Cairns Gear Advice!

[breakthelines]

Moving to Cairns need some advice on gear for Jacks etc in the estuary & reef species offshore.

Any advice would be great!

[Richard]

Gday,

If you've already got all-round gear you won't have to change it much most likely. I guess we do tend to go just a bit heavier than down south in the estuaries because you may get to tangle with some barra but any sort of overhead or spin gear in the 20-30lb range will do you fine.

To give you an example, my gear that i take out around the creeks is a 6-8kg rod with a Curado E7 with 30lb braid, a 6-8kg spin outfit (30lb braid) for flicking heavier plastics and if I'm right in the upper reaches i take a 2-4kg spin outfit (15lb braid) to flick the lighter lures for jacks, smaller barra and the odd bream.

Offshore it just depends on what type of fishing you get to do. I have two main outfits that i use, a 15-24kg rod matched to a TLD25 with 80lb braid for trolling and float lining for hte big mackerel and a lighter 10-15kg rod matched to a TLD with 50lb braid for the bottom bouncing. I get busted off every now and then but it handles things most of the time. Some of my other friends use 10kg with something like a ABU7000 or some swear by the handline option, especially for trout.

So nothing really different, probably just upsize your line class if you already have a bit of gear (which I'd imagine you would have). Just helps when you happen to tangle with some of the bigger barra if you're lucky enough to get one..


cheers

Richard

[Richard]

Oh and by the way, Welcome to Cairns !

You'll love it although it may be a bit of a shock to your system at the moment with the heat and humidity but it's not too bad after you get used to it..

[breakthelines]

Thanks for the reply.

I am having to buy new gear so this is what I'm thinking.......

Heartland 12-20lb + Heartland 3000.

Zillion 12-25lb + Zillion Bait caster.

I'll look at a reef outfit at some stage to.

What you think?

[Richard]

I don't really know the Diawa stuff as I've got mostly Shimano stuff but the combo sizes sound about right. Probably very similar to what i fish with and you'll be able to cover a lot of ground with those combos..