This week Craig Coughlan of Tournament Fishing Australia is filling in for Rob while among other things he’s out making the most of the kayak snapper off Bass Point.

And kayak fishing for snapper is just what Craig is writing about, so over to him:

The timing to lend a hand couldn’t be better for a fishing scribe because the fishing is great ‘especially’ if you adjust your thinking to the season at hand.

With the beginning of winter officially here the approach you take and the species you’ll catch will have to change significantly.

For example in the ocean the snapper have moved in much closer making them an ideal kayak fishing target, and the estuaries have also been producing some extra options with the arrival of cooler water species.

The Clyde River, is fishing better than I have seen in quite some time. There are still plenty of bream, flathead and trevally being caught on both bait and lures with the odd jewfish by patient, or lucky anglers. However the coolest addition to the catch is the amount of large Australian salmon which are more than happy to take a lure or bait, and offer excellent sport on light gear.

On the weekend just passed my friend Steve Moy and I kayaked along a drop along a thick weed bed casting lightly weighted plastics at bream on ultra-light line. We had a great session landing plenty of bream, flathead and trevally, but also had additional fun thanks to the salmon.

Interestingly, sometimes the salmon were taking the plastics with a subtle bite as soon as the lure hit bottom.

Watching the line was important as the lure sunk through the water column so we could set the hook as soon as we detected a bite (signalled by a twitch in the light braid line.)

I fought one salmon for well over 15 minutes on 3-pound line only to lose the fish right beside the kayak after a spectacular aerial display!

We estimated this fish to be around the 4kg mark which is easily the biggest salmon I have hooked in the Clyde.

Fishing the deeper edges of weed beds or rocky points is a good starting point, or using your sounder to locate bait will soon see you in on the action.

I have also had success by the more usual approach of casting lures to fish feeding off the surface.

There are tailor in the system all year round and quite often the fish you see attacking bait that they have pushed up to the surface are tailor.

These are lots of fun, especially when you find the schools of larger fish, but you will know when you hook a salmon amongst the tailor-they fight extra hard and deep.

Winter also provides keen kayak anglers some great snapper fishing in close where many of us enjoy casting soft plastic lures to these great sport and sublime table fish.

The South Coast area offers plenty of options for the kayakers with safe and easy water access, and a paddle of no more than 150m in many of these locations.

As mentioned earlier Rob has been staying up at Windang Beach Tourist Park and is getting some good snapper kayaking off Bass Point.

Fishing prominent headlands like this in depths anywhere between 8 to 20 meters will give you the best chance of landing fish on soft plastic lures.

Over the last few weeks, a group of us have been consistently landing good numbers of snapper and blue morwong up to 3kg.

My kit for snapper fishing usually consists of two spinning combos, one rigged with 10-pound main line and leader, and a lighter combo rigged with 6-pound main line and leader.

Snapper love to hit a lure on the drop so finding the right sink rate is important and this is achievable with jigheads ranging from 1/8 ounce, to 3/8 ounce, with wind, swell and water depth being the deciding factors of what weight should be used.

A white-coloured 5 of 7 inch soft plastic stick bait will complete the picture of another happy angler holding up a nice snapper for the camera.

ROB ON FACEBOOK

In other news, in between snapper Rob has squeezed in some time to open up a Facebook account. You can find him at www.facebook.com/RobPaxevanos and I hope like all his projects this will be a fun and successful one.

Tight Lines!

Craig Coughlan

Tournament Fishing Australia

(This column brought to you by the Wollongong Council Tourist Parks at Bulli, Corrimal and Windang. Superb locations, family friendly and great fishing. More information at www.wollongongtouristparks.com.au )