Trolling Inshore/offshore Mooloolaba.

[Kjaimer]

Hello fellow fisherman and forum dwellers. 

After suprisingly catching a few undersize school mackerel off Mooloolaba shark nets I have grown more interested in targeting Pelagics like Mackerel, Long tail and Mack Tuna however am completely new to this form of fishing with metal lures and am pretty new with a sounder so live bait hunting is new to me also. I tried trolling a few 15g gillies pilchards attached directly to the end of line (no trace coz I had none) but the problem that I had was that the lures kept surfacing and splashing around. 

Basically im asking you fellow fisherman for any tips on what I should be doing as far as targeting pelagics in the area go and what lures you have found work best. Also the one thing I can't work out is what is the optimum distance behind a boat to troll your lure? 

Thanks you Amy help in advance,

cheers, Kjaimer

[Angus]

Casting at bait school hard to beat chromes or 5 inch plastics. To be honest most of the time I reckon chrome is chrome but i often go back to the river 2 sea ones. 

Trolling my mate up there gets most his fish on x wraps.

[samsteele115]

I wouldn't worry about the splashing around on the surface, however metal lures wouldnt be my first option to troll. Better off throwing them in at a school, let sink for 3 seconds then wind in as fast as you can. The lure will come up to the surface and quite often you'll see a fish come up behind it and eat it.

Plastics are hard to beat when you can get into easy casting range.

[Junky]

If you want to troll chromies then maybe look at a paravane. Paravanes can can be adjusted to dive to different depths and will get your lighter lures down into the strike zone. 

 

I like hard bodied lures such as rapala x raps or halco lazerpro's and giant trembles for chasing mackeral. You can use skirts but mackeral will destroy a skirt on the first bite. 

Speeds vary but around 17kph over water seems to get the lure acting without surfacing. 

Distance out the back is scattered. Close in I will run the deeper diving bibbed lures and out the back you can run your skip baits or skirts. 

If you find some good sized livies to troll then a rubber band through the eye socket and twist a 10 o up so it sits up on his nose. This keeps the livie relatively healthy and allows him to swim freely. I just knock the motor into gear and troll livies slowly otherwise you'll drown them. 

 

Cheers 

Damo

[fifis101]

1 hour ago, Junky said:

I like hard bodied lures such as rapala x raps or halco lazerpro's and giant trembles for chasing mackeral. 

If trolling what you want to do buy some of these lures Junky said. 

[benno573]

Agree with the comments above. Laser pros are the cheaper option and are arguably just as effective up to about 6-7kn. Get a few different sizes and diving depths to mix it up. Colours - red head, the purple one and anything "pilchard" (blue) pattern are my favs. I usually run wire leaders but you generally get more bites on mono leader, you lose more lures as the trade off.

 

as a few people said, casting metals and plastics at a feeding school and cranking flat out is effective, sometimes a varied retrieve can bring on the bites as well. Don't forget to try and match the hatch.

[Kjaimer]

Thank you @benno573 @fifis101 @Junky @samsteele115 and @Angus for your help. I will have to head out and buy a bunch of these lures and give it a go.