When the bait shrinks, the metal has to shrink with it. That was the message from a Moreton Bay session captured by Tackle Tactics TV, where downsizing to a brand new 10-gram slug turned a school of fussy mac tuna into a steady run of fish before the wind chased the boat into the river for an unscheduled flathead chapter.
The target was modest — small mac tuna boiling on tiny bait around Brisbane's home waters — but the principle the presenters were testing applies wherever pelagic species are keyed in on micro forage. A new 10-gram ZMan hardcore slug and a new 10-gram sway bait were the tools of choice, paired with three-to-six kilo gear and a 4,000 reel loaded with 20-pound braid.
"It's always worth bringing a few different rods because sometimes the tuna are small and you got to throw 10-gram lures at him," one of the presenters tells the camera as the first mac tuna comes to the boat. "Light gear, 10-gram slugs… these little guys can be so fussy sometimes. That's why it's always worth having 10-gram lures in your kit."
The session quickly settles into the classic Moreton Bay rhythm — circle the bust-ups, cast into the school, retrieve fast just under the surface. A double-up early on confirms the small profile is what the school wants, and the boat keeps moving with the fish as the slack tide rolls through.
"These guys like to push bait into the wind or push bait into the current," the presenter explains. "But with this slack tide, they're kind of moving fairly quickly, chasing bait, not bailing it up into those conditions. So we just got to keep moving with them, find them, and then we'll spin up a couple."
The morning is not without drama. A solid hook-up on a deeper beacon turns into a head-shaking battle that ends in the worst possible way — a shark eats the fish on the leader. "One of the endangered sharks has eaten our longtail. That was a big fish," the presenter says, before pivoting to the next beacon.
The day's other story unfolds around Moreton's marker beacons, where school mackerel hold close to the bottom. The presenter describes a long-arch shape on the sounder and the tactic that follows. "We're casting out, letting it sink down to the bottom. Soon as it hits the bottom, that line will go slack and it's just a fast retrieve back. A lot of those fish will bite it just before the slug gets to the surface," he says, adding that the macs were swimming around the boat in plain sight. "A lot of the time with pelagics, if you can't get a bite, downsize. So I've changed down to that 10-gram slug. And on that first drift, he's come up. A bunch of his mates come up. But yeah, that down straight away got a bite."
The payoff is a school mackerel into the net and several mac tuna kept on ice for fresh bait. "He's got that slug in the gills. He's absolutely scoffed that. So he will make excellent beach fishing bait for tailor and jewies and stuff, bream bait in the esties, whatever you want to catch."
When the wind turns up, the crew abandons the offshore plan and ducks into the dirty water of the river mouth. A ghost chartreuse three-inch slim swimz on a quarter-ounce demon jig head delivers a pair of flathead to close the day out — proof, the presenter notes, that the same rod and reel can stitch a session together when the weather refuses to play ball.
For anglers eyeing the glassy winter mornings ahead in southeast Queensland, the lesson is straightforward: keep a tray of 10-gram slugs in the kit, hunt the beacons after the bust-ups slow down, and have a backup plan up the river.
