Garfish fishing, for those close enough to their local rockwall or area to fish for them – they’re a great option to keep you going at the moment. Tasty, around in good numbers and great visual fishing, what more could you want! The Eastern seaboard of Port Phillip has been great for them, from Brighton right down to Rye and Safety Beach.

Customers Luke and Jason both did well on the gars recently from their local piers. If you can get to a gar location without too much in the way of crowds, get out and get into them! The real tricks to pay attention to are as follows:

Bait choice and size – maggots some days, silverfish others. Check and change your baits often. Maggots that aren’t ‘wriggling’ are often no good. Silverfish in too big a chunk is also no-go.

Hook gape – what we mean here is the ‘narrowness’ of the section between hook shank and point. The narrower the better, more solid hookups.

Float buoyancy – VERY critical and one area that many anglers overlook and miss out on fish. Make sure you know the buoyancy offset that your float needs – ie if your float is a 10g float (written on float body) then make sure your have 10g correctly pegged on your line. This is the weight that your float will work best at. Pay attention to how your float moves also, some will dip and bob others will tilt and slide when you get a bite.

Berley consistency – another area that is overlooked. Bread is a NO-NO. Bread particles absorb water and swell up – feeding the fish that you’re trying to catch! Super fine particle berley is best, with a small amount of oil or scent. Pre mixed berley like the Stimulate fine grit is ideal, especially when mixed with a small amount of Slicks pure fish oil. A small amount of water mixed in to get a ‘wet sand’ consistency is ideal, heavy enough to throw yet fine enough for the fish to smell but not eat.

These are just a few tips on helping you obtain gar success!