John Costello straps into his kayak with one mission in mind: finding jack.
The mangrove jack earns its brutal fighting reputation with every hook up. In recent times, luring techniques accounting for monster sized estuary jacks in South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales have triggered an obsessive interest with anglers looking to try their hand at the most gut wrenching, up-close challenge on offer in local waters.
Mangrove jack regularly snap you off before you can retrieve any line, and in these moments, it doesn’t matter whether you’re fishing 10 or 100 lb line, the result is the same. So whether it’s your first or hundredth time getting struck by the lightning hit of a jack, the lasting impact is always the same… a longing desire to feel it all over again.
My spinning outfit is a 2500 Shimano Stradic on a 7’6”, 5 to 8 kg rod. The longer rod allows me to work angles around built structures like pontoons and bridges when I’m throwing plastics. Jacks will regularly pull you around before you can paddle or adjust your motor so having that extra leverage to keep the hooks pinned can pay dividends.
On both combos I run 20lb line. I use fluorocarbon straight through on the spinning outfit to give me more grace with abrasive rocks and pylons etc. and Sunline Cast Away or Bionic Braid on my baitcaster to help my diving lures get down to where the jacks live.
A healthy fish taken from heavy cover
Lures:
Deep diving suspending minnows with a high cadence in the 80 to 120 mm range are my favourite hardbodies. Smith’s Cherry Blood 90 Deeps, Rapala XRap10 Deeps, Jackall Squirrels and Lucky Craft Pointers are my favourites. The trebles usually need upgrading to 2X strong standards or higher. I use BKK and Owner trebles because their penetration is still excellent in higher gauges.
Paddle tail soft plastics (4 to 6 inch) rigged either weedless or with a regular jighead are perfect for burning past built structures or slow rolling
Returning these fish ensures great sport for the future
across fallen timber. I use four inchZmanDieZelMinnowZ and SwimmerZ, Samaki Boom Baits and Zerek Live Shrimp in the 75mm size range.
Hunting jacks can often mean covering plenty of water to hit the best structures and my simple electric modification makes easy work of access headaches that others face. Once a jack heads for home, I’ve got grunt to pull back with and not fumble about with a paddle desperately trying to keep the hooks set. It has also unlocked waters off limits to boaties and I often seek out the heavily timbered brackish sections of smaller creeks where both fresh and saltwater species converge to make for some exciting by-catch.
Bream and bass, flathead, estuary cod, bull sharks and even Queensland groper love these quieter sections and feed aggressively from their cover, making for some great kayak fishing mayhem.
Outh East Queensland is blessed with a myriad of systems and endless ’yak fishing possibilities, so if you get a chance between September and May, check your drag and come test your nerves.
John Costello has spent the last 25 years fishing the creeks and canals of the Gold Coast. 15 of those relentlessly targeting Mangrove Jack. In recent years, the fishery has become more pressured, so he had to tune his luring techniques and learn the advantages of chasing these elusive Red Devils from the stealthiest craft he could find, his FeelFree Lure 11.5. With an electric mounted at his fingertips, He’s venturing beyond the reaches of boaties and conventional kayaking craft to tackle the most aggressive fish the Gold Coast creeks have to offer.
