North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

I am a newby to chasing Billies and I am keen on getting a Tiagra to be part of my arsenal to chase billfish. Originally I liked the 12a spooled with braid. Now I am thinking the 30a with 15kg mono.

I would like opinions regarding what I need for our waters.

Basically this will be the big outfit in the spread. Others will be spin rods with a Saltiga 6500, Catalina 5000, Stella 10000, and a Saltiga 4500.

A sneaky second question is - I am thinking of mounting the tiagra on a good Jigging rod (I have a nice Jigging Master model in mind). I l;ike the action of jigging rods and I dont see why they would not be perfect for this use.

Any advice appreciated.

Tiagra ' s are nice we run two 50wlrsa on the corners these are a bit over kill up here but good for trips away to the big girls. we have caught some good marlin on tyrnos 30 2 speeds up here and they had plenty of line still on them during the fights. A tiagra 30 would be well suited up here I reckon. But only with mono you to big a reel for braid.

it really depends on where you plan to chase them? if you're sticking to the gutters and off Dundee then the Tiagra 16's are spot on loaded with 10kg line for the sails and rat blacks that seem to be tagged, if you plan to head wide out to Bathurst the Tiagra 30WLRSA's spooled with either 750m of 15kg or 500m of 24kg would be the go. I'm now running Tyrnos 30 singles for mine as I sold all my bling before I got here (I had 3 30WLRSA's and 2 50WLRSA's on top of 2 little 12's loaded with 8kg)

As for the rods the reason I'd steer clear of jigging rods is they are too short and too parabolic in their action, they are built for braid and using that rod to put the hurt on, in game fishing due to the stretch in mono you're just like a big spring, with short stroker rods and retrieving line you're really keeping constant pressure more through drag than the rod itself and gaining line slowly not pumping and winding like crazy, that's how you will lose your fish, the grips are probably not ideal as the fore grip will be short so you can't use that mechanical advantage of holding up high taking that strain on a run especially if not using a harness. also they are very thin in the base meaning if you get a bl..dy good hit on a jig rod you run the risk of breaking your rod holder on the hit as it isn't a snug fit inside them.

Also it's just another excuse for another toy in the shed, I love the live fibre range of rods as they are 7ft long meaning you can move around the motor as you need during a fight and get good leverage, the reel seats aren't too far up the rod so your arms are at a good length and not reaching for the reel and they have a nice high foregrip for when you need to just hold it.

I hope that helps, I'm no expert but I've caught more billies in my time than barra.

Pm'd you makrel