SPECIES GUIDE: Metropolitan Mulloway
Boost your success rate on metro jewfish by following SAMI OMARI’s suggestions for firstly finding where these great fish hang out and then by using the right gear to present a bait/lure to them.
JEWFISH, aka mulloway, are a something of a mythical beast for many anglers, especially those fishing densely populated waters along the east coast of Australia. The mere mention of jewies being caught around my local waters of Sydney cause inquiring minds to start probing; scouring Wikileaks reveals an abundance of leaked information from the FBI and CIA however mulloway holes and jewie hotspots are notably absent – jewfish anglers are an exceptionally secretive lot with a glimpse into the life of a suburban mulloway fisherman revealing cloak and dagger type behaviour. The good jewie fishermen don’t brag and often fly under the radar while the novice anglers poke and prod for information or spend hours fishing inefficiently without success, compounding their frustration and reinforcing the mythical status of their quarry.
Large mulloway are definitely more cagey than the more brazen and smaller schooling fish. It therefore stands to reason that if you want to maximise your chances of catching a jewie, then targeting the little fellas, or soapies as they are affectionately known, will maximise your chances of a jewfish encounter.
I spend a reasonable amount of time flicking lures and soaking baits in the hard-fished estuaries of Sydney. These include the Parramatta River coupled with Sydney Harbour, the Georges River coupled with Botany Bay and to a lesser extent the Hawkesbury and downstream reaches of Broken Bay, Pittwater and Brisbane Water. All of these rivers and estuaries hold healthy populations of mulloway and this past year was one of the better years for school jewies locally. I don’t exactly know what complex combination of factors led to them being more prevalent this season but what I do know is that I caught, saw and heard of more little jewies over the past 12 months than I have in previous years. Having said that, however, jewie fishing is rarely easy – careful thought and effort is required to get these often timid creatures to bite.
Soapie schoolyard
School jew like hanging out with their buddies – the soapie school yard generally manifests itself as a corner or bend of a river with a hole nearby combined with an area of flats where the little fellas can roam freely as the tidal flow subsides. Holes and river bends feature areas that are unaffected by tidal flow and offer respite from the current while providing these keen eyed predators a conveyor belt like arrangement where the current flow passes above or alongside them bringing past baitfish and other tasty morsels. A resourceful predator watching this conveyor belt of food can dart out and attack anything within comfortable striking distance. Jewies will also hop on this conveyor belt of current when travelling between holding locations so it pays to traverse the fringes of any deep channels when seeking out soapies. While most people pursue the deeper water offered by traditional holes or channels when hunting jewies, the flats adjacent to a stretch of deep water can be a goldmine for meandering school fish. The top of the tide is usually the best time to explore the shallows and in my local waters, light line flats fishing for jew can offer some explosive fishing as the little schoolies cruise along the flats in search of mullet and other unfortunate prey.
Timing your attack
Mulloway optimise their feeding activities to conserve energy – the more energy a fish uses the more it needs to eat. Jewies are therefore opportunistic in their movements and feeding activities. Plenty has been written about optimal fishing times being around the turn of the tide and I’ll echo those sentiments. Jewies will still travel and feed during mid-tide so don’t discount them all together if there’s a little current, however you will need to alter the locations to fish, concentrating on areas where the fish will be effortlessly cruising past and will not have to deviate a great deal to locate your bait or lure.
Boat traffic tends to put fish on edge so it pays to coincide an optimal tide change with a period when human activity is at a minimum (ie, dawn or dusk). This is more of an issue when fishing the shallows and water up to about 10m deep. In the deeper stretches of around 15m and beyond, I’ve caught jewies with pleasure craft zooming around, suggesting they’re likely accustomed to boat traffic if it is a non-threatening distance away.
Retrieves & Baits
The bait versus lure debate is one of personal preference – I’ve had school jew refuse lures only to be tempted by fresh bait and conversely have had baits out and caught fish while flicking lures to pass the time. The prime bait has to be freshly caught squid strips; little jewies seem to prefer strips to a whole squid bait – the best way to maximise a squid bait is to remove the head which you can split to make a couple of baits, remove the guts and ink sack which can be fabricated into another bait and to cut the tube into strips to make many more baits. Squid will generally outfish yellowtail, mullet and just about all other baits. If you think about it, squid are soft, plump morsels of goodness that don’t have any spiky bits which can become lodged in a jewie’s mouth if eaten the wrong way. This ability to attack a squid with reckless abandon is likely wired into a mulloway’s brain with the related association of a safe meal triggering a more brazen and forthcoming strike. Yellowtail and other baitfish, on the other hand, are spiky, annoying things that need to be eaten head first so require a more structured and thoughtful attack.
I think this is also why a slow and subtle retrieve works best with lures – jewies seem to line up their attack and hone in on a target in a calculated fashion rather than come rampaging in. In my experience, the most successful lure retrieve is a slow one; once you think you’ve slowed your lure down enough, pause for a moment longer and slow it down further.
Lures for the job
When I’m fishing for smaller fish up river I prefer to use small blades and 4-5inch soft plastic stickbaits, shads or curl tail grubs. I’ve also been using small hard and soft bibless vibration lures this season with interesting results. Don’t be afraid to throw small bream sized blades in areas you think the school jew will be hiding – one of the best sessions I experienced earlier in the year came from a stretch of river where a group of little schoolies were holed up and refused all of my usual offerings but finally succumbed to a 35mm blade!
Further downstream the influence from the sea is more prevalent, as are the schools or larger baitfish, so I’ll generally fish 5-7 inch soft plastics when targeting schoolies down river. Some days they’ll want smaller lures, other days they’ll want the big guys – jewies can be a fickle at times so if you’re marking fish then plug away at them a few times before changing lure retrieve, size, type or colour.
There’s no definite one retrieve fits all approach when it comes to jewies, however as mentioned before, a slow retrieve is generally far more productive than a fast one.
The bite & the strike
When fishing soft plastic lures, the bite from a school jewie can sometimes be a rattling strike of aggression. More often than not, however, the Sydney schoolies we encounter identify themselves through a single tell-tale timid bite. The bite feels like someone has lightly flicked your line. I strike every timid bite transmitted through the line, jewies don’t have hands and inhale a food item by sucking water through their mouths which is then expelled through their gills – a foreign object or something that doesn’t seem quite right is quickly ejected so it pays to strike when that initial bite indicates the lure is in the fish’s mouth. Thinking through the use of baits suggests that fish can associate fresh and naturally presented baits with a food items previously encountered. This would imply that a jewie is more inclined to inhale a bait and swim away with it. I fish my bait rods in gear and set to fighting drag – once the jewie takes off with the bait, a properly presented rig will have the hook points exposed and should pin the fish without the need to do anything but pick up a loaded rod.
Sounder strategies
Jewies mark well on a properly calibrated sounder so it pays to be familiar with how to optimise the capabilities of the unit you have on board. I remember fishing with my mate Mike Fieldus a little while back and marking three fish in the depths below. With my mate not having caught many jewies on lures, I waited for him to rig up and have the first shot but after he wasted too much time getting his act together and with the drift nearly over I dropped a lure over to be rewarded with an immediate hook-up. That caused old mate to rouse into action and on the following consecutive drifts we caught a couple more schoolies. I’m not suggesting that they were the only three fish down there however the classic fish arcs on the sounder were clearly identifiable; while this may not be a frequent occurrence, it does provide an illustrative example of marking fish. I use my sounder primarily to identify the start of a hole or channel and will seek out tell-tale signs of baitfish which indicate the predators will likely be nearby. In shallow water I’ll occasionally turn off the sounder if I’m familiar with the spot to minimise the chance of the fish shying away from the sound wave produced by the transducer.
Wash your mouth out
If you really feel like washing your mouth out with soap then dong a little jewie and eat it – the smaller fish are average eating so it pays to let the little fellas go. Once they get to a few kilos, however, they start becoming more palatable. I let all the little ones go but if an unfortunate fish around the 10lb mark happens to latch on then its days are well and truly numbered!
While Sydney and surrounding waterways are sprawling with urban development, the local mulloway population seems to have adapted well and with a concerted effort, plus some considered thought, figuring out the jewfish puzzle becomes less of a bewildering challenge than blindly fishing locations in hope of a chance encounter. Mulloway stocking programs in the Georges River have seen healthy populations introduced into the river which eventually make their way into Botany Bay while natural recruitment has seen a reliable supply of fish available in Sydney Harbour and Parramatta River, along with the Hawkesbury. This past season has been a bumper one for the smaller fish and while I know many people who enjoy the challenge associated with chasing the more wily, largerjewies, I like to get out there and chase the schoolies – they’re great fun yet still challenging on light tackle and an above average sized fish can be turned into a terrific meal!
