Episode 548: Brisbane Kayak Threadfin With Luke Lispet

Luke’s Best Tips for Catching Threadies off the Kayak:

• Brisbane River​ Threadfin generally tend to be quite a lazy fish! If you’re too aggressive with your lifts and movements, they aren’t going to touch it. Its best to fish “lazily” for lazy fish!
• Dead sticking the rod works a treat! It gives a lazy fish an easy snack to go for!

Where to Start?

• Threadfin love to hang around the hard structures of the Brisbane River. More specifically they love to hang around the pylons! Use your sounder to see what’s down around the pylons, they tend to be in big schools and if you can find where the schools are you’ll be on the money!
• The mouth up to the Port of Brisbane is a great fishing spot to concentrate your efforts! Keep an eye out for some bait fish and you’ll often find threadfin where the baitfish are.
• An hour either side of the change of tide is a great time to fish for threadfin from the yak. The slack tide is a great time to catch the threadies on the chew!
• Boggy Creek is a great fishing spot right near Myrtletown if you’re looking for a more protected spot. You can often get threadfin, jewfish, and some flathead there.
• You’ll find threadfin salmon in deeper water as well as shallow water, although near the pylons tends to be best which is often deeper! About 8-13 meters is perfect.
• If you can pair the morning bite or the dusk bite with a nice tide changeover you should find yourself in optimal conditions for threadfin. Finding some calm water to get your lure down in and be able to just hold it at the depth you want it will go a long way!

What Gear Should You Have?

• Luke has caught most of his threadfin on about a 2-5kg rod, which is only around 5’10”. Luke doesn’t like the rod to be too long when he’s on the yak. The benefit of the shorter rod is when they do run hard under the kayak, you can simply dunk the rod into the water!
• In terms of reel, most of the threadies that Luke has caught has been on a 2500. But a 3000 reel is a great place to start! Luke usually runs a 20-pound braid and a 20-pound FC Rock Fluorocarbon leader. Once a fish is hooked, get it in the open water and let it have a good few runs. The fish will often end up not only fighting you, but also towing the kayak on the water! You’ll be able to feel when it gets fatigued and then you can really fight it effectively.

 Luke’s Top 3 Lures to Use for Threadfin in Brisbane: 

• Soft vibe style lures are a great one to bring along. Threadfin can’t see too well so the vibration works a treat helping them find the lure. The Samaki Vibelicious 70mm are a favourite for threadfin fishing in the Brisbane River, they have a great vibration to them.
• A Zerek Fish Trap is another good one to pack with your gear! The 95mm size is Luke recommends.
• Luke’s all-time favourite lure for catching threadies is the Ima Koume 90mm Vibe. This lure is bloody dynamite for catching threadies in the Brisbane River! The best colour seems to be “magpie”. There’s just something about this colour that the threadfin can’t resist. The weight of this lure helps to get you right down to the depths and it tends to “zigzag” rather than flutter which looks more like a fish in distress. This is really effective when you’re after threadies out on the kayak!
• The best way to use all these lures when you’re out on the kayak looking for threadfin is to dead stick. Because you’re being pushed around a little by the current and the wind on the kayak, you’ll often find your lure isn’t always sitting as still as you think it is. Luke likes to let the lure hit the bottom and wind it up about a foot or 2 foot and then hold it at that depth. Then you can just drift slightly with the kayak and let the lure flutter at that depth.

Luke’s Last Tips and Tricks for Catching Threadfin on the Kayak in Brisbane

• Be careful! Threadfin can be really heavy, especially when you’re on a kayak, sometimes its best to paddle to shore and then lift it up.
• Threadfin in the Port of Brisbane can be quite tricky to release as well, especially in the depths. You might find the swim bladder inflates and they will end up floating to the top. The best ways to avoid this is to use a release weight to drop weight to drop it down to the bottom, or you can pierce the swim bladder. You’ll find some good YouTube videos on how to do this!
• Threadfin also make a nice table fish! You can get some really nice fillets off them and take them home for a feed.
• If you follow all these tips and the threadfin are still not taking a bite, change up your lure, fish high in the water column and see if you can snag yourself some nice bream or some snapper, there’s lots around in the Port of Brisbane!