I have had mixed success using wire leaders in the surf over the years particularly when surf fishing at night. I always thought should I or shouldn’t I use a wire leader just in case a good school shark came along? I’d have to say that I’ve persevered with just monofilament leaders and usually got more bites from a range of species, but the end result of hooking up to a good school shark has been regular bite offs and there’s nothing worse than fishing late into the night on the high tide only to lose a prized table fish at 3am to a chaffed leader. Such is life and by trying to remedy the situation by using short lengths of wire had resulted in fewer bites from other prized species and even gummy and school sharks!

By using a rig containing wire either nylon coated or single strand you almost exclusively narrow your target species to a select group of toothy sharks. If you are only targeting large toothy critters this is fine, but over the years I have found that you almost rob yourself of plenty of other opportunities to catch other prized species including mulloway, snapper, salmon and gummy sharks.

Over the past couple of years I’ve tried to fish a little smarter. I wanted to give myself the best possible chance of landing a range of species when fishing in the surf, particularly at night and now the formula that I use has brought plenty of success. To the point now where I am confident using a single rig to present fresh cut baits. Now using a paternoster rig in the surf is nothing new, but the make up of the rig and hook selection is important. I have used the Black Magic pre tied flasher rigs quite alot over the past few years for a range of species when fishing from the boat, breakwall or surf.

The Black magic ‘Snapper snatcher’ and ‘Groper grabber’ rigs that I commonly use in the surf have brought me great success and I have caught a range of sharks, large mulloway, salmon and snapper on them during both the day and night. The rigs are simple and consist of a two hook paternoster style rig and can be attached to the main line or shock leader strait out of the packet via a swivel. To the other end all you need to do is attach a sinker. They are quite cheap to by and are made with quality components and are easy to rig up, even in the dark. As I do alot of surf fishing at night the ‘Groper grabber’ pattern has drawn significant attention as the rig is tied with a 400lb main leader with 2 X 200lb droppers which are crimped to the main leader. A Black Magic KL wide gape circle hook with fly is attached to the end of each dropper along with a small glo bead for extra night time attraction. It was just what I had been searching for, a rig with heavy monofilament leaders that could handle some wear and tear, didn’t tangle easily and that didn’t put the fish off so I still got plenty of bites and hook ups. I also found if you continue to sharpen the hooks you can use the rig all night, even after multiple hook ups on toothy critters.

I’d have to say it was difficult to make the change to using circle hooks in a range of fishing circumstances initially, but now I’ve seen the benefits I won’t be able to go back to standard patterns. Using circle hooks in the surf is deadly as they usually allows you to hook the fish before you even pick up the rod from the rod holder and because a very high percentage of hook ups occur in the side of the jaw many of the sharks end up biting down on the hook for most of the tussle and not the monofilament leader.

These heavier monofilament rigs bought me the extra time needed to land those bigger school and bronze whaler sharks that in the past had escaped, but still gave me the flexibility of giving myself a good chance of landing other species such as mulloway, salmon and snapper. When baiting the circle hooks it’s a good idea to bind the bait with some ‘bait cotton’ at one end to enhance the ability of the bait to stay on the hook because when the rig is baited onto the hook it only needs to be passed through one end of the bait. This allows the gape of the circle hook to work better and get the best possible hook up. One of my favourite cut baits for surf fishing at night is octopus or squid as it is tough and appealing to a range of species. It stays on the hook well and stands up to the small pickers such a pinky snapper and salmon. Cut fish baits are also effective. Either way it is so important that your bait is fresh and if you can get fresh bait that is ideal. Thawed frozen baits work well, but only if they are frozen when fresh. You’d be surprised how many more bites you get on fresh baits, even from school and gummy sharks! On my last trip to surf fishing trip to South Australia we spent plenty of nights surf fishing the far west coast and although the mulloway were elusive on this trip the ‘Groper grabbers’ performed extremely well on the local school sharks and we managed to land fish in excess of 25kg comfortably without the need to use wire. Even small bronze whalers were no match for that rig and we also caught some good salmon. It was another great experience to add to our previous trip to the west coast where we managed a few large mulloway up to 20kg and gummy sharks on the Black Magic ‘snapper snatcher’ rigs during the daylight hours. Its a good feeling to find a system that works and although is not the complete answer to rigging for all surf situations (for example live baits are best presented on a single hook rig) it is an excellent way to simply present cut baits in the surf, catch more fish and take back the night from those toothy assassins!