One of the best ways to spend your holiday in Fraser island is through tailor fishing. Indeed, no island holiday would ever be complete without a calm and relaxed day or two spent fishing. Tailor fishes are mostly seen from the months of August through October, and they always flock from Fraser Island in the north to eastern Victoria in the south.
Tailor fishes are noted to be aggressive and are very excellent fighting fish. The school of tailor fishes usually travel in schools hence they are just easy to catch. Once you can catch some, you are guaranteed to have very tasty meal later on.

The best sites to fish on with are tailor fishes are north of Cathedral Beach to Indian Head and from Orchid Beach to Sandy Cape, including Ngkala Rocks.

Some others purposely armed with their 4m poles and 650 Alvey reefs come with groups of mates or their families to camp along the regulated zones between the Maheno Shipwreck and Indian Head.
And amazingly, when the zones of Wahba, Eugarie, Yurru, Guruman and Wyuna are open, they often become tent cities behind some of the best gutters on the island.

Now, if you are new to Fraser island and you do not have any idea what a tailor fish is. Let me enlighten you.
Tailor fishes are a predatory fishes which can often be observed “chopping” into schools of hapless baitfish. They are primarily found in rivers, bays, surf and around rocks in close offshore waters. In fact, the tailor is at home in almost any area with good tidal run and nearby clean deep water. Tailor fishes can be extremely aggressive and it’s not uncommon for tailor to take baits only centimeters smaller than themselves. In fact, these smooth water fishes can be best targeted using baits such as blue and west Australian pilchards.

Good lines for tailorfishing is 4 to 6 kg range for tailor fishes likely to range to 1 kg with the average being much smaller. Gangs of 3 x 3/0 hooks are a good option for use with pilchards and also allow main line traces to be used rather than wire trace.

There are all sorts of ways to catch a tailor. The traditional approach is to cast and slowly retrieve whole pilchards or garfish on ganged hooks, ideally using an Alvey sidecast reel and a long rod. This technique is about as deadly as it gets when it comes to specifically targeting tailor. But there are other methods that work pretty well, too. Metal casting lures are highly effective at times, and so are plastic and timber minnows, or even surface poppers. Saltwater flies also work a treat on choppers. So, it must be said, do soft plastics. Some anglers curse tailor for ripping up their rubbers, but others don’t mind quite so much, especially when the fish are a decent size. A one or two dollar tail seems a fair price to pay for tangling with a kilo-plus chopper.

In addition to destroying soft plastics, tailor teeth are famous for cutting lines — or fingers! Ganged hooks prevent most chop-offs, unless a bigger greenback swallows the bait deeply and gets its dentures to the leader. Then it’s usually all over, and very quickly. Smaller lures, and especially flies, are much more problematic and, to be on the safe side, it’s not a bad idea to rig a short length of wire ahead of any such offering. As always, wire is a trade-off. Using it will definitely cost you bites and limit your by-catch. Not using it may cost you a trophy tailor. Keeping the trace as light and short as possible certainly helps, and 15 cm of fine, multi-strand wire is usually plenty of insurance when dealing with tailor, even big greenbacks. All the same, don’t expect to catch too many bream when you’re rigged that way.

More Fishing Facts and Tips

- Mary River and Tinana Creek is closed to all forms of fishing from 400 meters upstream to 400 meters downstream of the Mary River Barrage and Tinana CreekBarrage respectively.

- From midday of September 1 to midday of September 30, the eastern foreshores 400 meters north of Waddy Point to 400 meters south of Indian Head and out to sea for a distance of 400 metres at low tide are closed to all forms of fishing.

- The taking of barramundi is prohibited from midday of November 1 to midday of February 1. ( But the dates may vary)

- Platypus Bay off Fraser Island is closed year round to the taking of narrow-barred mackerel and barracuda because of the risk of ciguatera poisoning.

- Spear fishing is prohibited:in the vicinity of the Artificial reef off Woodgate, north Hervey Baynear the artificial reef near Woody Island at the northern end of Great Sandy Strait

-A Stocked Impoundment Permit is required to fish Lake Baramba, Lake Boonoodma and Lenthalls Dam.

Hope you will enjoy tailor fishing in Fraser Island! Catch a big one mate!

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