Mangrove Jack are renowned heart breakers. Running anglers back into snags and snapping leaders. They are the undisputed brutes of the estuaries. So landing one is no easy feat. Luckily, Brent from BCF’s Kawana Superstore has these red devils, dialed in. He recently caught up with Scotty to chat all things Jack fishing.
“Soft plastics. Rigged either weedless or with a jighead, depending where you are. You may not want that weedless snagging you up every five minutes. Relatively heavy weight on the jighead or weedless hook. Just casting out, as close into the structure as possible, and just on the retrieve straight away with that very heavy locked drag.”
“…and any particular colour? You’ve got the white and red here,” Scott asks.
“I find white and red to be the most popular. They’re pretty cannibalistic so they’ll hit that red.”
When it comes to using bait, Scott has a few thoughts.
“Now for me(…) I moved to north Queensland a long, long time ago and I remember pulling up to a boat ramp and a guide had a heap of big jack and I had my live baits I was going to go cast. He said forget the live bait he said…you won’t believe this…people at home may or may not are you kidding…pilchards!”
“So a whole pilly, cut it into thirds, into the snags so we were just fishing depending on the run you want to make sure you get down into the structure area so a little ball sinker, half a meter of trace little 2/0 hook with a pieceof pilchard or I also loved a strip of mullet. Into the snag and I’m telling you we’ve had the best fun back when…bless my old man Sid, he used to come up and visit me we’d go and catch 20 jack in a session.”
Bag a Jack for yourself by heading instore to your local BCF.
