If you’re looking for an exciting form of fishing, then casting stickbaits at Spanish Mackerel has to be up there! Watching Mack’s leaps meters out of the water to smash a well placed stickbait is truly a cracking site. Living in Cairns I am pretty blessed with some great locations for this style of fishing. Reef edges and drop offs with a nice pressure point are great places to start casting . Anchoring and setting a berley trail towards a pressure point is sure to get the Macks excited, just set the trap and start casting.
This 105cm Spanish was one of a few taken by casting over the top of a berley trail towards a reef pressure point. A nice fast retrieve had the Macks firing on all cylinders, the fish were striking so hard they were sometimes missing the lure by meters. First impact they looked to be trying to injure their prey, but once we figured out there pattern and after the first strike had missed, a slight pause and rip style retrieve saw the hooks stick and the drag singing, love it!
Outfit used is a Smith KGS70MH & Saltiga 4500 combo, lure is a FCL Labo DIQS 170 floating stick bait. This lure rocks, great action, casts like a demon and tough as nails, can’t wait to cast these over the shallows for GTs and Coral Trout.
Tim H
is that 4500 combo a high speed reel or the lower version? I plan to come up to cairns I have a very similar rod to the smith at 7″ and was wondering if I should be buying the highspeed for the fish up there while im chartering? throwing stickbaits lures… livebaiting and trolling around….