SPECIES GUIDE: JEWFISH
Every fisho wants to get a big jewfish, right? Well, it ain’t always easy, which is why these fish are such a challenge. DAVID GREEN, who’s caught more than a few monster mulloway over the years, offers up some sage advice for those keen on landing one of these magic estuary sportfish.
CATCHING mulloway, or jewies as they are more colloquially known, isn’t always easy. Lots of keen anglers have a bucket list of fish species they are gradually ticking off, and for many, getting a big jewie is often one of the hardest to crack. How big is a big jewie? Well, it’s all relative. When I was a kid and jewies were a bit more plentiful than they are now, a big jewie was a fish over 50 pounds, which equates to a length of about 125-130cm, depending on the condition of the fish. These days, when most anglers fish in the daytime, I’d rate the mark at around 110cm or better. Some places, such as Yamba and Iluka, constantly produce big fish; in other estuaries a fish over a metre is a whopper. So depending on where you are, set your own mark. But it has to be at least a metre! So how do we tick the “big jewie” box on your bucket list of fish?
Firstly, this project is a big one. Don’t underestimate it. Some anglers crack it quickly, for most it takes a fair bit of work. Sometimes it takes years. The keys to big jewies are to concentrate your efforts at night, fish tide changes and in general use live baits, although lures and dead baits are also good options. The next point is that you have to target jewies. This will mean a concentrated effort on one species. Put the blinkers on. Don’t tinker with feral bream, chase flatties or think about bass. There is a big jewie sub culture in most coastal communities where these fish live. These blokes don’t talk much, they just kind of appear in the middle of the night as the tidal push slows down and quietly go about their business. They aren’t the sort of blokes who get on the internet and put their jewies on Facebook for all to see. Because in the jewie “circle of trust”, loose lips sink ships, or small tinnies as the case may be. I’ve met some great jewie anglers over the years from crusty old bastards with gnarled fingers holding their wooden Alveys to line fishing professionals who made a living catching these great fish. There is a sameness about all of them. They protect their spots. And like the old saying goes, you can’t “unshow” someone a good fishing spot.
There are four types of spots that consistently produce big jewies. They are, in no particular order:
rock walls and river entrances
offshore reefs and wrecks
the first deep hole inside a river mouth
surf beaches.
Access to a suitable boat will determine where you target these fish, but they are the one big fish that is consistently caught from the shore in a wide range of places. They are the beach angler’s best opportunity to land a big fish, and in the years I chased them off the sand on the NSW Central Coast I certainly learnt a lot about how big fish would work a surf gutter at night.
For every big jewie you catch in daylight hours you will catch about six at night for the same effort. This isn’t rocket science, it just happens that jewies are mainly nocturnal and do most of their roaming and feeding under the cover of darkness. Jewies are opportunistic feeders that are well adapted to hunting their prey in minimal light. In times of flood there are also often great opportunities to target jewies in the river mouths in water so brown you can’t see more than a centimetre into it.
Time of year is another important factor. On the Central Coast of NSW the best jewie fishing is usually in summer and autumn; in southern Queensland most of the bigger fish turn up in the winter months. Local advice about the right time of year is generally easy to suss out, and in information rich fishing chat rooms you may find a few pearls of wisdom from those who tell all.
River entrances
There are at least a few big jewies in every river mouth from the South Coast of NSW through to Noosa in SE Queensland. Big rivers such as the Hawkesbury, the Clarence, Macleay and Tweed all hold good populations, but they only tend to be caught when conditions are right. River mouths see a lot of fish traffic, particularly when fish move to spawn at sea, or are migrating along the beaches. Big jewies hunt mullet, blackfish and tailor in these places when these fish are schooling up to spawn, and in southern Queensland the winter run of tiger and sea mullet is a major trigger that brings large mulloway from considerable distances. To find a good jewie spot, find where the mullet are thickest. Look for a big swirling back eddy that lets the mullet get out of the current. Mullet are easy to capture in Queensland with a cast net, and bait is easy to find most nights. In NSW where cast nets are deemed illegal instruments of the devil, mullet need to be line caught. Don’t use a piss ant poddy mullet either – when targeting big jewies you need a bait size about 30cm long. If you can’t get mullet, live tailor, pike or blackfish are also good. In the river mouths, yellowtail and slimy mackerel work well too but tend to be eaten by smaller fish. Don’t be afraid to use big baits.
In general, we look for a deep hole that has mullet schools close to it and fish the top of the tide, usually on a cold winter night. I’ve got a few good spots that look remarkably unattractive during the day due to boat traffic and noise, but on a quiet night are very productive. Fish your live bait so it can swim freely. Some use only one hook, others two, some use lead and others free swim their baits in the current, even in deep water. I tend to use a lead on one rig with a long trace to the bait that is rigged on a pair of 7/0 Octopus hooks on 20 kilo leader, and have a second bait rigged unweighted for when the tide slows. Most of the bites come within an hour of high tide, as this is the time the jewies can hunt most efficiently. At this time it is not uncommon to see big jewies crash the mullet schools on the surface.
This method works in almost every river mouth I’ve ever fished. Jewies always seem to hold near or in the first deep section of a river mouth and if you work the tide changes with big live baits you should get results in the first half dozen or so trips. Once you catch one, the second is generally easier. It’s all about getting confident and building on your successes. If you can’t get livies, try fresh tailor fillets or dead mullet or cast lures on high tide. Live baits are far superior, however.
Rock Walls
For the shore-based angler, man-made rock walls in the entrances of our bigger rivers offer a lot of opportunities to catch big mulloway. In general, most of the fish tend to lie in the area where the rocks meet the sand, and a lot of jewies shelter amongst the boulders and caves that these walls create. At night the fish become active, and roam more freely. I used to fish off the Tweed River wall quite a lot, until they fenced off the gun spot with a big gate. If you are uncertain of where to fish, go for a walk in the day and look for any spot where the wall turns or kinks, as this will create a back eddy on certain parts of the tide. Also check out how easy it is to get close to the water so you can gaff your prize once you’ve fought the fish. Make sure you’ve got good footwear and are safe from both the prevailing sea and big gaps between the rocks.
When fishing off a rock wall don’t make the mistake of casting too far. Most of the big fish tend to come almost under your feet, as they seem to patrol up and down along the edges where the rocks meet the sand. If you can transport some bait such as live mullet, tailor or blackfish to your spot you will be well out in front. You may need a cliff gaff if you are high off the water. Once again, tide changes are often the key to success. When the water flow slows, the fishing gets better. In general I prefer high tide changes but in some areas the change of the low produces more big fish.
Beaches
Most good mulloway beaches have a creek or river entrance and feature a good system of gutters. Beach gutters often run parallel to the sand, and then at a certain point turn out to sea. Fish such as tailor, mullet and whiting work the inshore gutters, and at night mulloway often move in close to shore to chase them. The secret is finding a decent gutter that feeds back out to deeper water with a sand bank of white water on either side of it.
It can be hard to fish livies off the beach, but if you catch a chopper tailor they are definitely worth sending back out on a pair of big hooks. I like surf of around half a metre and a change of high tide between 7 and 10 pm. Good baits include fresh tailor fillets, mullet fillets and whole slimy mackerel. Bream and tailor often chew these up, but it pays to persist. At times small whaler sharks and rays can be a problem. Another good bait is three beach worms on a single hook. Jewies have a great sense of smell and fresh oily baits or worms are most effective.
Some beaches have a reputation for big jewies, others produce mainly schoolies. I never had much success off the beach if there weren’t any other fish about. When there were plenty of chopper tailor in the surf the jewie fishing was usually pretty good. Catching big jewies off the beaches is a bit of a lost art these days but a good gutter is always an attractive option.
Offshore Reefs
A good jewie spot always has some kind of cover where these great fish shelter in the day. Overhanging ledges, sunken wrecks, caves and deep crevasses in the rocks are the key to good jewie spots. In general, they don’t like flat, hard reef. Kelp beds are also very attractive for jewies.
Once again, the secret to success is fishing at night or in the small hours of the morning. We usually fish deep live baits such as pike, big slimies and tailor. Circle hooks work well in these situations. Just leave the rod in the holder until it folds over and takes line under pressure. The added advantage of circle hooks is that if you miss a fish and it takes your bait, you won’t have pricked it or stung it, and if you rebait and drop back down quickly you will often get a second bite. There are two main rigs I tend to use. The first uses a big ball or bean sinker of about 200 grams about 40cm above my hook. Leader is 24 to 30 kilo hard mono and an 8/0 circle hook is attached below this. The second rig has two leaders connected to a brass ring, one two metres long, the other about half a metre. A snapper lead is connected to the longer leader and a circle hook to the shorter leader. I usually connect the livie to the hook with a braided loop and a bait needle so it swims freely. We’ve been using the second rig for a while now with good success. Once again, let the fish hook itself. On the offshore grounds big jewies can at times be quite easy to catch if you’ve got the spot wired and fish live baits and tide changes.
Hopefully the above article gives you some useful tips if you are after that first big jewie. Soft plastics are another good option to try, but if you want some real consistency I don’t think anything beats fishing live baits on tide changes at night for these great fish, particularly if you want to catch a big one.
