BEACH OR ROCK FISHING!

WHICH DO YOU PREFER TO DO?

Over the years I have been asked which types of fishing do I like the best. It may seem like a simple question to many anglers, but to me it would have to be one of the hardest or easiest questions I have had to answer. You see, it doesn’t matter what type of fishing I do, just as long as I am fishing.

Over the coming months I will be putting together “How, When and Where to go Beach and Rock Fishing”. I will hopefully pass onto you many of my different techniques that I have used over the years and also some I the places that I fish from the rocks and beaches throughout Australia. Well, not all of the places, I have to keep some secrets.

I will also include a small question and answer segment in the monthly report. It will be one where anyone can email me a question and I will endeavour to answer it for you and any one else that will read the monthly report. It may be about what gear I use, where I go to fish, what time and tide I fish, the different types I baits I prefer to use and have to catch and store them. It can be about anything that you would like to know about fishing off the beach and the rocks.

Now even though rock fishing is sometimes seen as the dark side of the sport and beach fishing can be regarded as the lighter side, they can, and do go hand in hand with each other. Because where you find one, you will always find the other one close by. Both forms of fishing are very addictive and you will find that many anglers who have taken up either beach or rock fishing at an early age will continue to do so for the rest of their lives, even though they may try other types of fishing.

But let’s face it, there is nothing better than watching the sun rise or set while standing on a beach chasing whiting, bream, tailor, Australian salmon, mulloway and flathead. Maybe it’s the sound of surf lapping up the beach and washing the sand between your toes, maybe it’s the wonderful scenery that can be found along the coastline of Australia or maybe it is a combination of both of the above and the though of catching a fish. Other the other hand you may prefer to stand on a rock platform and cast a lightly weighted bait into sudsy white water and chase bream, drummer, luderick, silver trevally or snapper.

Since my early teen years both rock and beach fishing have always been two of my favourite types of fishing and when I came across the Shakespeare Ugly Stik Platinum range of rods I couldn’t wait until I could get my hands on a couple of them and put them through their paces while fishing off a couple of beach and rock spots that I frequent.

Due to the fact that the beaches that are around the coastline of Australia can change from day to day, hour to hour and even minute to minute, through the constant movement of the waves, wind and tide I have found over the years that if you don’t have fishing gear that will stand up to the changes in the weather and conditions, you may go home disappointed because your gear has broken down in some way.

To help you combat these consent changes Shakespeare have always produced an excellent range of rods for the world angler. Whether you are fishing off a beach or a rock platform you need to have a rod that will stand up to the rigours of beach and rock fishing and when the time came to take these rods out and put them through their paces I couldn’t decide where to go first; beach or rock. So I took both of them and headed down to a local spot where I new that I could fish from both the beach and the rocks.

Over the week and a half proceeding the morning that I hit the beach the seas had been running at about three to four metres and there was heaps of kelp on a major part of the beach, but this would not deter me from chasing a few yellowfin bream and whiting. All it needed was a descent cast to get me over the kelp. So I rigged up the outfit with a paternoster rig. This set-up would enable me to get a cast of about fifty to sixty metres, placing the bait over the back of the kelp and to where the fish were feeding.

It wasn’t long before I felt the tap, tap of what turned out to be a yellowfin bream of about 500 grams that had taken a likening to the mullet strip that I was using for bait. To give the fish a bit more latitude to swallow the bait I lowered the solid clear tip of the rod and allowed the fish to swim off with the bait. Once I felt the weight of the fish through the rod I leant backwards and struck at the fish as it tried to race off along the gutter. Through the sensitivity of the graphite/fibreglass built rod I could feel every turn and lunge of the yellowfin bream, and it wasn’t long before I had the bream at my feet.

The first couple of hours on the beach were the most productive part of the mornings fishing session, as I had managed to bag 4 bream, two dart and 2 dusky flathead. Seeing that the tide was about halfway down and the fish had gone off the bite I decide it was now time to move to the nearby rocks and chase a few drummer and bream. Over the years I have found that many anglers that I have come across who fish of the rocks will only fish them at or near high tide. This was the same with me in my early years of fishing on the rocks. This was mainly due to the fact that the rocks where I use to fish (NSW south coast) didn’t have any water over them at low tide. This would lead to less time fishing off those rocks, so I started to explore the rocks (transport was now a car not a bike) at low tide so I could find places that I could fish during the lower parts of the tide. Thus giving me more time on the water.

If you have never done it before, you would be pleasantly surprised at how many places there are to fish at or near low tide and rock gutters is one of them. It was back in the early eighties that I had the pleasure of fishing with a angler by the name of Alan Perry. Now this guy lives, breaths and eats rock fishing. Alan is one of those anglers who have caught just about every fish species there is to catch off the rocks and also he has the uncanny ability to sniff out a fish from anywhere. Even though I had been fishing rock gutters for a number of years, Alan taught me more about how to fish rock gutters in the first three days that I fished with him, than I had taught myself over ten years.

The tricks or techniques to fishing these gutters was one; to try and use your bait as the weight, two; not have to cast too far, three; remain in contact with the bait, four; have the sensitivity in the rod tip to feel the cautious bite and five; have to power in the rod to be able to turn the fish away from its home.

A cast of about 10 metres was all that was needed to reach the gutter that we were going to fish and as the abalone gut hit the water it burst the gut sack creating an instant berley trail, which in turn attracted to attention of a drummer of about 1.3 kilos. The power of these fish is incredible and it only took a mille second for the drummer to try to head for the nearest cave. With the aid of the 3 metre out and 10 kilo monofilament I was able to turn the fishes head away from its cave and fight it in open water on my terms.

The sensitivity of the solid clear fibreglass rod tip and the double built graphite and E-glass blank enable me to stay in constant contact with the feel of the fish as it used the power of its body and tail to lunge around in the white water. What seemed like an eternity, but was only a couple of minutes the drummer lay on its side in the in the white water.

We fished this small gutter for around an hour or so with lighter baits like peeled prawns, nippers and fillets of pilchards for 3 drummer and two bream before there was no water left in it to fish and we packed up an went home.

Since that early session of putting both of these outfits through their paces I have used them on a number of occasions. Not only are they a great rod for tangling with whiting, bream and drummer off the beach and the rocks when using baits. They are a great rod for chasing silver trevally, snapper, mulloway, tailor and Australian salmon off the beach, rocks and even off the shore when fishing in the estuaries and bays throughout Australia.

If fishing with bait off the beach or rocks is not your scene and you prefer to chase tailor, Australian salmon, bonito and kingfish with lures both of these outfits will help you cast out metal lures and slugs to areas that you may not have been able to get to before.

Gary Brown

Author of

• Fishing Guide to Sydney – Hawkesbury
• Beach and Rock fishing Australia
• DVD - A Day on the Bay