Finally a Sunday weather window, thank the heavens! With the great weather in mind I headed up to my favourite spot, Leigh, in search of some big Snapper. First off I tried fishing the coast line just out of the entrance, soft baiting in different depths ranged between 3- 15 meters. I managed to bag some good eating size fish in 10 metres of water but nothing of great calibre.
The method to my madness is as follows: I start off fishing in the shallows, now my idea of shallows is anything between 3- 15 metres of water. In my opinion I think soft baiting is the most effective method to fish these depths, utilising different weighted jig heads you can fish all these depths very effectively. Once I have exhausted my options in the shallows I will try my luck in deeper water. The beauty with fishing the Leigh area is that you have these options to choose from.
With that it mind I headed out to the 40 metre mark, looking for sign on the sounder on the way out. I found a good cluster of fish on the sounder, the depth was around 45 meters but the fish were feeding about 5- 10 metres off the bottom according to the fish finder. In this range of depth I prefer to use slow jigs for a very good reason, depending on how big the school of fish is, and taking into account you are drifting, you want to get you lure into the strike zone as fast as possible, slow jigs allow you to get your lure down to the strike zone at speed.
First drop of the slow jig (Orange Catch 80 gram) and I was hooked up to respectable snapper.
Another drop of the slow jig and I was hooked up to a very decent fish!
This fish took some big runs but these light weight carbon rods can really handle some big fish. The setup that I have in my hand is a Shimano Status Rod matched up with a Quantum Cabo PT 3000. I use this setup for both slow jigging and soft baiting. The setup you can see in the rod holder is a Okuma X Factor rod, a very cost effective rod, you can pick them up for under $100 and the reel is a Shimano Sustain 4000. I mostly use this set up for soft baiting but it can be used for slow jigging, too. Anyway, back to the fishing… check this beast out!
I’ve had a lot of stick about getting a bigger net, in all honesty, I do have a bigger net and a gaff, call me superstitious if you like, but this net brings me much luck.
Stoked! I love it when a good plan comes together.
My general rule of thumb (my own opinion of course) is, if I estimate a fish to be over 10 pound, I will return he or she back into the ocean, this size of fish is great for breading, and I would like to be able to still catch fish like this 20 years from now. I mean look at it this way, this fish I am holding in my hands is probably twice my age! Respect! It gave me a stella fight, great video footage and some awesome photos. It makes me feel good to return a fish like this back to the ocean.
Another drop of the slow jig produced yet again another good size fish. Orange seems to be a great colour to fish with lately or is that just me being superstitious again. I will post up a video tutorial at some point with my method of working the lure for those that are interested.
Yet again, another epic day up in Leigh, don’t forget to check out the You Tube video footage footage taken from my Gopro Hero 3+. Enjoy.
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Categories: Trip Reports
Saltwater Assassin 
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