2015 Freams 2500 – Surface Tactics in the Tropics – Mark Bargenquast

Fishing the Freams 2500.

By Mark Bargenquast.

It’s no wonder anglers worldwide love surface fishing, it’s the thrill of that explosion all over your lure as something eats it, forget the focus on GT popping which has taken the world by storm, almost every other predatory species can be caught on the surface.

It’s all relative to size, fish ultra light spin tackle with 1000 sized reels and 4 pound line for bream, whiting, tailor and flathead with tiny surface lures and you can have as much fun as fishing 80 pound over a heavy duty Saltiga outfit and much less painful!

Scaling down the tackle is important, when fishing more open water there’s no need to brutalise the fish to the boat, risking pulled or straightened hooks, a good mid range spin reel like the Daiwa Freams 2500 will do the trick, loaded with 20 pound line matched with a Black Label 701 MLXS rod it’s a capable outfit and can be cast all day without fatigue.

I have spent the last week fishing with some clients surface fishing for barras in tropical QLD and even though the fish were small we had a blast just by scaling down our tackle and lures. Using smaller stickbaits and walk the dog retrieves over half flooded drains in less than a foot of water we had some amazing barra boofs, missing most of them as the lure was blasted clear of the water but it was great fun!

This outfit also doubles up as a light inshore outfit that can catch everything from tarpon to queenfish without any effort as we proved and a good smooth drag is essential, most reels on the market today have just that but the Freams is one of the smoothest I have used even on a high setting.