A recent Tackle Tactics TV session off the Sunshine Coast stitched shallow-reef plastics fishing to an offshore mackerel tuna melee in a single morning — and built both around the simple discipline of matching the hatch.
Host Justin and cameraman Deck opened over 8 to 10 metres with pre-rigged 3.5-inch Z-Man Prawns Elite, a technique Deck said was borrowed from New Zealand reef anglers. "They absolutely love these Prawns dropping them down on the reef. So we thought we'd come out here and try this." A double hook-up on the first drift confirmed the reef was on.
The method was almost entirely about feel on the drop. "Casting up ahead of the flow, slow drift," Justin said. "You're just allowing it to fall. A lot of the time it'll get eaten on the drop. Otherwise, you're just giving it a few hops and letting a bit more line down." That drop bite produced snapper, spangled and grassy emperor through the session, the last of which tested the Platypus Pulse X8 20lb braid and 20lb leader against bottom structure.
In deeper water the pair switched to a 3.5-inch unrigged prawn on a half-ounce TT Headlocks HD jighead. A Murray cod followed — an outlier catch that reinforced Justin's point from earlier in the session. "Everything eats a prawn," he said. His pitch for the size is that it handles a wide range of Australian species: "Guys are loving it for jacks, barra, jewies, flatties, all sorts of species."
Offshore, the wind-up brought mackerel tuna to the surface. The bait was tiny and the fish fussy, but a 20g TT Hardcore slug fired around the edge of the school ended with drag-pulling hook-ups and eventually a double. "Pull a bunch of drag and it's such a visual thing," Justin said. Deck noted that an upcoming 10g version of the Hardcore will slot in below the 20g for times when fish are keyed on very small jelly-bean bait.
Justin's kit ended up doing triple duty through reef, jighead and offshore slug work — a 4–8kg Black Mamba, a 4000 reel and 20lb braid-and-leader. His closing note was tactical. Anglers who find feeding schools of mackerel tuna should approach them down-wind, cut the motor early and cast well ahead of the fish.
"The fish will generally feed into the wind," he said. "So what we're doing here, we've circled around the school and we're coming back in with the wind as they feed up into it. We'll cut the motor nice and early and let the fish come to us and the breeze push us towards them. It's just as important how you approach the tuna as it is what gear you're using."