Episode 566: Sydney Jewfish With Joey And Shroom

Joey’s Best Tips for Sydney Land-based Jewfish

• To find jewfish, find bridges, pontoons or wharves that cast plenty of light on the water during the hours of darkness, and then identify and focus your attention on those that hold aggregations of yellowtail, tailor or other bait species.
• The months of November through to March or April are the hottest for jewie fishing in Sydney Harbour. Joey usually fishes from sunset through to the early hours of the morning and tells anglers to expect to get results only if they are prepared to consistently put in time on the water.
• There are millions of theories regarding the best times and conditions for fishing, but for Joey, the prime times are the bigger high tides after dark when there is not too much wind as it’s important to be able to feel the bites. A big moon that casts lots of light will usually result in a fishless night.
• A small amount of fresh water coming into the system from recent rainfall doesn’t affect the fishing too much, but if the water starts getting murky the fish seem to move out of the harbour in search of cleaner water.

Joey’s Jewfish Fishing Tackle

• A decent quality 3-4000 size reel loaded with 20-30lb leader coupled with a medium action 3-6kg line class, 7’ rod will do the job. Joey likes a slower gear ratio reel for working the lures more slowly. Black magic supple trace is a good choice of leader.

 Joey’s Best Jewfish Lures

• A 4” ZMan Minnow in Badshad colour has been Joey’s go-to lure and has ended up being pretty much the only lure he needs for Sydney Jewfish. The 10x Elaztech is resistant to attack from tailor, hordes of which quickly decimate most other soft plastic lures. These are rigged on 1/4oz 5/0 TT Headlocks jig heads cast as long as possible, allowed to sink to the bottom and then worked slowly through the lower part of the water column close to the bottom. The lure can be worked slowly with plenty of hops and twitches. The strike it usually pretty aggressive and the fish will hook itself.
• Like many Sydney Jewfish specialists, Joey always applies S-Factor attractant to the lure and finds it increases the number of jewfish that take the lures.