Trolling for snapper?

[spelchek]

Anyone (else) ever caught a snapper whilst trolling? I picked up a 74cm nobby yesterday arvo whilst trolling a gar at a reef off Bundy (was my PB btw so pretty chuffed). I was targeting macks and never even considered the possibility of picking up a snap.

Anyone ever heard of this?

Oh - also got a ~1m longtail on a trolled gar whist trolling up the shipping chanel (in between the outermost and second set of channel markers for anyone interested) into the Burnett. I was 1/2 hour early so thought what the hell - I'll throw another gar in for a swim - no point getting home early :)

Pretty happy with the arvos results!

BTW - since switching from lures to trolled flesh baits (gar and pike) I've got a 100% success rate in bringing home fish over 6 trips. I think I'll chuck the lures :)

[Peter4]

Yep spelchek, I regularly troll the reef edges of Green Island and Peel Island in Moreton Bay for snapper. I use smaller hardbodies that dive to around 4m. Grinners can be a problem but big snapper are very responsive to this method...

Cheers

Pete

[Noelm]

pretty common down the NSW south coast to troll for Snapper (smaller but legal size) in some of our bigger lakes and rivers, around oyster leases is a great spot for them (like Bream) but I have got a couple of big ones in the ocean as I was trolling close to bombie/reef edges for other stuff.

[spelchek]

There you go, hey. Didn;t realise they'd take a trolled bait. Was in about 50ft of water and the gar was pretty close to surface (trolled in one of theose lead-head trolling rigs). Was a hell of a surprise for me I can tell you!

[castamasta]

Yes ive caught them trolling pillies,know a guy up here trolls them up regulary on hb's.
Cheers Gav.

[Noelm]

There you go, hey. Didn;t realise they'd take a trolled bait. Was in about 50ft of water and the gar was pretty close to surface (trolled in one of theose lead-head trolling rigs). Was a hell of a surprise for me I can tell you!

Snapper will activly feed right on the surface, down here during winter, we get a lot of Cuttlefish die after spawning, the Cuttlefish just floats to the surface to be picked to bits by birds, however, the sneaky Snapper will also come up and bite chunks out of them, when we see one floating, it is common to drift up to it, cast an unweighted piece of Cuttlefish out and get a hook up straight away, then zip over and grab whats left of the Cuttlefish for bait, you need to be pretty lucky to get one quick, the birds eat them in no time flat, they get the "candles" first, then the head, and then eat the body. During winter it will be common to see 10 Cuttlefish floating every trip, and probably twice that many if you want to look for them.

[Giffo65]

I got the 2 Snapper I entered in last years VMR comp at Burnett Heads, from trolled Pike out off Elliott Heads.

[spelchek]

Gday giffo - did you get out on the weekend at all? Got yesterday's same place as you did I reckon ;)

[B U Z Z I N]

i got my pb trolling 4 mac's.84cm just happen 2b in snapper closed season
buzzin

[Sevric]

I can not say that i have ever caught one trolling but the percentage of Snapper i take in the first metre or two of the water column is substantial. Snapper seem to feed everywhere through out the water column especially in the shallow stuff we have on the close reef here.

[lethal]

theres been a couple articals i've read in fishing mags this year about trolling hardbodies for snapper, they recommend deeper divers which seems to be contradicting to the reports on this thread. I've been thinking about it now i might have to try it.

[spelchek]

FWIW lethal, trolling speed was around 2knt.