By Jamie Crawford

If you’re not from temperate Australia, it’s easy to miss the appeal of targeting gummy sharks. In many parts of our country great lengths are taken to avoid sharks while on the water – especially if they have a sweet tooth for reef fish. But gummies are different. Gummies are more akin to a species of fish than a shark, and they rate quite highly on the hit list for southern anglers.

I have always enjoyed targeting gummy sharks here in my home state of SA. I used to spend a lot of time chasing these toothless sharks from the beach, but fishing in the surf in the early hours of the morning can be hard work. And while I enjoy my surf fishing, I was keen to find an easier alternative for targeting gummy sharks, and one that was accessible for easy afternoon sessions.

This put my attention to our local bay waters and along the fringing shallow coastline, trying to work out a pattern for consistently hooking gummies in this near-shore setting. Over the last five years we’ve been investing a bit of time chasing gummies in this setting, and the strike rate has been on the improve and is now quite reliable.

WHERE

Gummy sharks are located around the cooler southern half of Australia, from Geraldton in the west to the mid-north coast of NSW. However, it’s the colder coastline through SA, Victoria and Tasmania which boasts the greater population of gummy sharks. They roam surf beaches, around deeper reefs and into shallow bays at different cycles of the moon and times of the year, so they are quite varied in the environment in which they are found.

In this feature I’ll focus on the shallow bay and near-shore fishing. And while I’ll be detailing the fishing here in SA, I’m sure this approach can be applied to bay systems in other states too – it’s just the timing may be different in other geographical locations. 

Most of my gummy shark fishing takes place inside bay systems here on the Eyre Peninsula. Our main bay is quite shallow, with plenty of sand bars and smaller inlets, with a defined channel to enter and exit the bay. The majority of water is only 2 – 4 meters deep, but the main channel and the deeper holes drop down to around 10 metres in parts, and it’s these deeper sections we want to focus our attention.

But you have to be cautious when anchoring in these deeper sections, as they are often in the main thoroughfare for navigation, and we see a lot of commercial crayfish and sardine vessels entering and exiting this area, along with oyster boats so it can be quite busy. I prefer to find a deeper hole away from the main thoroughfare. By using your sounder it should be possible to find some deeper holes away from the main channel, or at least off to the side.

We have several bay systems on the Eyre Peninsula where the gummies consistently move into the tidal shallows to feed, but these benthic sharks can also found along the coastline fringing these bays and inside the bottom sections of our Gulf waters.

WHEN

We have fished through these shallow bays right throughout the year, but here on the Eyre Peninsula the bay fishing for gummy sharks is at its best from December through until May. We find the fishing is more consistent in the week prior and leading through until the week following the full moon, but it’s still possible to catch gummies around the dark of the moon, albeit in less numbers.

When fishing outside of the bay system and along the coastline fringing the entrance, we get a good run of gummies in September to November, and we see some big females at this time of year too, which are always best released. When fishing along the coastline we’re often targeting water in the 10 – 15m depth range, and rather than focusing on a deeper hole we’re often fishing in the vicinity of some nearby reef. However, we avoid fishing over the top of the reef as the by-catch of unwanted species can be painful at times.

HOW

We’ll try to arrive at our chosen location about 2 hours before the top of the tide, with the turn of the tide being a peak feeding period for gummy sharks, especially inside a bay where the water movement can be funneled and exacerbated by the shallows. If we are anchoring in the main channel, we’ll try to pick a spot where the wind is pushing in the same direction as the tide, otherwise your berley and baits will want to run underneath the boat. Also when the wind is pushing against stronger tidal movement it can create sharp chop, sometimes making it uncomfortable on anchor even inside a bay system.

Once we have dropped anchor, the first job is to start the berley trail. I use a good sized berley pot filled with chopped pilchards, old fish frames etc, and I’ll place a small rag – which has been soaked in tuna oil - inside the berley pot too. This oil-soaked rag does as much, if not more, than the solid berley within the pot. I try to renew this rag every hour. I have got a small bucket with numerous rags soaking in oil at any one time.

I’ll also throw out some loose handfuls of chopped pilchards too – providing the tide isn’t pushing too hard. If it looks like the tide will carry the chopped berley too far, then I’ll just aim to throw the loose berley as the tide starts to slow towards the turn of the tide.
 

We find the gummies are quite active around the slack water as the tide starts to turn, and it’s quite common to pick up a gummy or two during this tide change, especially if the berley has been established for at least an hour.

Gummy sharks are opportunistic feeders and will happily pick up quite small morsels of berley and bait, but unfortunately so do eagle rays. During the higher water temps of the year the eagle rays are very active inside our bays, and most sessions we’ll have at least an encounter or two from a bait-stealing eagle ray.

But once the water temps start to drop during mid to late autumn, the ray action starts to subside and eventually fades away. Small bronze whaler sharks are a common by-catch during the warmer months, and are more welcome than the eagle rays. Using mono trace line though, it’s a hit-and-miss affair as to whether we’ll stay connected long enough to land these feisty little whaler sharks.

After setting the berley trail, we’ll fan some baits back into the direction of the berley. Some good baits include small finger sized fillets of tuna, silver trevally, slimy mackerel, snook and salmon trout. Small strips of squid along with squid heads are also good baits. The humble pilchard is also a great bait but doesn’t stay on the hooks as well as the abovementioned options, but if small fish or crabs aren’t too bad you can get away with half pilchard baits.

I prefer using a running rig with a running sinker clip (such as the Kwik change clips). These allow you to change the size of a sinker during the session if the tide increases. We’ll normally use a 1.5oz sinker while fishing in the channel but will increase up to 2.5 or even 3oz when the tide is pushing hard. This running sinker sits atop a 3/0 swivel (either crane or ball bearing swivel), with the trace line running below the swivel.

I use a single hook on a 100cm length of 60lb supple monofilament trace line. Gummy sharks don’t have teeth, so 60lb is plenty. If there isn’t any by-catch around then you can drop down to 40lb trace; the lighter the trace line, the more bites. A gummy shark will often mouth a bait and will transmit subtle bites, especially when the water movement is slack around the turn of the tide. A single hook from 6/0 to 8/0 is fine, with offset octopus or suicide pattern hooks being really effective.

When fishing with the kids, I quite often use an 8/0 circle hook which can be effective at pinning a shark in the corner of the mouth. These hooks are best fished with the rod left in the holder, and allowed to load up under the weight of the shark. But when gummies are playing with a bait, I prefer being able to strike to set the hook with the non-circle patterns. All of these hooks are chem-sharp or nickel coated which will rust away quite quickly if lost in the mouth of an eagle ray or bronze whaler.

Gummy sharks are great fun on the right sized tackle – and being clean fighters they can be subdued on quite light gear. But because of the eagle ray by-catch, we are often forced to fish a bit heavier than would be required if the by-catch was negligible. We use 6000 sized spin reels with 40lb braid when targeting gummy sharks in this setting, together with a PE3 rod. I like to have a little bit of length with the rod – something around 7’0” is ideal for casting baits back into the berley trail, and if the boat is swinging on anchor in the breeze the longer rods make it easier to spread the main lines away from each other.

If there is no unwanted by-catch around, then it is possible to drop down to a 4 – 8kg rod (or PE2 equivalent) outfit matched to a 4000 sized reel with 20lb braid to maximise the fun factor. Essentially a snapper outfit will double as a good gummy shark outfit.

ON THE PLATE

Gummy sharks are one of the sweetest sharks on the table, offering a mild white fillet. To be honest we tag and release most of the gummies we catch, but we’ll still take home the occasional shark, with the flake fillets always popular with our family. If you intend to retain a gummy for the dinner table, dispatch the shark as soon as possible, and remove the head and fins before chilling the trunk in ice.

Chasing gummy sharks is a lot of fun, and when it’s inside a bay system or along a near-shore coastline it offers a fun and accessible option for boats of all sizes.