Fishing with Tony Lincoln | Prospecting and exploring

Prospecting and exploring:

While we usually try different areas of a new location we visit, we can tend to be creatures of habit when fishing somewhere we regularly go and as a result, may be missing opportunities at fish.

Many locations will have smaller individual areas that may only hold transient fish for a short period of the day or tide before they move on to the next. If we keep fishing one area after activity has ceased, we're potentially fishing dead water for some time before the next window appears back in the same spot.

If activity slows or stops, it may not mean that the fish have gone off the bite but that they've relocated to another close spot we're they're just as active for whatever reason, be it tidal run, proximity of cover, lack of predators or availability of food.

If I observe a slowing of activity, this is when I start prospecting around by working casts all around the area I've been fishing and in the case of bait fishing, by slowly retrieving my bait through the entire area, as opposed to simply plonking it out and hoping the fish stumble across it. Cover the country. If the fish aren't there, or are there and aren't active, there's a reason.

I believe that part of lure fishing's effectiveness in some scenarios is that this type of fishing lends itself to this prospecting principle. We cover significantly larger areas due to the cast and retrieve nature of lures, but for some reason, we tend not to apply the same principle when using bait. Even though bait has the advantage of scent we're still increasing our potential success by covering a larger area than keeping our offering stationary.

By being proactive, prospecting and hunting for our target species, we give ourselves a marked advantage over those who don't. And you never know, we might just stumble across our next, ‘secret spot’.

Cover the country.

Thanks for reading again, and remember;

Talk to old people, they know stuff you don't.

Talk to young people, they know stuff you don't.

FISHING REPORT

• Not a lot of feedback this edition as the weather hasn't been playing the game.
• Summer whiting are patchy but some solid fish for those willing to put in the time and cover the ground.
• A couple of very nice bags of bream off some of the rocky points, with fish into the early 40cms.
• A few flathead in the Pine River, Hays Inlet and the smaller creeks.
• Some fringe fin trevally and GTs in Bramble Bay and also off Scarborough in Deception Bay.
• A few bonito cruising Bramble Bay and the inshore reefs.
• Squire, snapper and some grassy sweetlip on the inshore reefs and off a couple of the rocky points around the peninsula.
• School mackerel still patchy land-based but have been a bit more consistent around the beacons for the boaties.
• Decent rain received in mid October should push bait out of the creeks and rivers with the predators to follow, and also get the crabs on the move.