Great catches of Spanish mackerel

THE dry season has arrived in force with beautiful chilly mornings and the prospect of blue water heaven

Evan Needham caught this impressive Vernon Islands Spanish mackerel a few years back.

THE dry season has arrived in force with beautiful chilly mornings and the prospect of blue water heaven.

Reports are starting to filter through of great catches of Spanish mackerel, long tail tuna, trevally and queenfish.

All pelagic species that are more prevalent at this time of year are close to the coast.

Lee Point, the Vernon Islands and Dundee Beach are several places you can target these pelagic speedsters.

They can be caught both trolling and casting and provide hours of entertainment, particularly on light spin tackle.

When trolling for these fish, use larger deep-diving minnows, especially when the fish are sitting down deeper in the water column.

Troll at a fair pace of around six knots to try and entice these fish to strike.

I personally like to use classic bluewater lures that swim at a depth of around 5m.

I have also done well on the Zerek Pelagic Z lures, which swim down to around this depth. My favourites include more natural colours of green, purple and blue, although the Qantas colour featuring a white body with a red head always does well too.

When casting or jigging for these species, try to match the hatch. When they are feeding on small baitfish near the surface try small jigs and slices around 30-50g in weight. When they are feeding on bigger baitfish try larger jigs up to 200g in weight.

When they are feeding on the surface on garfish, try large sliders, stick baits and poppers, which certainly provide plenty of visual entertainment from the strikes. My favourite jigs to use are Gillies slices and Reidy’s jigs in either green, blue or pink.

When casting surface lures my preferred option is the Zerek pelagic stick bait.