes them a much-loved species in larger population centres such as Melbourne, Western Port, Geelong, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart.

Love them or hate them, English perch or redfin are here to stay, and anglers may as well enjoy these sporting and great tasting fish. Introduced for angling purposes in Australia in the 1800s, refin now dominate many freshwater fisheries in the southern half of Australia. 

These days many anglers choose to use lures to catch big sand, yellowfin or summer whiting on the East Coast, however using baits on long whippy rods is becoming something of a dying art, and is still a great - and probably more effective - method of gathering a feed of these tasty little fish.

Catching fish on surface presentations is the pinnacle when fishing for most species, and the humble Aussie bass is no different. When the barometer rises above 1020 and the insect activity picks up, you can bet bass will be looking up for their next meal.

There’s a lot of ways to catch jewfish, or mulloway, but these fish are arguably at their best when they congregate around rock walls and headlands following floods or rough weather.

There are many fish in Australia that have earned a reputation for their hard-fighting and gutter tactics in an attempt to win their freedom, and we hear about them constantly on social media and in magazines.

Tossing oversize lures on oversize tackle in search of oversize giant trevally has to be considered an extreme sport. Those who regularly partake in this activity are usually left with sore bodies, adrenalin comedowns and severely damaged egos; all the hallmarks of an extreme sport!

In a previous post we covered the equipment needed for traditional luderick fishing. Now we’re going to look at the specific technique! This practise has been going for at least 100 years and still works extremely well today.

Trevally are seen as a trophy species for offshore anglers throwing poppers and stickbaits at nervous schools of bait, but they can be a lot of fun at smaller sizes in our estuaries and sheltered waters too.