The Bait junkie delivers!!

[purple5ive]

Yesterday evening after work Myself and good mate headed out to see if we can have a proper first shot at the Reds.
after sounding up some not so ideal soundings we decided to swim a few lures.
3rd cast on the baitjunkie plastic and my line came up tight and this was the result.. I caught on a few more colours but didn't take any pics as it wasn't the most pleasant weather for photos.

We got a few more fish in the high 30s and called it a night after a few hours of fishing.
it wasnt a crash hot session by any means, but the ice is broken for me.
My mate has already landed a few good fish on his own (all bigger than mine ), so we are both on the score boards..

Gear was a combination of Caldia 2500, TD commander Armouraider, 12lb braid and 14lb leader. A bit heavy for my Norm
But I was on a mission to catch a snapper on the new offering from Daiwa and also promised myself i will not touch gulps..

Ill also add one more thing.
Try not to get caught up in the bull spiel from all the heroes out there atm. Do you own thing and enjoy the fishing that comes.
Yes not everyone will catch, but put the effort in and the rewards will come eventually, and when they do its very satisfying!!

Ps. Water temp. Was reading almost 16 degrees and fish were milting, so I'd say they are spawing already or very close to, so get out there guys..

[Kenle]

What a ripper mate, I'm going to give the reds a crack on plastic soon off a yak. Any suggestions on your preferred plastics , colour, style,jig head size? etc... cheers

[mazman]

Nice work Steve, good to see you getting back out there and enjoying your fishing.

[purple5ive]

What a ripper mate, I'm going to give the reds a crack on plastic soon off a yak. Any suggestions on your preferred plastics , colour, style,jig head size? etc... cheers

I usually use gulps mate, but thats mainly because I have a lot of them at home.

Zman paddle tails like slimswimz and tricswimz are great. Colours are personal choice but I like the electric chicken and motoroil plus opening night.

Gulps in jigging grub 3 and 4 inch and 3, 4 and 5 inch minnows and the turtleback worms work well. Most colours work but pumpkin seed and nuclear nuclearchicken are the ones I like

Berkley nemesis in gulp and powerbait is also great.

These new bait junkies are also good. I like the orange colour. Yabby. Bloodworm, watermelon pearl and mudblood. I caught fish on all those colours.

If you do a search there's plenty of info on the plastics for snapper on here.
I use jigheads to suit the depth and current im fishing in. So anything from 1/8 to 3/4 oz in size 1 to 1/0 hooks
Hope that helps.

Cheers

[purple5ive]

Nice work Steve, good to see you getting back out there and enjoying your fishing.

Yeah it's been a while mate. Need to make up for lost time i think!!

[Lightningx]

Good stuff Steve!
Now that you have opened your account, hopefully you can get an upgrade soon
Cheers

[purple5ive]

Good stuff Steve!
Now that you have opened your account, hopefully you can get an upgrade soon
Cheers

Thanks.
Im not really after an upgrade. But I'm not going to say no if one attaches itself to the lure

[SteveoTheTiger]

Great job.

What area were you fishing?

Due to spending most of last year off the water i am still getting used to my sounder (Elite Ti2). So far i have mostly just used it for finding structure, which it is great for. But last week i was able to spend a bit of time trying out the fish reveal feature in a bit deeper water (up to about 18m) which i have never used before.

Any tips would be appreciated on settings etc. I am still not too sure what size arches i am looking for. Most of what i am seeing are fairly small and pretty much right on the bottom.

[purple5ive]

Southern ppb mate.
Sounder you will need to get used to mate, unfortunately doesn't happen overnight. The ti2 is a fairly capable unit and should give you good readings.
You need to look for fairly big and solid red and blue arches. The small skinny ones are just pinkies.
Leave settings in auto and fine tune using sensitivity I use+3 to+5 depending on what im seeing.
Use med chirp and move around 5 knots or less when sounding

[SteveoTheTiger]

Sounds about right, pretty much what i am doing. I probably just need to spend a lot more time with the unit.

However i am 99% sure i have been running on high chirp. Most of what i have read/watched seem to say that the high setting is for "shallow" water of up to 70m. Do you think medium is just a good middle ground?