Top 15 Shimano fishing outfits

With two Tackle World tackle stores in Melbourne and the IFISH TV show now in its 11th year, host Paul Worsteling is no stranger to fishing gear. In fact, the guy has millions of dollars worth on his shelves.

As well as selling the stuff, a lot of tackle companies like Shimano aren’t averse to throwing their top-secret prototypes Paul's way to test during his extensive fishing travels. As we saw on the IFISH Apprentice trip to the remote Great Barrier Reef, Paul gives these sticks a thorough caning.

On the remote coral reefs north of Lizard Island with our IFISH Apprentice, Jock Crawford, Paul had 15 outfits in his Plano Airliner rod tube. This carrier with wheels had done more than 250,000km of travel at 30,000 feet.

The outfits range in price from $450 to $1650 and covered the spectrum of fishing applications from GTs, dogtooth tuna and billfish to small fish on the flats. He brought roughly $13k worth of rods and reels alone.

"This is the Ultimate Adventure. If you don’t bring the ultimate gear you will come up short," Paul said as we steamed out of Cairns and he rigged his virtual tackle store in the cockpit.

TIP: Buy one good outfit rather than three cheap ones. Buy the outfit for the fish you want to catch.

So we thought we’d share just what Paul Worsteling's 'Ultimate Arsenal' includes, from the heavy to light tackle outfits, designed to cover all the sportfishing possibilities on our Nomad Sportfishing Charters trip.

PAUL WORSTELING'S TOP 15 FISHING OUTFITS
1. The Whopper Stopper is a Shimano Talica 25 overhead with a Tcurve Jig stick loaded with 80lb multicolour Fins braid. The multicolour line lets you know exactly how deep your lure is when fish are spotted on the sounder.
2. The GT outfit is a Stella SW 18000 with a Tcurve GT Special running 80lb multicolour Fins brand. It’s already caught a few.
3. The second GT outfit has a Stella 20000 SW on a Tcurve Bluewater Spin 15-24kg running 80lb Fins braid. It’s the back-up GT outfit.
4. The light-popping rod has a Stella SW 14000 on a Tcurve King Mack Spin 8-12 with 50lb orange Fins braid.
5. & 6. Outfits 5 and 6 are identical and are great all-round jig and sportfish combos with Pauls’ favourite reel, the Talica 12 overhead, with a 5.7:1 ratio. The reels are on Shimano Terez 40-80lb rods running 50lb Fins braid.
7. The one rod to take on the trip, if there was only one, has a Shimano Twin Power SW 10000 on Shimano Game Type S605 JDM, which is short for Japanese Domestic Market. This powerful stick is running 50lb multicolour Fins braid.
8. A lighter outfit, the Stella SW 5000 with 30lb Fins braid is matched to a Shimano Game Type JDM S603.
9. You could cast all day with the Shimano Saragosa SRG6000SW with 30lb Fins braid on the Terez 15-40lb rod.
10. Step off on an atoll and Paul is likely to be casting with his Stella 4000SWB with 20lb Fins braid on the Terez 15-30lb stick.
11. A main popping rod, the T Curve Deep Jig 400 uses one of the Stella  20000SWBs with 80lb Fins braid.
12. and 13. Paul carries two baitcaster outifts for barra and light jigging and just plain fun sportfishing. They comprise Shimano Citica 200 reels with 6.3:1 ratio on G Loomis GL2 10-20lb sticks with the latest ultra-thin 45lb Fins braid.
14. and 15. Paul was also carrying to saltwater fly outfits in 9 and 12 weights.