Fishing The Atomic Semi Hardz Minnow for Jewfish

By Tom Deer

Fishing for jewfish can be a frustrating affair, so with good weather we decided to try a small mangrove creek near our home base of Adelaide. We got there just at the right time to see a seal ripping up a jewfish that he had caught for dinner and worried that the presence of the seal may have shut the fish down but, we need not have worried.

There was a large school present and although they were not easy to catch initially, we eventually cracked a pattern that worked more often than not.

The secret appeared to be that you needed to get the lure, in this case an Atomic Semi Hardz 40 in Ghost green shad, well in front of the moving school and allow it to settle to the bottom. As the school approached, the lure was flicked off the bottom to get their attention and then allowed to flutter back down. The takes almost always came on the drop.

Settling into the pattern, at first we could only manage a few smaller specimens of around 65cms before we upgraded to 8lb leader and the Samurai 302 rod and manged a couple around 10kg.

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