- It’s still six weeks until winter but we’ve already started catching a few cold weather species like
- jewfish, pearl perch, cobia and snapper.
- As the temperature cools down these species move into the nutrient rich shallow reefs to spawn.
- Snapper is one of my favourites. As well as being a hard fighting fish, it is one of the best eating
- fish in the sea. The fillets are delectable if the fish is bled and put in an ice slurry shortly after
- capture. If you’re chasing snapper, the best time to catch them is at dawn and dusk around the
- tide change. Drifting is a particularly good way to find where the snapper are feeding and once
- you have found a hot bite, anchor up and berley.
- Their favourite foods include pilchards, squid and flesh baits such as mullet.
- Hooking a big one can be a bit tougher than the average two to three kilogram range – they get
- to this size for a reason. I find you produce the quality fish when using the lightest sinker possible,
- or even better, no sinker and let your bait slowly drift through the water columns.
- Snapper can reach 14 kilograms on our local reefs during the winter months.
- Let us know how you go.
- Here’s a couple of good snapper Steve caught last year:
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- Fishing Report
- It’s been a bit quiet the last week and while the big fish have been elusive there have still been some good eating fish caught in local waters. This is what we’ve seen reeled in during the last week.
- Caloundra 9 Mile – sweetlip, tuskfish, moses perch, mackerel
- Caloundra 12 Mile – Cobia, sweetlip, pearl perch, squire and Maori cod
- Murphy’s Reef – morwong, squire, mackerel and tuna
- Currimundi Reef – sweetlip, squire, mackerel and estuary cod
- Barwon Banks – red emperor, spangled emporer, fusilier, Maori cod and tuna
- The weather pattern looks stable for the next 10 to 14 days, so happy hunting!
- We’d love to have you along if you’d like to come out with us. Give us a call to check our availability.
Reeling in Snapper
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