Drummer and Groper, The Easy Way

July 11, 2018

Check this out. Notice anything? The way it blows hard on weekends, and calms down mid week – when everybody’s at work:

Frustrating. Many of our clients hope and pray for good weather on the weekend, so they can get out chasing kingfish or tuna. But so often, it doesn’t work out. Here’s yesterday, at Narrabeen Beach:

Note the westerly blowing spray off the breaking waves. When you see that, you know the further you go out, the rougher it’s going to get. Incredibly frustrating. What has been working for me is to fish somewhere out of these brutal winds. Here in Sydney that’s going to be the rocks. Protected by the cliffs, you can see how calm the water is. This pic taken on a windy day:

What species to target? Well, we all like going home with something in the bag. And there’s no better combination of eating quality, numbers and a good fight on matched gear than the blackfish. These ones caught at the spot shown above, Obelisk Beach in Sydney Harbour:

We offer an inexpensive blackfish combo ready to go. Supplied prerigged with correctly balanced floats and everything you need to get straight into them. Thousands of blackies have been caught on the combo this year:

$95 plus postage. Not just for blackfish, we use it on everything from squid to salmon. Blog continues below.

 

What’s that you say? ‘Andy, I need a bigger fish than that, to activate my almonds.’  No problem! Come with me on Sunday’s run to Turrimetta Head, on Sydney’s northern beaches:

X marks the spot where I met up with Mike Fitzgerald on Sunday morning:

Took along a few packets of breadcrumbs and some cooked prawns. And yes, cooking does destroy any white spot disease, in prawns:

From the Queensland Fisheries website:

Dumped a few packs of breadcrumbs at Spot Y. Not directly into the water, but in the rock pools where it would slowly wash into the sea. Target fish being two well known brawlers – drummer and groper. The rig being 50-pound colour change braid down to three metres of 50 mono straight through to the hook with a small ball sinker above. *Cooked* prawn shells and heads go into the gutter, mixed with the breadcrumbs. You’ll need Mustad 542 hooks, size 1/0 (which we include in the combo.) But there’s one special extra needed to avoid this problem:

Bait stealing pickers. The burley attracts a lot of pest fish. Through the braid you can feel a relentless tap, tap, tap as pickers nibble your prawn right off the hook:

We have the answer. Bait mesh. Note the prawn at the top of the pic below? It’s been meshed. The mesh has no scent or taste. Most pickers can’t get through it. That keeps your bait in the strike zone until something big – groper, drummer, or bream – swallows it down:

Didn’t catch any monsters! But the plan worked great. This six pounder the best for the morning:

He went hard - as they always do - but our powerful stickbait combo kept him away from the sharp ledges:

Had a ball and going again this weekend to try for a bigger one. Like to know more about the combo?

 

And if you decide to order, type ‘drummer’ in the ‘note to merchant’ box. We’ll add leader, bait mesh, hooks and sinkers – no charge. Thanks for reading,
 
Andrew Hestelow
Managing Director
http://www.downriggershop.com.au/
https://www.downriggershop.com/
Tel. 0402075000
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