Dawn Daylight Or Night For Rock Fishing

[a.miller]

Hi guys,

i was watching a doco on the breat barrier reef the other night and they mentioned how all the predators come onto the reef at night.

Does that also occur with rock fishing?? I have heard some reports that dawn and dusk are better but not night and not in the middle of the day.

Whats your thoughts??

Aaron

[chemfish]

i find it depends on the species. kingies i've had best luck at dawn. tailor at dusk/night. sambos, bonito, tuna during day....bream, snapper dawn and night...jew. never caught one of the rocks...

[Guest lbgking]

Over winter I find 4-9pm the best especially when targeting Salmon. During the warmer months I find that the yakkas start at around 9am with the kings soon after. Night is great for Tailor when the water temp cracks 20c.

[tyrone07]

Depends on location i guess. Ive caught 15 or so tailor in the morning and released them and went back the same night and not even managed a bite. Then my fave spot produces snapper all day but then at night it dies. My fav time for tailor is wen the sun is just about to rise but it is light enough to see when you get some hectic 30 min sessions. blackfish all day just need some wash and they should be around with sum pigs and groper as well. Only targeted bream a cpl of times and found day time works just need that wash. Mainly all fish will be around if they have cover to feed and bait. Early starts are good 2 secure the best rocks but.

[Guest bluecod]

Depends on location i guess. Ive caught 15 or so tailor in the morning and released them and went back the same night and not even managed a bite.

Tyrone,

Even though I've caught some good tailor in my time, I don't normally target them. One afternoon an old salt up at Harrington offered to show us his favourite beach spot for tailor so we accepted his offer and met him on the track with only an hour of light left. While we caught tailor, he warned us that as soon as the light left the sky the bite would stop. It did!

His reasoning being that on the beaches tailor will attack from underneath a school of bait and target the silouette of the bait fish against the lighter sky - as it was the night of the new moon the tailor would not have enough light to hunt by and the bite would stop when it was dark - he also indicated that had there been a moon, the bite would have continued well after sundown.

[Guest lbgking]

My best Tailor session was one night at Avoca on a full moon and water temp of 24c. Between Three of us we landed 70 Tailor. Unlike some we only kept about a Dozen.

[Guest madsmc]

You need a bit of light to target Tailor, as Bluecod mentions, they use it to sight prey above them, as do a lot of other species.

Off the rocks, I've always used a rig with a full pilchard on a set of gangs, a float, and a fluoro light to see the strikes. If you don't get any strikes, then the tailor probably aren't there anyway.

That setup has never failed me, but then again, I don't bother targeting Tailor if there's no moon, or there's a lot of cloud cover.

I've caught bream off the rocks with success both at night, and during the day, so from my perspective I don't think there's that much difference.

One pattern that I've picked up on though, is that I always get more ooglies and rubbish fish at night. Things like eels, catfish etc

I've been doing a bit of research on Mulloway lately, as I plan on targeting them a lot more this summer to try and crack one bigger than a soapy. From my reading, they also use well lit areas to actively target prey from below. However, during periods when there is a lot of natural light ie: from the moon, then it's odds on that they'll be more widely dispersed in the waterway and hiding in dark areas in order to ambush prey.

Don't take this as gospel as it's only the result of research, not from personal experience. Hopefully some of the more experienced guys can shed more light on the subject. Looking forward to doing some experimentation of my own soon though.

Shane

Edited November 17, 2005 by madsmc