How to catch whiting on bait

By Robert Thornton 

When we talk about going back to basics, it doesn’t come any more bread-and-butter than soaking baits for whiting. This age-old art is overlooked these days, often shunted for the more scintillating lure techniques that have gained popularity in the past few decades.

We all know how well lures work on whiting, especially big whiting, but it’s easy to forget how effective a well rigged bait on light gear can be. These days the whiting can sometimes be a bit tricky on lures, possibly becoming wise to anglers’ tricks, but you can almost guarantee turning some numbers when using bait.

In this blog we’re going to talk about the evolution of whiting fishing over the past few decades. We will then delve into how to catch whiting, with details about rigs, set-ups, baits and techniques.

THE SANDS OF TIME

Sand, yellowfin or summer whiting have been a popular angling target for over 100 years in Australia, and were sought for their tasty flesh by indigenous groups in previous millennia. The ‘summeries’ we’re talking about are the species that inhabit coastal waters and estuaries on the East Coast between Tasmania and Cape York. Several similar species exist across other parts of our continent, including in South and West Australia, as well as the Northern Territory, and the techniques mentioned will work on these species too.

Throughout the 20th century, whiting were caught in big numbers both recreationally and commercially, and in that time, we saw the development of purpose-built whiting gear. These specialised whiting outfits usually comprised long, light fibreglass rods, smooth spin or Alvey side-cast type reels, spooled up with cotton-thin nylon line. In fact, whiting anglers were definitely pioneers in finesse fishing, with 2-3lb traces the standard string for many of the old-timers.

Around about 20-25 years ago, a group of forward-thinking anglers started targeting whiting with small lures, most notably topwater lures. This has remained a very effective and exciting way to target big whiting, but as we touched on in the intro, this doesn’t always get results. More often these days, lure anglers are going home empty-handed while bait soakers come up trumps. Maybe we’ve caught, killed and eaten all the dumb fish; maybe they’ve learnt the difference between a lure and a jelly prawn… whatever the reason, these dipping catch rates have seemingly not impacted the bait fishers!

HOW TO CATCH WHITING ON BAIT

Catching these fish effectively means understanding what these fish want, and generally, summer whiting want three things: sand, safety and snacks. Let’s break these down.

The ‘sand’ in sand whiting isn’t a misnomer, as these guys will be found over sand 99% of the time, and there’s good reason for this. Sand whiting love snacking on yabbies, sand worms, small soldier crabs, jelly prawns and tiny baitfish – all of these items can be found and, importantly, hunted by the whiting with their extendable, sucker lips. Sand flats with patches of rubble, weed, mangroves or even mud can sometimes be good ground to prospect as well, but these things aren’t necessary to success. Where I live in southern Queensland, any intertidal sand flat that has yabby holes on it is a good place to try in my books.

The other thing sand offers the wily whiting is safety, with summeries the absolute masters of camouflage once they get up onto a sandy flat. Even the light patterns visible on some specimens seem to mimic the gentle shimmering of the shifting sand. A fly fisherman once told me that when trying to spot fish on the flats, look for shadows, not fish – this helps a lot, especially with whiting! Another aspect of ‘safety’ is potential escape routes for the whiting. I like to identify areas on the flat or bank that allow for an easy retreat back to deeper water, which the whiting use when startled by predators like flathead, birds of prey and humans. These escape drains and channels are important parts of the puzzle, and can be good places to fish on the lower phases of the tide.

If you can find a sandflat applying the three ‘S’ rule, you should be in business. If you’ve chosen a really good spot, you should be able to spot a couple mooching around in the shallows as you’re setting up.

Which bait?

The debate over the best whiting bait is one that has raged for decades, and my opinion is that it depends on the spot. Summeries will take all kinds of offerings, ranging from those that can be bought to the ones you harvest yourself.

Classic bait shops specialties include squid pieces, peeled prawn, frozen pipi and cured worms and yabbies, but many other dead baits will work too. These baits are best if you’re in a rush, or the whiting in your neck of the woods aren’t too fussy.

The top whiting baits are the ones you’ll have to collect yourself and include, but are not limited to, bloodworms, beachworms, sandworms, yabbies, pipis and soldier crabs. Spots that are close to or in the surf are best fished with the beachworms and pipis (live or frozen), whereas bloodworms, sandworms, yabbies, soldier crabs and most packet baits will get more interest in the estuaries and coastal lakes.

Make sure you check your local regulations around collecting bait, as there are bag limits for some species.

Get whippy

Long and whippy has traditionally been the call for a whiting bait rod, with the whiting anglers of yore opting for fibreglass and split cane rods to help keep small hooks connected to the whiting’s rubbery mouth. Soft and shock-absorbent rods are important when fishing with light line and small hooks anywhere, and fibreglass offers better shock absorbance overall. With that said, modern graphite rods like the Sensor Wave 1062L are also pretty light and whippy too.

On that goes either a spin reel or Avley reel with at least 100m of light monofilament line. You can definitely use your light braid outfits too, but leader knots can sometimes cause issues with sliding sinker rigs, plus braid is not very shock-absorbent. Daiwa’s 6lb J-Thread Nylon is a great choice of monofilament mainline.

Rigs are about as simple as it gets. While Paternosters are popular in the southern states for King George whiting, summer whiting don’t tend to hang out in deep water very much. Because of this, running sinker rigs are a popular rig in the shallows, as they allow the whiting to suck in the bait in without feeling the resistance of the sinker. A Paternoster may come in handy when fishing a deeper chancel at low tide but given that most summer whiting fishing happens in less than 3m of water, a standard running sinker should be fine everywhere.

The important bit is the hook, which above all things needs to be small, anywhere from size 12-size 2, depending on the size of the whiting and the type of bait you’re using. Baits like worms, yabbies and other longer baits will be easier to rig with a long-shank hook, whereas more odd-shaped baits like pipi, flesh or soldier crabs are better on hooks with a shorter shank, or even small circle hooks.

Stay shallow

Summer whiting can be caught year-round throughout most of their range, and the great thing about them is they mostly stick to shallow water. Most anglers will fish areas between about 1ft and 2m deep, with the ideal depth depending on a variety of factors. The most important is the tide phase, with whiting generally hanging out on top of intertidal flats at high tide, and retreating back to deeper channels at low tide. It often takes a bit of trial-and-error to find where the whiting are sitting and feeding on the day.

When deploying your baits, it’s important to cast them away from your vantage, whether that’s on a boat, pier or on foot. You want your bait to be up on the flat or in the drain where you think whiting are sitting, so sitting just off the zone so as not to spook anything is the key here. If within 10-15 you get no inquiries, try casting your baits somewhere different. Doing this a few times, you’ll quickly get an idea of where the whiting are.

It’s worth mentioning that some anglers have tremendous success chasing whiting with bait at night. The general idea is the bigger whiting come out to play once the sun sets, and this is certainly true in some places, and famously so! The Nerang River on the Gold Coast is legendary for producing genuine ‘elbow slappers’ for the nighttime crowd.

A SANDY SUMMER

If you’ve never chased whiting on bait, why not add it to the summer itinerary? It’s cheap to get set up, it’s easy for the kids, and you’ll have a ball collecting one of the tastiest fish in the estuary. Many younger anglers around today have only ever caught whiting on lures, in stark contrast to the scene 20 years ago!

It’s about time we sharpen these old skills, because when lure don’t work as well as they use to, you can always rely on trusty old bait to get the job done.