North West WA - Fishing for spangled emperor - need help with setup.

[uglykent]

Heya all,

I have a trip comming up this weekend to our usual spot jsut south of coral bay on the nigaloo reef. We generally fish there yearly, any never have much luck off the beach, however do good in the dingy. I think our main problem with beach fishing is not the lack fo fish, but our lack of knowledge.

My current setup and method is.
360cm Rod
8000 / 5:1 / 20lb reel

15kg mainline
into a 3 way swivel
10cm of 10kg line from the 3 way tot he star no.3 sinker
50cm of 13.5kg line to a 3 hook gang
With a full mulie on the end.

90% of the time i retreive with no bait left, other 10% is getting snagged on the reef and loosing my setup.

-------------

So i've done reading - alot of people seem to suggest using poppers or other lures for spangies. However all these people done mention what line weight, or rig setup to use, regarding rod size, reel type/size, and popper size also if its a floater or such...

Really need some help, last 3 years we generally do okay, but i want to move into lures. Whats the best

Rod / Reel setup
Line weight
Lures
and so i jsut connect the lure to main line, or use some kind of lighter line on a swivel??

i'm kinda leaving this last minute as i am leaving ont he trip on sat but ya see how we go, will appriciate any advice =)

[groverwa]

gday

I live in Exmouth for 5 years - been out for 20 yrs but we fished mainly on the west side of the cape from a boat and sometimes from the beach up from Tandabiddy ramp

Spangled emporer can suck a mulie of 3 ganged 6/0 hooks and you will not know it. Then at other times they will grab it, swallow and then the fun is on.

Try salting the mulies to dry/ harden them up

Any soft left over mulies/ bait from other trips can be used for burley. Try just throwing bits out at a time or use a large plastic burley cage (like you use in the boat) with a rope attatched to slosh around in the waves

We found that with 2 or more people fishing that with one using mulies and others using occi then when the mulies became burley the other bloke caught fish on the occi so maybe try alternating bait types

Another thing is that spanglies love sea urchins and they like broken rocky ground - we were told that if you are not losing gear then you wont catch fish

Make up lots of rigs and thread them on a piece of pvc pipe as when the fish do come on they can just as soon disappear if you lose your rig and have to make another up and there is no bait/ burley in the water

Another hint for fishing that country is use small crabs and leave them in the sun to start to go off - blue bone love them like that.

If there are oysters on the rocks then bash some up and let the bits float out in the waves - another good burley source

Use the smallest sinker that you can

And lastly - good luck on the trip and when you come back post some pics please

Mike

[Daintreeboy]

Try squid instead and also fresh fish fillets. Spangleds wioll take both and the bait will stay on longer.
The set up is ok for fishing from the bank but of you do go squid maybe go down to one hook, maybe.

Sorry cannot help on the lure side but if you did try a few small poppers it sounds like you would get some fish action where you are casting. They may not be all spangleds but good fun all the same.

[groverwa]

I forgot to add that you should try night fishing for spanglies from the beach - works better than day

If there are any whiting around in the day catch them and use for bait - beach and boat

Mullet are good bait - whole if small or as strip bait and use the guts and heads for burley

We never tried lures but give them a go as queenfish and cobia may be there at night

If there are schools of hardy heads around use a cast net and get some for bait or even chuck a lure into the school - never know what may be feeding on them

Mike

[uglykent]

thanks for the advice, salting the bait seems like qa good plan also, never really throught about it, but from what i have now read it seems promising.

will also try some different bait, we often use 100% mulies, so i'll try some squid and see if some crab meat works out - as i remember there are tonnes of them around the rocks.

I'll let yas know how i go =)

[groverwa]

Use whole crabs as I described not just the meat out of them - they will stay on better