Winter Stray-lining
June is often referred to as the ‘cross over’ month for fishing. The Summer pelagic’s are all but gone and the Winter fish are just coming on, and that means that winter stray-lining is upon us. So how do you do it? Start with location, you want wind and tide together, you want some foul ground (rocky or weedy areas are best) and you want some current. Arriving just as the tide turns tends to be the best as this is often the trigger for fish to start feeding. Burley is essential (salmon burley works the best) and fresh bait if you can get it. If you can’t then oily baits like mullet or salmon are your best options.
You want to set your boat up so that the current will take your burley back onto the structure your fishing. I like to give the burley a chance to start working and often won’t put a bait in for half an hour or so. Once I’m happy the burley has done it’s job I’ll start running un-weighted, or very small weighted baits back through the burley trail and be ready for quick hook up’s. A lot of joe’s miss snapper when they fish like this cause they’re not paying attention. Use good hooks, and trace material. My preferred is a 9/0 VMC Salmon Walleye hook on 80lb Sufix leader and depending on the terrain I’ll up my main line to 10kg.
Once you’ve hooked up then it’s a game of how much pressure you can apply vs how quickly the fish can take you to ground. You win some and you loose some, but when you pull that trophy fish out of tiger country it’s a pretty good feeling.
Keep em tight, Matt!
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