The skinny on jacks

The catalyst for writing this article was Gary Howard's column in the February edition of Trailer Boat. In this column, Gary mentioned that the north coast of NSW had an abundance of "pretty little streams and lagoons". Although emphasising the great bream fishing to be had in these waterways, he also mentioned that "mangrove jack will often fall to a well presented bait or lure". I'd like to elaborate on this because one of my favourite targets, and possibly the north coast's greatest fishing paradox, is the skinny water jack.

The area I tend to fish for jacks extends from Nambucca River through to Clarence River. Although I don't fish these big rivers for jacks, their tributaries and the smaller creeks that lie between the river deltas are where most of the serious jack fishing takes place. Over 100km of this coastline falls within the Solitary Islands Marine Park and an even greater proportion is land gazetted as National Park. Love them or hate them, these potential lockouts are two reasons why this stretch of coast is the heartland of skinny water jack fishing.

With many streams and creeks still running through dense bushland and with many coastal pockets of fresh and brackish water still undisturbed by human-enhanced tidal intrusion, the benefits of keeping property developers away from our coastal marshlands cannot be overstated. Sure, jacks are an adaptable species and there are plenty of them in the brick-rendered waterways of northern NSW and Qld, but I'd rather be casting a lure in the shade of a riverside gum rather than a bridge, wharf, shopping centre, or a moored boat.

Beaches along the north coast will either have a river or creek running through them. In general, these are the prime spots to launch before heading upriver in search of skinny water jacks. Most of the good jack creeks have a strong tidal flow of crystal-clear water that quickly changes to milky blue and extends across the mangrove forests and pushes upriver to the brackish zone, causing the water level to rise and fall as per the six-hourly rotation on tide charts.

WORK FOR REWARD
On a good day, your time in these creeks will be measured in jack encounters, hook-ups, bust-ups, thumb burns and releases. On a bad day, the only things you'll take home are sandfly bites and a sore casting arm. In my mind, fishing for NSW jacks with lures is the creek equivalent to high speed spinning the rocks: it's thousand-cast fishing that, for those who persist, can provide spectacular rewards. Alternatively, skinny water jacking can be done with a Tom Sawyer approach: sit and watch a small float with a 15cm mullet attached doing circles in a 10m wide creek.

Lure fishing for jacks is my favourite form of jacking. Although it's a more inconsistent method than livebaiting, I've hooked as many as 20-plus jacks on a lure trip, with most trips yielding single figure hook-ups and only the occasional trip yielding no encounters. In contrast to lure fishing the bigger, deeper waterways, on the skinny water there's no need to troll your lures down to the strike zone. Water depth rarely exceeds 3m, so most lures can be accurately cast next to structure. With careful rod work, the lures can be sent down quickly and kept in the strike zone along the entire length of the sunken snags and boulders, where most of the best jack fishing takes place.

Skinny water jacking is all about accurate casting at bank-side and mid-stream structure and then working your lure past structure that lies in the deeper water. In periods of low rainfall and clearer water conditions, lures tend to have the greatest impact when they're banging against the structure. The downside of this is the unavoidable bust-offs. Optimum lure casting conditions for jacks in dirty water conditions mean anglers can use shallow running lures that can be quickly worked out from structure, allowing the angler an extra metre or so to get their act together before the jack makes it back to the snag pile.

GET IN CLOSE
The best jack fishing normally takes place once most fishers have long since lost interest in the now 20m wide creek with its muddy brown water and tree and mangrove-lined banks. Whether you're in a canoe or a small tinnie, it doesn't really matter. Using your electric outboard will allow you to move silently up the waterway, casting lures ahead of yourself, probing every snag, rock pile, deep bank, overhanging tree or tangled wall of barnacle-encrusted mangrove roots.

As with any form of bank-side lure casting - whether it be bream, bass, or jacks - you'll soon identify the sort of hidey-holes that you need to aim your lures at. In the case of jacks, where the snag meets the bank is often a good place to direct your initial cast. Jacks lurk in these spots while lying in wait for schools of mullet and juvenile bream that use this "safe" out-of-the-current corridor to do their travelling and feeding.

Another interesting casting area that produces quality fish is the middle of the river, particularly when the deep and shallow banks swap sides. In order to reach the safer mud banks, travelling baitfish have to cross from one side to the other, and it's here that jacks will often be waiting. If there also happens to be a midstream snag nearby, all the better.

In one of my favourite jack creeks, where the majority of the photos accompanying this feature were taken, the bulk of the fish we catch come from half-a-dozen different snags spread over about 3km of snaking waterway. All these are sizeable tree trunks that lay off into deep water at all stages of the tide. Regardless of the river level, there's always some part of a rotting trunk under the water offering jacks cover. Finding these "low tide" snags is the key to finding skinny water jacks on the north coast of NSW.

GO LOW
When fishing new water, the worst thing you can do is arrive at high tide. In between the handful of really productive snags, there will literally be hundreds of snags that look great at high tide, but are high and dry on the bank from mid-water down.

To fully appreciate what a waterway has to offer, you need to be there at low tide. This isn't the best time to be fishing, but it is the best time to determine which snags will provide the most productive fishing. Optimum tidal conditions for jacks occur when the current is flowing at its quickest. This will actually vary from creek to creek, but in general the first three to four hours of the run down from high tide is the most successful period for lure casting and/or bait fishing for jacks.

Lures that work well on jacks are generally baitfish patterns in gold, either in shallow running or slightly deeper bib formats. Bombers, Smiling Jacks, Deception Lancaster's, Leads and Reidy's lures are all favourites of mine.

If you're using livebait then a 2/0 livebait hook and a small block of slit foam with the leader looped around it a couple of times will do the job. Livebait can be pinned through the back and simply cast at snags like lures. Jacks will often hit a live mullet the moment it touches down. In fact, it's not unusual to have a livebait taken before you've even had time to put the reel in gear on the back end of the cast.

When livebaiting, I usually anchor and prepare to wait 15 or 20 minutes for a hook-up. Even if they don't pounce straight away, jacks have a knack of eventually finding a livebait, often leaving the safety of the snag pile to do so.

A quality baitcast outfit capable of having 30lb braid pulled over it and a 40, 50 or 60lb leader will fulfil the tackle requirements. When livebaiting, 60 or 80lb leader may be needed to stop some of the monster fish that you'll encounter. Once hooked, jacks need to be bricked out from the barnacle-encrusted cover they call home. Any illusions of sportsfishing can only be entertained once you're out in open water, and by this stage, the adrenalin pumping through your veins usually means the fish is snapping by the side of the boat in quick time.

We release most of the jacks we catch. Provided they are handled with wet hands and not kept out of the water for more than a few minutes, they seem to survive the stresses of catch and release fishing quite well. Occasionally, we'll dedicate a trip to catching one or two jacks for the table. On these excursions we always take a hessian potato sack, which we wet down and store gutted and gilled jacks in during our time on the water.

BIG & MEAN
If you've fished for jacks in north Queensland or the Northern Territory, you'll probably be surprised by the size of the jacks you'll encounter in the skinny water creeks along the north coast of NSW. Most fish encountered on lures are from 35 to 45cm, while the majority of fish hooked on livebait are from 40 to 55cm.

The best jack creeks are undoubtedly those that have extensive reef complexes near their beach entrances. It's no surprise that the creeks with the Solitary Islands just offshore are among the most consistent jack producers of all.

North coast jack fishing is not everyone's cup of tea. Although the fish are generally big, there aren't as many of them as you would find in an average Top End snag. However, if you're persistent, the good times will come. On our last bait trip, we landed six jacks from 43 to 50cm from the one snag, and that's excellent skinny water fishing in anyone's language!