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Luderick lessons

I FIRST fished for luderick about 45 years ago as a schoolboy beside Athol Wharf which serviced Taronga Zoo on Sydney Harbour.

I visited there recently and the wharf looked much the same but the rock wall we used to fish was all but covered in foliage and the lovely deep water where we used to drift our floats on the rising tide was filled with thick kelp type weed and looked pretty unfishable.

As I was standing there thinking of those great times gone past, out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge creature come up to the surface for a breath of air and then submerge again before I could quite realise what I’d seen.

It was a huge sea lion with a mottled fur coat and it surfaced again twice before it casually cruised out of view. Now that was something I’d never seen in all my trips there as a young boy with a couple of mates. He looked like he was confidently cruising a beat like a big brown trout and I’ll bet he had cleaned up or scared off any luderick that were still there! 

In those early days at Taronga Zoo we fished alongside some old locals who were jealous of their spot and very reluctant to share any of their secrets with the young fellas! Nothing new there… luderick fishing has always had that reputation for old blokes who are masters of their craft and less than willing to pass on their hard earned knowledge to anyone but those who do their apprenticeship on the rocks and breakwalls and give the old blokes a bit of space and respect.

We had to learn from observation and find out where good weed could be found (stringy weed in those innocent days… not cannabis!) and make sure we cut up some for berley and mixed it with sand. My mates and I saved long and hard and mowed lawns or did household chores to buy long whippy twelve foot solid fibreglass rods and cheap Steelite centrepin reels loaded with Damyl Royale line. We felt very well equipped with cork and cane stemmed floats and a container of swivels and split shot and very small ball sinkers.

We used the last of the flat ended sneck hooks and were very happy to get eyed hooks when they became available in the smallest sizes to suit our much loved luderick. Now I know this sounds like fishing in the dark ages but in reality it is not really that long ago. Much has changed in recent years but ironically much has stayed the same. 

Go to any coastal rock wall or rocky headland where weed grows and you will find the old guys and the newbies all giving luderick or drummer fishing a go. 

Fishing for luderick is just as captivating and that attraction is hard to explain. Some say there is a connection between fly fishermen and luderick fishos and I think they are right. All my mates that love luderick also love trout on fly and also fish for luderick on fly as much as they go old school with weed and float fishing. There is just something about fishing for the enigmatic luderick that sucks you in no matter how you go about catching them. 

Even old school and new school gets confused in the mix. Today we have excellent fibreglass and fibreglass graphite mixes. Two of my favourite rods are the fibreglass Gary Howard 10’6” Estuary Luderick with a relatively fast taper that tames any estuary luderick, while for the rocks I have a classic Wilson built SnyderGlas 11’3”’ “Mag Bream” which is a beefier fast taper rod with a graphite mix for holding fish off the rocks and coping with the occasional drummer that takes the weed and gives me a flogging. In the old days the fibreglass rods were solid construction and very soft and slow to cope with the light monofilament greased up lines we used.

Today we see more potent rods with sensitive tips combined with heavier floating mono lines like Dango Float from Japan. These lines are brightly coloured so you can easily see them. I had to get in touch with my feminine side when the latest bright pink 16lb Dango turned up in the mail! These lines are magic for drifting and lifting effortlessly into the strike because of their perfect floating qualities. 

Today’s modern floats are a bit like comparing an old torpedo to an exocet missile. They both work well but the new floats are weighted for neutral buoyancy when teamed up with a swivel sinker system weighted perfectly to each size float in the collection. They look so sophisticated, sexy and modern compared to our old cork and orange stemmed models. 

Rods are also available in high modulus graphite just like fly rods or long competition float rods by companies like GLoomis from the USA. We also have the Korean influence of really long telescoping ISO fishing rods that also enhance the fight and seem to be growing in popularity.

The cost of some of these rods is pretty mind blowing and I’ve resisted using these as it’s very easy to damage your equipment on the rocks or breakwaters where we fish and often have to put our rods down because we don’t have enough hands to cope with the lively luderick after we’ve netted it! Inevitably they get a bit scratched up. That is why I don’t use my expensive graphite trout or trout spey rods in these localities.

In the estuaries wading out over the sand and fishing over weedbeds is another story altogether. We have huge fun fishing our #3 and #4 weight 11’ trout spey rods with floating spey lines and tiny orange torpedo floats and weed flies. This has added another dimension to our luderick fishing and is surprisingly successful. The added bonus is the pleasure of the tussle on these long light fast taper super responsive rods. This is saltwater wade fishing and spey casting combined and is essentially the same as indicator nymphing for trout. Frankly, it is a blast!

Reels for luderick have traditionally been freshwater centrepin models (Older guys will remember with affection the expensive Avon Royale) from Britain and more recently Japan, and the Australian Alvey models which range from small side-casts to a true centrepin in the excellent 475 CP. Many younger anglers today fish with spinning reels and especially those with a baitrunner style facility to let line pull off the reel at very light drag and then click into drive for hooking and fighting the luderick. I often use an old but immaculate Shimano 3500 size baitrunner off the rocks when sheer casting distance or speed of retrieve is a factor. Traditonalists seem to look down on this approach but in truth they are great for blackfishing and much easier to cast and invariably have very good drags. 

Old school anglers both young and old, prefer centrepins because they are perfect for keeping in touch with the float with their completely free running spool and allow absolute control and enjoyment when fighting the fish. The downside is they require a great deal more skill to cast and operate. They do not have substantial drag systems so skilful palming of the spool is the order of the day. For many anglers this level of skill is part of the charm factor and what blackfishing is all about. Many spinning reel fishermen “graduate” to centrepins because that is what they see the real gun anglers using and suppose it must be worth the effort. They are right!

In terms of rigs and line we are now seeing a big shift to fluorocarbon because of its low refractive index which means it is virtually invisible in water. It also sinks better than monofilament and it is tougher where the luderick occasionally run our lines against the rocks. 

I like to use a running float for all my rock fishing and I’ve just bought a couple of the excellent new school floats from www.luderick.com.au and matched them up with their appropriate weight swivel barrel sinker and they are a revelation with their high stem with a small fluorescent orange ball on the top that sits high of the water surface for excellent visibility. These are neutrally balanced and easily the most sensitive floats I have ever used. You can get any float to work with some time spent weighting it correctly but these European made floats just match up and do the job perfectly. I imagine they come from the coarse fishing scene in Europe but for our estuary luderick fishing they are perfection. They look particularly good on the down!

My terminal rig nowadays is Dango Float 16lb line to which I add a small torpedo stopper and gently slide it a couple of metres up the line for later depth adjustment then thread on the float. I thread on another torpedo stopper, then a metre below that I tie the Dango to the appropriate swivel barrel sinker. To that I add half a metre of eight pound fluorocarbon then a swivel and another half metre of six pound flourocarbon and tie on a chemically sharpened green Mustad blackfish hook or a Gamakatsu green panfish hook in size 8.

These modern hooks are expensive but particularly effective. They hold cabbage or stringy weed equally well and increase the number of successful hook-ups for me these days. The top stopper is adjusted for the depth required and the second stopper below the float keeps it about a metre away from the swivel sinker so that the fluorocarbon dropper with the hook and weed doesn’t get tangled in the float while casting. Setting up this way gives the whole rig a nice balance and makes it easier to cast. With the 16lb Dango floating line through to the swivel sinker it is very unlikely I will lose the sinker or float because the much lighter fluorocarbon invariably breaks or the hook straightens if I ever get snagged.

I really appreciate the new materials available today with modern rods, reels and lines. I still like to use old school methods with some of the new school technology. For me the perfect set up is the rods I’ve mentioned and an Alvey 475CP if I have the room to do a big round arm cast.

If I’m in a “picket fence” on the wall at Nelson Bay in NSW in winter when the fish are really running and every man and his dog is there shoulder to shoulder and space to cast is limited, I use the spinning reel. I’ve noticed on many occasions the old guys wearing the check flannel shirts and wielding the modern fiberglass rods and centrepin reels seem to get the lions share of the fish… just a few years to go and I reckon I will look good in one of those shirts, and who knows, they may be the secret to this luderick fishing caper and not all that high tech gear after all! 

See you out there wearing your life-jacket (old school) or your PFD Personal Flotation Device (new school) on the ocean rocks and getting amongst them! 

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