Sebile Pro Staff Winter Snapper Report
By Mark "The Captain" Phillips
I'm a warm blooded creature by nature and can honestly say winter is not my favourite season of the year. The only saving grace for me is it's the best time of the year to target snapper on the NSW coast as they move into shallower water to spawn. This winter I've concentrated my efforts on fishing with Sebile Flatt Shads which has proved to be a very interesting and productive exercise. These lures are very unique in the way they are designed and have a few very subtle characteristics that make them excellent snapper lures.
The first part of becoming proficient in catching snapper with any form of artificial is understanding the way snapper hunt and feed. While big reds are often shy and very wary, at times they can be very focused on hunting and show a blatant disregard for everything around them except for what they want to eat. Snapper will often hunt very close to the surface during periods of low light, under white water or when there is something close to the surface to feed on, even in the middle of a bright sunny day. In the past I've caught snapper within metres of the surface when the sounder has been reading 60 metres.
|
|
One thing that snapper love is a wounded morsel falling through the water column. Ask yourself how many times you hook snapper on the drop when you're soft plastic fishing? If you have done a bit of off shore plastic fishing you will know that more often than not your presentation will be attacked on the drop or just as it's started to free fall after a lift of the rod tip. Flat shads have very similar water column flexibility to a soft plastic presentation and can be fished in very a similar fashion.
Unlike most vibration style lures, the Sebile Flatt Shad has a narrow head and a flared belly section. This allows it to fall through the water column bolt upright, with the occasional twitch it will seductively shimmy as it's sinking. Flat shads will sink all the way to the bottom like this but will quite often get eaten long before they get there. The second really cool feature of the Flatt Shad is it's action. It's deep flat sides emit a large amount of vibration and water turbulence even when it's worked dead slow or with the slightest twitch of the rod tip. Many vibration style lures will not perform at such slow speeds. |
|
Once the Flatt Shad's reached the bottom I've found it's simply a matter of varying a standard one or to hop retrieve until you get results. Water column flexibility and the fact you can fish the Flatt Shad vertically without the lure tumbling and fouling the leader up makes it a very versatile lure.
I've been predominately fishing in areas of rugged broken reef that vary from 10 to 25 metres in depth. In good conditions I've found the 77mm SK very suited to these sort of areas as it's sink rate allows it to get down to the bottom after a long cast in the direction of the drift, without plummeting like an over weighted soft plastic. This gives the lure plenty of opportunity to temp those big surface and mid water hunting fish before it reaches the bottom. In most cases the fish up high in the water column will be a lot more aggressive towards a lure than fish that are holding close to the bottom, simply because they are up there for one reason and that's to feed.
The fish in this photo was caught in 25 metres of water. We spotted a couple of gannets diving into some scattered bait, drove over and had a cast in the general direction they were hitting the water. My drag was screaming within seconds of the Flatt Shad hitting the water. The fish was hunting within the top five metres of the water column and couldn't resist the Flatt Shad's tempting free fall. That's the way I love catching snapper.
I've found the 66mm and 96mm Extra-Heavy Sinking (XH-SK) versions work well when the fish are either holding tight near the bottom, on windier days when drift speeds are a little fast or the depth I'm fishing in is greater than 25 meters of water. If I need to get down fast the XH-SK models are my go too option.
|
In these situations line diameter is one of the key factors to success. I like to fish with fused super lines around the 6 to 8 pound mark, taking into account that 8 pound Fireline will break at close to 18 pound. Thin lines reduce drag both above and below the water's surface, increasing sink rates and allowing you to stay in contact with your hook points which is paramount when fishing with lures.
The Flatt Shad Snagless 66mm XH-SK is another model that works a treat around the rugged kelpy bottoms that snapper love. The Snagless model is just the ticket to work heavy cover without the frustration of snagging up. The double hook design works really well when it comes to hooking up fish and avoiding annoying snags. I've found many of the larger Snapper I have caught on Flatt Shads have had the entire lure in their mouth,(check out the photo), so don't be put off by something that looks a little different, it works!
Patrick has put a lot of thought into the Flatt Shad. As with all of the Sebile line up his years of time on the water shine through when you fish it. The Flatt Shad is a very easy lure to fish and I've found it works consistently on snapper whether you are fishing the washes, drift casting or bombing them down deep on fish marked with the sounder.
Cheers and happy fishing,
Captain Mark Phillips
Sebile Pro Team Angler |
|
|
