Right along our south-eastern seaboard, from Moreton Bay to Wilsons Promontory, winter is regarded as prime ‘pig season’ for many keen rock hoppers. Starlo explains why, and gives you the lowdown on tangling with these darkly-hued
bulldozers of the coastal wash zone.
Words by Steve ‘Starlo’ Starling
Pics by Steve & Jo Starling

While they’re officially listed as ‘eastern rock blackfish’ in most text books, few anglers who regularly pursue the species known to science as Girella elevata actually use that title. To most of us, they’re black drummer, drummer, pigs, black tanks… or something far less flattering if they’ve just smashed up our tackle and escaped capture!
These pugnacious, heavyweight cousins of the more widespread luderick or blackfish range from about the southern end of Fraser Island in Queensland to the north-eastern corner of Tasmania, but are most prolific between Tweed Heads in NSW and Lakes Entrance in Victoria.
Mostly confined to the shallow, wave-washed margins directly adjacent to rocky shorelines, black drummer also occur around offshore islands and over areas of shallow reef, where boat fishers sometimes target them. However, black drummer are far better known as rock fishing fodder.
With a maximum growth potential possibly approaching 10 kg, these are serious animals, although most of us will count ourselves fortunate if we ever see a specimen half that size. Most of the ‘pigs’ encountered by rock hoppers around the south-eastern seaboard these days run from half a kilo to about 3.5 kg in weight, with the very occasional 4 kg-plus prize turning up. Bigger drummer are no doubt hooked every year, but very few are landed!

Hooked up on reasonably light tackle to a rampaging pig in a deep gutter. The first few seconds of any encounter are critical.

Pleasure and pain
To an experienced NSW rock hopper, the staccato pluck, pluck, pluck of a drummer bite is unmistakable. While fast and erratic, that frustrating, bait-stealing bite also carries an ominous weight that foretells the terrifying force to follow when you time your strike just right and pin a hook point behind those weed-cropping teeth. It’s rather like yanking on the tail of a tiger. In my opinion, only the legendary mangrove jack can match a black drummer for sheer violence straight out of the starting blocks. When the bell rings, drummer come out swinging, and the next angler to suffer a knockout blow before even realising the bout has begun certainly won’t be the first!
Pigs also present an interesting paradox. Despite their pugnacious nature and the violent environments they inhabit, there’s no doubt that a little finesse goes a long way when it comes to consistently scoring hook-ups on bigger drummer, particularly in hard-fished waters. Finer lines, smaller sinkers and well-concealed hooks are often the go. But this presents a serious conundrum: drop to 4 or 5 kg main lines and leaders and you’ll hook plenty of pigs, but possibly bring home very little bacon! Go up to 15 kg gear and you’ll hang onto most of those you hook, but there will be far fewer of them. As the old Divinyls’ song says, “it’s a fine, fine line between pleasure and pain”.

Successful pig hunters must constantly walk this blurred line between finesse and brute strength, accepting that they’ll suffer the odd demolition job. Along the way, they learn a thing or two about just how hard it’s possible to pull on 6 or 8 kg line and a No. 1 or 1/0 hook. The answer is; much harder than most people would ever imagine.
Pig swill
Like their cousins the luderick, black drummer or rock blackfish are omnivores. They eat a lot of marine weed and algae, but are also happy to snap up crabs, worms, shrimp, juvenile crayfish, small squid, octopus and any shellfish or smaller sea urchins they can winkle off the rocks. They love the soft meat inside sea squirts or cunjevoi, but rarely get a shot at this delicacy unless it is ripped from the rocky ledges by fierce storm seas. Being opportunists, drummer will also have a chew on dead, decaying fish, cuttlefish or vegetable matter washed from estuaries and storm-water drains.
Proven baits include prawn tails (ideally peeled), pieces of tenderised squid or cuttlefish, cut crab pieces, hermit crabs, pink nippers (Bass yabbies), abalone gut (where it’s use is still permitted), bread and the soft internal organs and slightly tougher muscles of the common sea squirt or cunjevoi.
Cunjevoi or ‘cunji’ is perhaps the most readily obtained and widely-used drummer bait, although it’s certainly not without its drawbacks. Chief amongst these is its appeal to all manner of fish (including undesirable species such as kelpies, wrasse, wirrahs, green eels, toadfish and so on) and the fact that it’s easily removed from the hook by these pickers. Nonetheless, plenty of pig hunters rely on cunji as their primary offering for these fish.

The author with a typical drummer of about 1.2 or 1.3 kg wrestled from the wash on spin tackle. At this size, these fish can really pull!

Why winter?
Tagging studies back in the 1980s indicated that black drummer don’t move around much. Very small and very large specimens may possibly undertake relatively short migrations, but the bulk of the population hang out in just a few hundred square metres of water for most of their lives. Which means these fish are available all year. So, why do most of us target them from autumn through into early spring?
There are a couple of answers to this question: Firstly, there are lots of other rock fishing targets on offer in summer that tend to distract us from the pig hunt. Secondly, drummer definitely seem more active and willing to bite in cooler water. And, finally, bait and berley stealing pest species such as yellowtail, toadfish, small sweep and mados are generally less of a problem through the cooler months.
There’s something neat about climbing down onto a winter rock ledge at dawn, with your breath hanging in clouds around your beanie-clad head as numb fingers feed a bait onto the hook… knowing there’s a very good chance your first cast will see you connected to a rampaging opponent intent on shredding your straining line amongst the kelp and cunjevoi clumps below!

If you choose the berley approach, maintain a constant stream. Soaked bread makes the ideal base.

To catch a pig
There are two basic approaches to catching black drummer. You can pick a likely spot (ideally one with some aerated white water and a few obvious feeding ‘chutes’ funneling backwash and food into deeper water) and establish a berley trail to attract and excite the fish. Or you can go prospecting: working your way around a likely headland while casting your baits into any likely crevices, gutters and holes along the way.
Black drummer respond well to berley, and one of the best berley bases is soaked, stale bread. Get into the habit of saving and freezing all your bread scraps, or befriend the local baker and see if you can buy bags of 2 or 3 day old bread at a good price. Soak this stale bread thoroughly with seawater in a bucket or handy rock pool. Add some cabbage weed (sea lettuce) from the ledge itself and any bait scraps, prawn heads or whatever, then give it all time to mix and soften. You can throw in some chicken feed pellets and tuna oil if you wish, but that’s not essential. Then feed this berley into your chosen spot in a steady stream, remembering that a little bit often is much better than a lot occasionally.
One valuable tip: Always have a couple of exploratory casts before you begin berleying. Sometimes the pigs (and other fish) are already on the job. In such a situation, berleying could actually be counter-productive, taking the fish away, filling them up, or attracting hordes of unwanted pickers. As long as they keep biting, hold off on the berley. If the bite slows (or is non-existent to begin with), start chucking in handfuls of mulched up bread and cabbage weed. Allow at least 20 or 30 minutes for this berley to work its magic before considering a shift of locations.
Keep your terminal rigs simple. A ball sinker (generally, the lightest you can get away with) running freely on the line or leader down to an extra strong No. 1 to 3/0 hook is perfect. I’m a fan of Mustad’s Big Gun hooks, but plenty of other extra-strength, chemically-sharpened patterns will do the job. In some scenarios, a paternoster or dropper rig with a spoon, bomb or snapper sinker on the end works well, too.

The author with a typical drummer of about 1.2 or 1.3 kg wrestled from the wash on spin tackle. At this size, these fish can really pull!

Tackle choice is a personal matter. I love the direct contact of an Alvey sidecast for this job, but sturdy eggbeaters and overheads are viable alternatives. Line and leader strengths can vary from 5 to 15 kg, depending on terrain and average fish size.
Expect to hook a few bream, silver trevally, leatherjackets, the odd groper, silver drummer and even a bonus snapper from time to time while you’re pig hunting, as well as plenty of unwanted kelpies, wirrahs, wrasse and green eels!
You can catch drummer both day and night, but on clearer, brighter days, concentrate your efforts around dawn and dusk, or fish areas with a good mat of foam on the surface, or those in the shadow of coastal cliffs. Rising tides usually produce better results than the ebb, but there can be regional exceptions to this rule.
A final fact that surprises many people is the news that black drummer make exceptionally good table fare. I suspect some still confuse these fish with the unpalatable (and distantly related) silver drummer or buffalo bream. However, black drummer have succulent white flesh. If looked after following capture — bled, cleaned promptly, filleted, skinned and their black stomach lining removed — they are absolutely delicious!
Yes, it’s coming up to the coldest time of year on our south eastern seaboard right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still tap into some red hot drummer action… If you’re game!