Specialty Fishing

[Wolly Bugger]

The variety of salt water species, often means have different setups and equipment.

For garfish I have small hooks, floats and different burly, plus tongs to handle the gar.

Whiting, again the hooks are a little larger, and sinkers,

Squid, means having squid jigs and rods.

Surf fishing, means having 12 foot rods, rod holders and the rig depending on the species, snapper or shark, or elephant.

Salmon I generally spin, so have another few rods and lures.

Then there is the boat fishing, where long rods are a real pain with the best lengths being between 5' and 7'.

[seephil]

This might sound like a stupid question, but why tongs for handling gars? I have never caught any nor have i honestly tried too. I will definitely try to now since you gave some handy tips. Thanks!

Talking about specialty fishing, baits used. When you go targeting certain species i.e. flatty, snapper, pinkies, gummies, they all take similar baits on similar rigs.

I once took an 8ft rod out on a boat. It had good leverage but horribly cumbersome. Never again... 6' to 7' is my preference for WPB or PPB

[Wolly Bugger]

This might sound like a stupid question, but why tongs for handling gars? I have never caught any nor have i honestly tried too. I will definitely try to now since you gave some handy tips. Thanks!

Talking about specialty fishing, baits used. When you go targeting certain species i.e. flatty, snapper, pinkies, gummies, they all take similar baits on similar rigs.

I once took an 8ft rod out on a boat. It had good leverage but horribly cumbersome. Never again... 6' to 7' is my preference for WPB or PPB

The scales come off the gars as soon as you handle them, so using the tongs to hold them whilst you get the hook out, then put them into the bucket. The scales on garfish are also very sticky, so using the tongs helps keep your hands clean.

[mazman]

thanks for the tip about the gars, would a rag also work?

[Brett]

thanks for the tip about the gars, would a rag also work?

Yes, but it soon ends up covered in scales and becomes useless

[cobby]

Is there any other way? It's got me stuffed why people try to catch upteen different fish 5 different ways with the same gear then whinge one ways crap or they just don't catch.

There's a reason there's hundreds of different rods and other gear...

[Wolly Bugger]

Is there any other way? It's got me stuffed why people try to catch upteen different fish 5 different ways with the same gear then whinge one ways crap or they just don't catch.

There's a reason there's hundreds of different rods and other gear...

It's perhaps best to plan your target species, for example gars, but it is also possible to catch mullet, and up size the hook and go for whiting.

So it plans to a variety of setups with you.

[cobby]

Obviously there's some crossovers, and I've got a few, generally though what's used for one area and species differs from others.

I've got 3 light lure outfits. One has more balls than the rest and doubles as a ppb snapper stick. Ones a fair noodle and doubles as my squid stick. The last is smaller (6'6") for tighter areas. All run the same 6lb braid. I don't use the ballsier stick on squid, the same as I don't use the shorter rod on snapper.

2 bass outfits. One baitcast, the other spin. These don't have double duties at all. Magnesium bc reel prevents salt use, to light for cod.

A heavier 4-8kg/4000 reel lure outfit. Used rarely in Westernport. Skull drags snapper in ppb so is to heavy For there. It's got a double use purely due to budget constraints. It was showed up on undersized kings this year. I got the fish yes, but had I hooked them 10m down and not just under the surface, I'd have been busted easily.

Whiting rods are nibble tips, these double for bait collection.

4 Westernport gummy/snapper outfits. Only used for those 2 species in Westernport and if I fished it, welshpool area.

4 dusty bait rods for ppb. Tr200g overheads on lighter sticks. To light for Westernport Snapper/Gummies. To heavy for Westernport Whiting.

Plus some other gear that has its own uses (deep Whiting etc.)

Theoretically I could have less outfits by sacrificing one thing or another in their perspective performance on whatever tasks I want them for... But I'll never be 100% happy or 100% confident they'll be up to it resulting in bust offs, skull drag fights or missed bites

[seephil]

Thanks Wolly. Never knew they needed to be handled like so. No wonder I've seen rags used to hold the gars when people used them for live bait.
Would love to target them one day maybe with my little nephews and niece.

[ducky]

Obviously there's some crossovers, and I've got a few, generally though what's used for one area and species differs from others.

I've got 3 light lure outfits. One has more balls than the rest and doubles as a ppb snapper stick. Ones a fair noodle and doubles as my squid stick. The last is smaller (6'6") for tighter areas. All run the same 6lb braid. I don't use the ballsier stick on squid, the same as I don't use the shorter rod on snapper.

2 bass outfits. One baitcast, the other spin. These don't have double duties at all. Magnesium bc reel prevents salt use, to light for cod.

A heavier 4-8kg/4000 reel lure outfit. Used rarely in Westernport. Skull drags snapper in ppb so is to heavy For there. It's got a double use purely due to budget constraints. It was showed up on undersized kings this year. I got the fish yes, but had I hooked them 10m down and not just under the surface, I'd have been busted easily.

Whiting rods are nibble tips, these double for bait collection.

4 Westernport gummy/snapper outfits. Only used for those 2 species in Westernport and if I fished it, welshpool area.

4 dusty bait rods for ppb. Tr200g overheads on lighter sticks. To light for Westernport Snapper/Gummies. To heavy for Westernport Whiting.

Plus some other gear that has its own uses (deep Whiting etc.)

Theoretically I could have less outfits by sacrificing one thing or another in their perspective performance on whatever tasks I want them for... But I'll never be 100% happy or 100% confident they'll be up to it resulting in bust offs, skull drag fights or missed bites

Ever since I got into fishing heavily from about 20yo I've been buying gear and upgrading it on around a 2 year cycle. Some people baulk at the price of rods and reels but its a collection thats taken 7 years to build and good fishing gear has a pretty good resale value so it's not too bad. I know blokes that ride dirt bikes and it's rare for them to have a bike for longer then 3 years before upgrading and losing a few thousand in the process. Plus upkeep.

I'm of the honest belief that you could own 100 outfits and still have a style of fishing you'd like to do that requires a specialist rod. Hell I don't have any baitcasting or fly gear. It may come eventually but not yet. Anyway I'm still awake from watching Carl Jocumsen so heres a rundown of my gear. Nearly all of them cost me around $150-200 for the rods with the customs and megabass orichi running to around $300ea


1 squid rod. 7'8 megabass caiyen. Nice little rod
1 storm gomoku black for lighter jigging
1 24kg tcurve revo offshore for heavy jigging and trolling work
2 x 24kg game outfits. tiagra 30wlrs and 50wlrs
3 x 7'2 general purpose 2-5kg sticks as posted in a thread recently. Main purpose is wpb whiting and ppb snapper
2 tcurve revo offshore wpb gummy/snapper rods, 6-12kg and 10-15kg. Will probably sell the 6-12 in favour of another 10-15
2 wilson live fibre 2-4kg sticks that are closer to 1-3kg. Very tippy and awesome as bait collectors. A bit light for wpb whiting
1 8-14lb custom MHX rod originally built for jew's but is way too heavy for the purpose. This is being kept as a king/sbt stick
1 9 foot custom MHX surf spin rod for salmon
2 lure rods, a 4-8lb st croix custom and a 4-16lb megabass orichi x4 intimidator. these are my 2 favourite rods in the collection

also take out a 13fishing junior rod for my 3yo son when I take him fishing and a shimano lipstix rod for the wife. Mainly so she doesn't break my gear haha


Recently sold 3 lure specific rods and 3 reels with aim to pickup another 4-12lb megabass and luvias so I have bases with a bit of overlap covered