How to catch whiting on lures

By Robert Thornton

Twenty years ago, if you were to tell someone that you were chasing whiting with lures, you would probably have gotten strange looks, maybe even a few laughs! Luring techniques for whiting were only in their very beginnings then, and just a handful of people up and down the coast were making the most of this vastly untapped resource.

Fast-forward two decades and things have changed so much! Nowadays it’s not uncommon to see entire lure walls in tackle shops dedicated to whiting, and coaxing out a few tips from the staff is as simple as asking.

Successful as the original surface luring techniques are, many anglers in recent years have found that the whiting don’t appear to be as willing as they once were. Whether this is due to a few generations of more aggressive whiting being caught, killed and eaten by anglers, or that the fish have simply ‘wised up’, is something of mystery. What is clear though, is that it’s harder to catch them on topwater lures than it used to be.

Thankfully though, whiting will respond to more than just topwater lures, and if employed in the right way, sub-surface lures can compete with the effectiveness of bait.

If you’ve never targeted whiting using sub-surface lures, you might find this blog interesting! We’ll be looking at a few sub-surface lures that work, why they work, and the situations where they work best. For a more detailed run-down of how to catch whiting using topwater techniques, click here.

SHIFTING SANDS

Between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, there were some seismic shifts in the world of sport fishing in Australia. Now that the use of braided lines was commonplace, a few forward-thinking Australian lure makers started putting ultra-small lure designs to market specifically for Australian species. Thin braid allowed anglers to cast these small, light lures long distances, so it’s no surprise that in those years anglers chasing bream over the flats found a regular by-catch in the flighty whiting!

Back then, any small popper between 30-50mm long worked erratically over a sand flat was enough to score a feed of whiting– and usually good ones at that. After a while though, things changed. Where once it was easy to bag a dozen or so quality whiting from a luring session, the same anglers were soon struggling to get just several. Those ‘old school’ techniques were still working (as they do now), but it was clear the honeymoon period had passed.

What was often overlooked, however, was how susceptible whiting were (and still are!) to small diving and sinking lures. Bream anglers using sub-surface presentations were also nabbing plenty of ‘elbow-slappers’ on the side in equal measure, though for some reason, this never got the media that surface techniques did.

In any case, chasing whiting on lures beneath the surface is by no means any less exciting, with many of the strikes still highly visual and bone-jarring. Additionally, it actually offers anglers more opportunities to chase these fish, compared to the topwater techniques that only really work when whiting are feeding in shallow water and looking up.

LURES TO TRY

Let’s now look at a few sub-surface lures you can try for whiting. I’ve already detailed the best rod and reel set-ups for chasing whiting with topwater lures, and you’ll be pleased to know that the same tackle is perfect for this as well. Basically, a light or ultra-light graphite spin rod between 7-8ft is perfect, with a small spin reel spooled with 6-10lb braid and leader completing the set-up.

Soft plastics

Soft plastics work on just about everything else, so it’s hardly surprising that they’re also effective on whiting. Generally speaking, plastics need to be kept as small as possible, with light jigheads necessary to impart a ‘natural’ action for these keen-eyed and wily customers.

Given that topwater lures typically imitate small prawns, Daiwa’s Bait Junkie 2.35” Prawn is a great soft alternative. At this size, it’s a fair mouthful for a just-legal (23cm for summer whiting in my home state of Queensland), but a mere snack to a 30cm+ specimen. The soft plastics prawns are a good trick to have up the sleeve when the whiting are a bit apprehensive to rise to topwaters, but are known to be skimming across the flats searching for small prawns.

Another excellent whiting softy is the Risky Critter. A small creature style bait that resembles a yabby, soldier crab or something similar, this plastic is ideal when the whiting are after bottom-dwelling crustaceans. Depending where you are, these plastics will at their most effective outside of the local ‘prawn run’ time, which in my part of the world is January-March, making spring and early summer, as well as autumn, the time to tie on a Risky Critter!

Then there’s the baitfish imitations, the 2.5” Grub, 2.5” Minnow and 2.95” Flick. These guys are the ones to call on when the whiting have moved into slightly deeper water, perhaps at low tide or in estuaries without many sandflat areas.

All the plastics mentioned above can be rigged either on small standard jigheads or Covert Finesse jigheads, depending on the action you want your plastic to have.

Blades and vibes 

These lures definitely open up more water when chasing whiting, and are a great to have as options in your box. Being sinking lures, they offer a lot of versatility and catch plenty of whiting even when they aren’t the target species.

Whiting, and particularly sand whiting, love eating pipis, oysters and mussels, and though the hard shells usually protect them from soft-mouthed foragers like whiting, like all invertebrates they have their weak moments. When pipis and other shellfish swim, dig, or are detached from their anchor point (in the case of mussels and oysters), the soft, rubbery muscle inside the shell will protrude, making them vulnerable to any predators around. Whiting will still have trouble getting at the muscle even when it’s sticking out, however when bream and other toothy predators are also pecking at them, there can often be scraps wafting around for the whiting to pick up.

Therefore, in environments where pipis and shellfish are common fare, such as surf gutters, estuary entrances with the ocean, and sheltered bays, Daiwa’s Reflex 38 make a very convincing case. Shaped like a shell, there are colours in the range such as Mussel, Pipi and Oyster. Tossed into a gutter full of pipis and hopped across the bottom, or pitched beside an oyster lease and allowed to shimmy to the bottom like a broken shell, these lures can be incredibly deadly in the right circumstances.

For more general scenarios, the 3.5g Metal Vibe is perhaps the most versatile sub-surface lure of the lot. While capable of mimicking shells like the Reflex 38, it can also be rigged with small assist hooks to imitate yabbies, prawns and other tasty creatures on the menu. In my view, a small vibe is what you tie on when you don’t know what to tie on: they can be worked fast and slow, in shallow or out deeper. Definitely don’t leave home without this one!

Hardbodies

The last lures we’ll look at are the old faithful hardbodies; specifically diving hardbodies. Like everything else mentioned here, they will catch more than just whiting, but offer a few advantages in certain settings.

Up first is the crankbait, and Daiwa has a few in the stable. The Infeet Rollin’ Crank in both the MR (mid-running) and DR (deep-running) are classic cranks designed for bream and bass, but have their place for whiting. Where crankbaits really shine is around structure, and the ideal setting for the mid-runner would be a shallow flat with patches of rubble, rock or any other hard bottom. The deep-runner would be more suited to the slightly deeper areas, though they can also work well in the shallows if you need something to really dig into the sand and call fish in from afar.

Then we have what I will call slender crankbaits, with the Infeet Kodachi, Spike 44MR and Spike 44EXDR (extra deep-running) fitting into that category. These guys should be brought out when the whiting are sitting deeper and eating baitfish, with the shad-like profiles of each of these mimicking small herring, mullet, smelt, minnows or even baby whiting. They can be particularly good when the fish are a bit timid, with the small trebles on these lures far more likely to convert timid bites than a small jighead on a plastic or even trebles on a sinking blade.

Finally, we have my favourite… jerkbaits! As the name suggests, these lures are designed to be ‘jerked’ and paused. The nice thing about Daiwa’s range of small jerkbaits is that they suspend when paused, making them a great finesse approach for whiting on the flats. For knee-deep flats, the Infeet Sazanami 60SP and Double Clutch 75SR (shallow-running) are the perfect imitation of a shrimp or small baitfish, as they both dive to only 2-3ft, dart erratically when jerked, and suspend perfectly level on the pause.

Moving a little deeper, the Double Clutch 48SP-G and 60SP-G will get down to just over a metre on a long cast, and so are ideal for the flats where the bottom is just out of sight in places. Once again, both these lures suspend and are just as deadly on the pause as they are when being jerked. The other thing to remember is that flathead and bream love them, so be prepared for plenty of by-catch!

NOT JUST SURFACE LEVEL

Hopefully this blog has encouraged you think differently about luring for whiting. As we have discussed, it certainly isn’t just a topwater thing, and it’s not all on the flats!

Next time you’re struggling to nail a few off the top, or just want to try something new to catch one of the tastiest fish in the estuary, why not tie on one of the lures mentioned above and have a crack? If a whiting doesn’t eat it, something else will!