Joey The Jewy King
Sydney Land-based Jewfish Specialist
Joey has fished Sydney Harbour for his entire life, but has also fished for jewfish up and down the NSW coastline over the years. He’s well known for his land-based jewfish success around Sydney Harbour.
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.
Episode 575: Jewfish Roundup With Greg Vinall
Greg has hosted the Australian Lure Fishing Podcast since the very first episode in January 2019, being the interviewer for every one of the first 500 episodes. When he’s not interviewing top notch lure fishers he’s making wooden lures, chasing northern estuary...
Episode 569: Lake Macquarie On Lures With Dan Guilfoyle. Part 1: Summer.
Lake Macquarie might cop a lot of fishing pressure over the summer months, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great opportunities on offer for those in the know about how, when and where to fish! Dan Guilfoyle shares a lifetime of local knowledge for those keen to hit the water in the coming months.
Episode 549: Northern NSW Land-Based Jewfish With Josh Annand
The NSW Northern coastline is a superb destination for a great many prized fishing species, but few are so revered as the jewfish. Definitely one the country’s more challenging fish species on lures, it’s understandable that many keen jewfish anglers guard their knowledge closely. Today’s guest Josh Annand isn’t one of those though. He came onboard the ALF podcast to share what he’s learned about targeting jewfish on lures from the stones – and he didn’t hold back.
Jeez, any death threats yet?