Deep Water Bottom Bashing

[Horse]

A couple of mates are keen to give the deep water species such as Bar Cod & Hapuka a hit. Can anybody give me a few hints as to where to get started and how far we have to go? We will be starting out from Cleveland so South Passage would be the ideal starting point but we have the range to work further North or South.
Any hints as to minimum tackle, rigs, bait and time of year would be greatly appreciated

Cheers

Neil

[lethal098]

big strong arms are no 1 if you are not using electric reels, cant help with much more but i think they are there all year round, i have seen some good stories from down the coast with them getting those. cheers Lee

[Noelm]

gear is a pretty simple but heavy weight affair, not too sure on locations up that way, but you need bottom structure in a few hundred metres of water, gear consists of very heavy sinkers (sometimes more tham 5KG) a couple of hooks on very heavy trace, and Braid as a main line to reduce drag, fish are there all the time, but the current will dictate whether you fish or not, reels need to be big and strong, because after a few minutes, pump and wind gets forgotten, and the rod is stuck in the rod holder and you take turns at winding!!! cheap reels will last about one trip, you will need to probably look at some charts to find some decent ground, unless you can ask a drop liner in the area, bait is usually Squid as it stays on for a long time.

[finding_time]

Horse

Mate i'll send you a PM but it pretty easy really. Braid, circle hooks 12/0 - 14/0 work well, 3kg of weigh is plenty(more than enough)and have this on a break away if you get snagged and it's not the current that matters it wind thats the issue! If the wind is moving faster than the current or holding you back against the current it get harder and you have to hold your self over the baits . We have found Mullet the go to bait but not big bits,say 4 baits from one fillet! And Glow sticks at the top of the rig also! Now comes the biggy ....SOUNDER How good is the one you'll be using ?something with a 1kw transducer i hope! Area check your pm's!

Ian

[SNAPPERCOFFIN]

Neil give us a week and I will see if I can help you with some marks but the will be North of Cape Moreton.

Mark

[Horse]

Thanks for the pointers fellas. I'm looking forward to giving it a bash. I can see where those electric reels would come in usefull

[Spot82]

Me and a couple of mates are also interested in having a crack at this sort of fishing, but don't have any ideas on where to start searching for ground. Would be using queen deck winch to help save the arms. Happy for anyone to help with starting points from Moreton to top of Fraser if anyone is willing to help.

Anthony

[Noelm]

A Sea Queen will be OK for a reel, spool it with about 100 to 150Lb braid and your set, lots of guys down my way (me included) started out handlining but in a very heavy way, using about 6MM cord and just handlining, seems hard but it is quite easy, just wear gloves and take turns pulling up, you get almost half a metre or more each time you grab a "handfull" works quite well and a lot quicker than standard game reels, which are very hard work I can tell you.