Over the last few years there seems to have been a revolution of sorts in fishing in the form of soft plastics.  There have been few species that haven't been caught using the ‘plastic fantastics' and in some cases it's proven to be more effective than bait fishing.  Snapper is a species that has seen its fair share of soft plastics being thrown at them and under certain circumstances it has been successful. However, as much as I like the clean and unique nature of soft plastic fishing, nothing really comes close to good old bait fishing if you want to nail a big red.  This is an area that always received a reasonable amount of coverage in fishing mags, but seems to have dipped with the introduction of the rubbery lures.  It's an area worth revisiting and refamiliarising ourselves with, particularly with a couple of new baits and techniques that have been catching a stack of fish over the last season.

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland recently commented that many of his fishing contemporaries from up north considered Port Phillip Bay to be somewhat of a Mecca when it comes to big snapper.  I thought this was a bit odd, having fished the waterway for reds for a number of years.  That was until this current season. It has been nothing short of phenomenal.  Not so much in terms of the number of fish caught, which has been on the rise steadily over the past few years since scallop dredging of the bay ceased, it's been more the overall size of the fish being landed that has got people fired up to get out on the water.  Last season, before Christmas, barely a fish over 4 kg was caught, but this season most fish I have landed have been over 5 kg and there have been several over 7 kg.  Wow, not in the Whyalla league, but still for an estuary system sitting on the doorstep of Australia's second largest city, it isn't too bad!

The key to successful bait fishing for snapper is variety and quality.  It's always amazing to see so many people spend thousands on boats and accessories, but when it comes to something like bait they pick up a bag of frozen pilchards from the local servo.

Rule Number 1:  Good snapper bait does not live in a chest freezer at a service station.

If you want the best bait, this generally means one thing, catching it yourself.  Most water systems that hold snapper stocks also have bait on offer that can be caught.  The most effective of these would be the southern calamari or arrow squid.  They are also one of the easiest to catch, but again, it gets back to using good quality ‘stuff'.  Squid are most readily caught using squid jigs.  Now jigs vary in price enormously, anything from $2 or $3 right up to $30 plus.  As my Dad always said "You get what you pay for".  Its simple, the expensive jigs absolutely brain the squid and the cheap ones... well they're probably best left on the shelf.  The strength of any prevailing wind will dictate how you fish for squid.  Basically, if the wind is around 5-10 knots then it's easy to drift over weed beds and broken ground in anywhere between 3-5 meters.  If the wind is much stronger you may need to use a sinker dropper on your line to get the jig down.  Squid are a bit like snapper in that they tend to feed along the bottom, although they can be caught in any part of the water column. If there is no wind, just position the boat in a good spot then cast and retrieve the jig in a slow jerky motion allowing it to sink almost to the bottom.  The other bait similar to squid is the octopus. These are a little more difficult to catch, particularly in an area like Port Phillip Bay and generally are caught on a bait intended for a snapper. Octopus makes one of the best snapper baits when a tentacle is used and the great thing is that octopus, unlike squid, will actually improve becoming tenderer the longer it's in the water.

Garfish and Australian salmon are other great baits for reds.  Gars are easy to catch using a standard set up of a small long shank hook, a float and heaps of berley.  Once again, gars also like good quality bait and generally a small piece of squid does the trick.  Salmon on the other hand can be trolled up or caught by casting small bibbed lures or metal slugs into the water where you find birds surface feeding.

For a scavenger, snapper can be irritatingly fussy when it comes to feeding.  A bait that worked one day may not work the next, so you should always carry a few different types to give yourself the best chance.

Rule Number 2:  Variety is the spice of life, and the key to successful snapper fishing.

Now I have read articles where the author has suggested fresh bait will always out fish frozen bait.  This is quite often true, but not always. Over the last few years there have been some bait suppliers who have been providing bait that has been vacuum sealed. When something is vacuum sealed before it is frozen, all the air is removed from the bag it's in then heat sealed.  What this means for bait frozen in this manner is that it will be less prone to freezer burn and it will also last longer in the freezer, sometimes 3-4 times longer.  One such bait that has recently been available in this form is yakkas or scad.  These little fish are about the size of a pilchard and make a terrific snapper bait.  They are they right size and shape and are really hardy in the water.  Even the most veracious flathead has trouble destroying them.  Most importantly though, they're dynamite when it comes to snapper.  I had occasions this season when fishing four rods with fresh calamari either whole, just the head or strip baits on three of the rods and a scad on the other.  One day I took 3 fish between 5 and 8kg and all of them were caught on the rod with the scad as bait.  The calamari baits did not get a touch.  Now this is an important point - if you where relying on one bait even if it was just caught as these calamari were, you would have sworn there were no snapper about or they simply weren't feeding.

Another bait available in the vacuum sealed packaging is sauries.  Sauries are something like a garfish, but without the beak.  In terms of flesh texture they are between that of a gar and a pilchard, which makes them more resilient to pickers than pilchards, but release more of a natural scent than garfish. This makes them also an ideal bait for reds.  Again, similar to the scad, I've had occasions when fishing where the only bait snapper have been interested in has been sauries.

And lastly, the ever reliable silver whiting also now comes vacuum sealed.  These are the ultimate when it comes to hardiness and last the longest in a flathead environment.  They're also a favourite of snapper.  You can purchase silver whiting from fish markets, but be careful - I'm a little dubious when it comes to the freshness of these at some fish markets.  At least with the vacuum sealed products, it may be frozen, but you know that they have been frozen in the most effective manner.

When it comes to getting ready to head out to your favourite spot, if you have frozen bait it will obviously need to be thawed.  The best method for doing this rather than sitting it out on the kitchen bench the night before is to defrost it in a bucket of sea water when you get to the ramp.  Salt water will not only thaw the bait out, but it also tends to revitalise the bait - worth considering when you want bait to be at its peak for fishing.

Let's look at rigging.  When it comes to choosing terminal tackle and line, we get back to the theme of quality again.  I don't want to sound like a broken record, but there is no point getting up at 4 in the morning, spend $30 on fuel, having all the right bait then go and buy a cheap pack of hooks or use an old one already on the line.  Please, do yourself a favour.  Buy the best quality terminals you can afford.  That means if you have to spend 50c on each hook then so be it.  Chemically sharpened is the only way to go, but remember to use a new hook each time you go out.  It's a lot harder to hook a fish on a cheap, blunt hook.  As far as patterns of hooks are concerned, probably the old octopus is the best choice.  Gamakatsu make a sensational hook in this pattern, but I notice Wasabi, a Blackmagic brand, have also released a new octopus pattern hook and apparently it's very good and great value for money.

Generally a two hook set up is best with the second hook either snelled about 6 inches above the first or left as a slider.  Lately, rather than snelling the second hook directly onto the line for fishing baits such as squid, I've been binding the second hook into position using ghost cocoon, which is an elastic product used for securing baits.  This means with a little bit of force you can move the second hook up or down so as to get the best position to maximise bait presentation.  Hook size can be anything from 4/0 to 7/0, but is generally dictated by bait size, the bigger the bait, the bigger the hook.

Always use a leader of about 30-40lbs.  Now a lot of guys fish their main line straight to the hook, but I don't fish a main line more than 6kg, so a strong leader is a must.  Tidal strength will determine whether you use braid or mono as you main line.  In stronger currents nothing beats braid, but in a waterway like Port Phillip where there is little if any tidal influence, mono is the go.  Line quality is no different to terminal tackle in that it should be the highest quality you can afford.  Basically, try to make everything that is directly involved in catching fish, from hooks to reels to sounders, the best you quality you can.

Rule Number 3:  You can judge a good fisherman not by how his boat looks from the outside, but by what you see inside.

I briefly touched on the product ghost cocoon before.  This is a must for snapper fishing, particularly when trying to maintain top bait presentation.  Not only can it be used to secure soft baits like pilchards or sauries, but it also helps in hook placement on a bait like squid heads.  I bind the top of the entrails of a squid head with this product and it gives a really secure place for the top hook.  I also use it now when fishing squid strips.  For some reason I never found squid strips overly effective for reds, but that might be just me.  What I do now is roll a squid strip up like a cigar, and then bind it up with ghost cocoon.  You end up with a long tubular bait and don't ask me why, but snapper love it.  I think over the years the techniques for rigging baits like garfish, pilchards and the like has been done to death, so I won't bore you by revisiting that area.

When it comes to fishing for reds, often the simplest way fine-tuned is the best way.  I'm not looking to disparage other methods of catching reds, but if you were asking me, I don't think anything beats tried and tested bait fishing.  After all, it's been working for at least the last fifty years.