North Australian FISH FINDER forums

I havent made many of posts of late, I have been down in SA since mid/late December to spend Christmas with the family and do some training down here.

Whilst they aren't Barra and Jewies, I thought I'd share some of the SA fishing with you.

The first trip was boxing day, which saw Trent, Jarrod, Ads and I head up to Pt. Vincent to try and nail some big reds. We hit the water at about 6 a.m. and managed to score the bag limit for KG Whiting, some flathead, monster gar and some small snapper. But the big ones eluded us.

The second trip was with Trent, Rick and Ricks uncle 'Bugs' of Victor. Conditions were terrible with a 5M swell and 2m chop on top. Last time I went out in those conditions, I felt a bit green and this time was no different, managed a esky of smaller snappers but none over 60cm...

On the third trip last week Trent and I shot up to Vincent on our own, I bought a HDS5 for my new boat and took it up to show Trent's old man, he decided he liked it more than me so we installed it on his boat. The unit worked really well and I was clearly able to make out snapper schools. We dropped the pick at 5 a.m. in the morning and bang it was on for young and old...

Snapper after snapper to 89cm, with double headers some which destroyed 60lb rigs in seconds. We managed the bag limit of big and small snappers within the hour, so we spend the rest of the morning fishing for whiting, and managed the bag by 1 in the afternoon.

We used 2 - 4kg threadline rods with 2500 size reels for the snapper, which made it awesome fun. Half the snapper were caught on pilies the other half on the new Reidy's Jigs and a few on Shimano Lucanus Jigs. Jigging for snapper on a 4kg rod is just about the most fun I have ever had bottom bouncing.

Anyhow, may or may not get another trip before we come home mid Feb. to my new boat, which is being fitted monday with a new 60hp 4 stroke, can't wait....I'll have to go and get another HDS, maybe this time I'll buy the HDS-7, does anyone know what the prices at IandO Darwin are like?

Its not a bad idea coming to Adelaide in January, the weather is great, the fishing is great and there is no humidity. Better than sitting in Darwin wasting fuel on low yield 'early' run-off trips....

Got some nice eating fish there mate sounds like a great trip,christ if it was rough in that boat imagine how rough it would have been in a GS

Brent Matthews wrote:Its not a bad idea coming to Adelaide in January, the weather is great,

But hows the variation in the weather it knocked the cr.p out of us while we were in Port Aggutter 45 one day 19 the next

On the nexttrip down i will be taking the tinnie for sure

There was some tastey lookin fish in that lot well done

Good to see you can still get fish in SA
Going back in feb for a few weeks.
Its been a while since I had freah KG,s going to have a go and get some

Yep, highly enjoyable and very civilized.

No crocs,

No mozzies,

No midgies,

The fish come out the water pre chilled (they are cold to touch its wierd at first)

Great Costal Scenery with Marinas and pontoons to launch everywhere

KG Whiting are arguably the best eating fish, I had KG and Saltwater barra side by side down here, the KG's win on texture with a slightly fishier flavour than Barra, but I still enjoy a piece of crumbed barra cooked in a little butter....

The snapper are not to bad provided you fillet them and don't eat them with KG's or Barra...

Those whiting fight hard all the way to the boat, got some to 50cms on lures too, they were taking berkley gulps in nuclear chicken jigged along the bottom, great fun on a light rod....

Did you catch any squid while you were down there? I miss those big S.A. squid freshly caught and cooked in garlic butter.

Looked liked some ripper fishing to me Brent you are getting fussy Beats getting your arse chewed by mossies out the South

Ive never heard of anyone catching KG whiting on lures or jigs. Very interesting to hear makes we want to slip down to Eyre Peninsula for a week and have a crack at some of my old whiting holes. Ive heard of the snapper on Jigs but also never tried that.

Thanks for the post a good read. Couldnt see the photos I think there's a problem with the site.

No squid this time SR, but Enrique and I had a blast catching those kraiken last time we were here in his 3.3 polycraft. The best part is landing them, there is nowhere no move or dodge in a 3.3 tuff tender which made for an interesting game of squirt the squid spoof at your mate whilst landing them...

I was stoked to get whiting on gulps! The only down side is the leatherjackets and puffer fish would bite chunks out of the lures, so you ended up using quite a fair few. Didn't get an KG's on jigs only lures, but I might try a few really small jigs next time.

Am going to take the kids to Goolwa to get some cockles, they are $20 a bag these days...

$20 a bag for cockles ???
Is that for bait or eating.
last time in SA cockles were $3.50 a bag but was a long time ago
We use to get 2 to 3 bags for a days fishing crushing up most to use as berley that wouid make a days whiting trip pretty expensive nowdays

Yep, $20 a bag for 'bait' cockles, and thats only a 500g bag, the 250g bag is 14 bucks.

Thats why I am of to dig up my own, now there is a bag limit of 300 per person....lucky i've got kids!!!

Brent Matthews wrote:Yep, $20 a bag for 'bait' cockles, and thats only a 500g bag, the 250g bag is 14 bucks.

Thats why I am of to dig up my own, now there is a bag limit of 300 per person....lucky i've got kids!!!

Nice fish there Brent.

SA is definetly the capital for KGW and snapper. The size of the King George make a mockery of most of ours.

Yep,the pippie debacle is annoying. Seems the Chinese discovered you can eat them,so now you have to pay premium food prices for a little p!ss ant bag that used to cost $3-4.
I've switched over to Mussels from Coles. $6 a kg,have to shuck them all yourself,but 5 times cheaper than using pipi's now

Brent Matthews wrote:Yep, $20 a bag for 'bait' cockles, and thats only a 500g bag, the 250g bag is 14 bucks.

Thats why I am of to dig up my own, now there is a bag limit of 300 per person....lucky i've got kids!!!

Haven't lived in SA for over 11 years. When fishing for whiting, my favourite burley was crushed cockles - normally about a 4 litres a trip.

Don't think I could afford that now.

Used to be a cockle machine at the servo when I lived in Adelaide, I think it was $1 worth of 20c coins (my old man paid) and out poured the cockles