Tell me about fishing for gars

Pilchards, Garfish, Berley, Whitebait, Fresh Squid, Tuna Oil, Chicken, etc
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4liters
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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by 4liters » Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:21 pm

dazz999 wrote:
Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:12 pm
4liters wrote:
Thu Jan 30, 2020 5:19 pm
Interesting a few people have mentioned silverfish. The guy at the tackle shop told me silverfish were great as long as they were the tiny ones. He said for some reason the bigger ones cut into small pieces never worked very well for him.

Sounds like dispersal of the burley might be one of the issues, with my mix being too thick perhaps.

Based on what people have mentioned I'll make up a couple of batches for the weekend - I'll try my idea of putting the chook pellets in the food processor to see if that gets a nice fine mix (mainly because I have 3/4 of a 10kg bag of chook pellets sitting around in the shed and I'd prefer to find a way to make them work if possible), and I'll grab some breadcrumbs and mix with a little oil (I'm sure the gars don't know the difference between tuna oil and sardine oil).

I'll also try a few different baits. I couldn't get maggots at Trelly's but I'll shoot CA Geelong a message and see if they have any. I've got squid, and if I get a flatty I'll give that a crack too.

Sunday is looking quite manageable for fishing the same place as last time so I'll have a crack and see how it goes.

Thanks for the responses so far, I appreciate it.
Dude forget the squid and flatty,s give them what they like maggot,s and silverfish. Do you fish for trout with pilchard,s no they dont like them pm me i will run you threw it
Cheers, have you found using cut up bits of larger silverfish to make much difference compared to using the tiny little ones? Hearing from the tackle shop guy that the big silver fish sucked was the only reason I didn't go with them the other day.
2015/16 Fisting Victoria Species comp total: 289cm
Brown Trout: 37cm
Flathead: 51cm; Squid: 36cm; Australian Salmon: 51cm; Snapper 46cm; Silver Trevally 23cm; KGW: 45cm
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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by dazz999 » Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:47 pm

Yep larger silver fish are crap /suck gotcha baits use to sell a great size but due to disease no longer can sell them bang for buck,s go for maggot,s .Maggot,s are great some times gar,s will only take to one on the hook at a time other time,s 2 / 3 etc just mix it up and till you strike what they want they will let you know

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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by e.welch » Thu Jan 30, 2020 7:10 pm

i was down Frankston earlier a guy was catching a ton of gars there was a school of like two hundred they wouldnt even look at my smallest lure but he was having no probs on bait

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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by Redhunter » Thu Jan 30, 2020 7:20 pm

dazz999 wrote:
Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:12 pm
4liters wrote:
Thu Jan 30, 2020 5:19 pm
Interesting a few people have mentioned silverfish. The guy at the tackle shop told me silverfish were great as long as they were the tiny ones. He said for some reason the bigger ones cut into small pieces never worked very well for him.

Sounds like dispersal of the burley might be one of the issues, with my mix being too thick perhaps.

Based on what people have mentioned I'll make up a couple of batches for the weekend - I'll try my idea of putting the chook pellets in the food processor to see if that gets a nice fine mix (mainly because I have 3/4 of a 10kg bag of chook pellets sitting around in the shed and I'd prefer to find a way to make them work if possible), and I'll grab some breadcrumbs and mix with a little oil (I'm sure the gars don't know the difference between tuna oil and sardine oil).

I'll also try a few different baits. I couldn't get maggots at Trelly's but I'll shoot CA Geelong a message and see if they have any. I've got squid, and if I get a flatty I'll give that a crack too.

Sunday is looking quite manageable for fishing the same place as last time so I'll have a crack and see how it goes.

Thanks for the responses so far, I appreciate it.
Dude forget the squid and flatty,s give them what they like maggot,s and silverfish. Do you fish for trout with pilchard,s no they dont like them pm me i will run you threw it
Fun fact : Many trout have been caught on pilchard, whitebait, and glassies, because they DO like them. I can say that from first hand experience. Bows and Browns ;) .

You’re spot on about the gents and silverfish though :tu: . If gars are the target, they are the best baits to use. Sounds like you’re all over it Dazz. The good ol “mini-marlin” are great fun.

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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by croe04 » Thu Jan 30, 2020 7:51 pm

dazz999 wrote:
Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:47 pm
Yep larger silver fish are crap /suck gotcha baits use to sell a great size but due to disease no longer can sell them bang for buck,s go for maggot,s .Maggot,s are great some times gar,s will only take to one on the hook at a time other time,s 2 / 3 etc just mix it up and till you strike what they want they will let you know
How big is a silverfish that's considered 'large' ?

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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by ChrisTaylor » Thu Jan 30, 2020 7:58 pm

The point about 'float stoppers' is worth putting thought and energy into. As part of my little 'catch them all' project, I threw some tiny soft plastics at gars the other night. A few people were fishing for them at Frankston pier, and they were spaced out enough that I figured I wouldn't cause any problems if I took advantage of their combined burley trail. While my hooks ended up being too big (tiny gars, and the maggot plastics I ordered haven't arrived yet), I did notice a couple of things that:

- they will hit a moving target, at least one that moves slowly
- they will only hit the target (moving or otherwise) at a certain depth, even if they're in a feeding frenzy (if it's too deep, even by a little, they'll dismiss it), so you'd need to adjust your hook to ensure it's at that depth, so they're quite unlike pinkies or salmon in that regard

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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by fishnut » Fri Jan 31, 2020 8:45 am

4liters wrote:
Wed Jan 29, 2020 9:08 pm
After my debacle of a effort at Portland over the long weekend I decided that I needed a backup source of fresh baits and/or livies when the water was too stirred up for squid to be a realistic target in a short bait collecting session before targeting something a bit higher up the food chain.

Gars (being kingy candy) seem like a sensible target, apparently being available almost anyplace where there is shallow water and a weed covered seafloor. Unfortunately I'm crap at catching them.

Most people I've spoken to say they're the easiest fish in the bay to catch but I've struggled to get more than one or two over any entire day.

To get some practice I went to the Grammar School Lagoon today to have a crack at them. First stop was close to the moorings, I anchored up and got the burley going. Pretty soon there were a bunch of minnows in the burley trail and a school of pinkies mooching in the 2m deep, crystal clear water. No gars though, and weed pretty quickly became an issue as the tide pushed clumps of seagrass into my lines, fouling the hooks.

Next stop was near the mouth of the channel, the weed was still a bit of an issue but a potentially bigger issue was that the wind was 90 degrees to the current flow and it was blowing my float out of the berley trail. After 40min or so of not catching a thing it was time to move again.

Final stop was over at Avalon. It's not a huge trip across from the lagoon, and this time I started drifting rather than anchoring. This was a bit more successful - I was moving in roughly the same speed and direction as the weed so it wasn't getting dragged into my lines nearly as much, the burley trail went straight out in the direction I had drifted from, and the float and unweighted hook I had out were both right in the middle of the trail. Not only that, I could see gars in the trail from time to time, and I even caught a few.

The problems with this approach were that I was plagued by tommy ruff and micro pinkies, and most of the smaller gars were not hitting the baits for some reason - the only ones I got were quite big with the red beaks, which isn't a problem as such but for bait I'd rather have lots of smaller ones rather than a couple of big ones.

My rigs:
Unweighted size 12 Gama longshank, drifted back down the trail
Size 12 Gama under a Gillies quill float, weighted down with 2 split shot sinkers so only the top quarter or so of the float was above the surface

Burley was chook pellets and tuna oil, wetted with a bit of water so it went all mushy.

Bait was small (less than 5mm) squares of PPB IQF pilchards.

Some thoughts:

I wonder if my burley was fine enough? There were some larger chunks coming out of the bucket and I'm not sure if that was feeding the gars too much. Next time I'm going to put the water and pellets into the food processor to make sure they're really fine and see if that makes a difference. I'm keen to hear what others think about this.

Are my hooks too big? They look like they should fit in the mouth of a fairly small gar but maybe they're a bit sensitive to hook size/bait size?

Will they swallow a moving bait? Drifting worked better than anchoring for me today, but 4 gars from 7 hours of fishing is a far cry from a quick bait collecting session. Does anyone else do it this way? Or is it generally better to anchor.

When anchored, how do people deal with the wind, weed, current etc. I can see it working well enough in a location where there is sufficient current flow to keep the kayak, berley trail and lines all lined up but in the low flow parts of the bay like pretty much all of Corio Bay is it still viable?


Here's some pics from the day. There's something wrong with the camera in my phone, it's struggling to focus properly for some reason. It didn't look like there was any crap on the lens so maybe it's just been dropped a few too many times.
Image
Image
Image


You can see the size of some of the burley bits in this shot, is that too big?


Image


I got a nice flatty on a plastic while drifting (another reason I'd love to get better at this method of catching gars)


Image


Obligatory sink pic


Image


Pinkies


Image


Minnows sheltering next to the yak. I scooped a few up in my landing net and used some as bait but nothing showed any interest


Image

4-5
Anyway, I'm interested in hearing peoples' thoughts.
Been catch gars for 40yrs plus
The burley to use is something that hangs around the surface,we use wheat bix crushed by hand very finely onto the water,also have a normal flat houeehold sponge (the coloured ones ) soaked in tuna oil tied to back of boat floating on the water.This method works well for other baitfish as well in shallow water 4-6mdeep

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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by 4liters » Fri Jan 31, 2020 9:05 am

How deep do you guys fish for them?
2015/16 Fisting Victoria Species comp total: 289cm
Brown Trout: 37cm
Flathead: 51cm; Squid: 36cm; Australian Salmon: 51cm; Snapper 46cm; Silver Trevally 23cm; KGW: 45cm
Major Sponsor: Rim Master Tackle

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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by Aimless » Fri Jan 31, 2020 9:47 am

ChrisTaylor wrote:
Thu Jan 30, 2020 7:58 pm
As part of my little 'catch them all' project, I threw some tiny soft plastics at gars the other night. A few people were fishing for them at Frankston pier, and they were spaced out enough that I figured I wouldn't cause any problems if I took advantage of their combined burley trail. While my hooks ended up being too big (tiny gars, and the maggot plastics I ordered haven't arrived yet),
Hey Chris,

What size plastic / jig head would you recommend for smaller gar? I have a good selection of plastics now but admittedly nothing for the smaller fish and don't really know what would be the go.

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Re: Tell me about fishing for gars

Post by fishnut » Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:01 pm

4liters wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2020 9:05 am
How deep do you guys fish for them?
1/2-1m under float sometimes shallower if they are on the surface but have caught them on the bottom on shallow while fishing for whiting

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