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It was a cold winter’s night and I had been out on the water for about an hour and hadn’t had a single bite. I was freezing cold, wet and beaten, the pieces of pilchard I was throwing into the water were floating back toward my kayak, and I was contemplating pulling up the anchor and heading home. Suddenly my reel started screaming, and line was pulling fast off my spool. At the same time I was both excited and worried I was about to be spooled by a big fish. After the fish an I traded blows and I...

The first piece of the puzzle to catching a bag of snapper is to locate them. First off, try reading as many local books or blogs as you can, that cover the topic of snapper hots spots in your local area. Another good way to find out where snapper are hanging around in your local fishery, is to use YouTube. Try typing in a few keywords like the following example: ‘Port Phillip Bay Snapper Fishing’. Then filter the related videos by date, this is a good tool to find out where they are currently biting. In some videos you will...

What you need when chasing Whiting on a kayak There is clearly restricted space on the kayak. This factor makes it so important to know exactly what gear you should be taking out with you on a fishing session. Equally it is important to keep your gear in order, as disorder can quickly turn into a bad session. An important tip is to think about what you are targeting before you head out. For example if you are targeting whiting, ensure that you have the right gear on-board for that species. However, it also pays to know what other species...

Snapper through WA can be locate from Coral Bay in the north and as far as the South Australian boarder down in the deep south. Generally, smaller models around the 4-8kg will be found dwelling in the inshore waters and are accessible to the land based anglers. But if you are chasing the bigger fish you will need to get out to the deeper water, somewhere around 100m deep, and look for some structure or broken gravely ground. Snapper spawn from October and their spawning behaviour can last anything between 3-5 months. This behaviour tends to make the fish form...

 The diet of Australia’s larger, predatory fish comprises many of the smaller baitfish, so livies are a top offering for many hunted fish. There is practically no limit to the kinds of fish that can be used as live bait to catch other bigger fish. Bonito, luderick, mackerel, mullet, anchovies, pilchards, trevally tailor, tuna, garfish and yellowtail are just a small segment of the more common baitfish. However, choosing the bait is only half the problem. The way these fish are offered on the hook and their overall state of vigour and appearance can be of vital importance when live...