Every survey of angling preferences undertaken in Victoria comes up with a single common denominator in saltwater. Asked what is their favourite fish, the majority of anglers who fish with bait say snapper. The bulk of the 330,000 anglers who fish Port Phillip Bay want to catch a big snapper. Make no mistake: Big Red is big business. When the annual migration into Port Phillip Bay fails, boating and tackle retailers suffer. In good seasons sales boom, and you only need a whiff of pink to get the dollars moving and boats rolling down boat ramps.

About the best you can say about the annual snapper migration is that it will begin sometime spring, late September to mid-October. Rough conditions, overcast days and water discoloured and turgid from heavy rain runoff offer ideal conditions for snapper to enter the bay.

Once in the bay, the bulk of the snapper run up the east side past Mt Martha, Mornington and Carrum. During the day, snapper will feed in deeper water, 15-20m and at night, you can hook them in 8-15m. Good numbers are often caught off Williamstown and Altona, particularly smaller fish that tend to congregate over the inshore reefs in about 10-12m of water. Fewer numbers of snapper run along the western shoreline, past St Leonards. Some turn west and move into Corio Bay while others tend to stay around Pt Wilson and the grounds from here to Werribee.

After a strong onshore blow has stirred up the bottom and reduced water clarity, land based anglers can do well. This is especially true for piers and rock walls. Pt Lonsdale pier is an early and late season snapper venue that produces best when the water is murky. St Leonards pier is often best after or during a northerly blow, especially around Melbourne Cup weekend. Mornington pier often comes on well after a strong blow from the west has stirred up the water.

TACKLE

Most anglers fish snapper with 7-10kg threadline outfits. The criteria for the reel are a smooth clutch system and a spool capacity of about 250m. Some anglers prefer to use overhead reels, which offer better fish fighting control and cranking power. Anglers fishing areas of strong currents should use braid lines about 15kg, which are finer than 7kg monofilament and allow the angler to reduce sinker weights by more than half. In this case, set your drag to suit the rod and not the line.

RECOMMENDED OUTFITS

Soft plastic aficionados will take delight in using the Fin-Nor MegaLite 4000 coupled with a Quantum Response, 4-6kg 7201 rod. This 2.2m long rod offers ample lifting power to handle the biggest red.

Quantum Cabo 50 PTs reel coupled with a 20lb, Rovex Carbon Tec XRC 48 rod is a great combination. The same rod is well suited to the Quantum Energy 40 PTs reel, although my preference in this case is to spool the reel with 15kg braid and set the drag to suit the rod rather than the line breaking strain.

The Fin-Nor Ahab 12 is one of the most durable threadline reels available and coupled with a Fin-Nor Ahab rod has all the stopping and lifting power required.

In recent years my favourite snapper outfit in deeper water areas has been the Rovex Aureus 8500 threadline reel combined with the Rovex Aureus 7601 rod. This outfit can be used in strong current where heavy sinkers are the norm. Despite its power, it is not a heavy outfit to use.

BAIT

Fresh bait is always first choice and fresh squid, whiting, barracouta, garfish and salmon are favourites. If you want to target big snapper then use the fish heads. The humble pilchard still ranks as the most popular store-bought snapper bait. Cocktail baits have proven effective on pinkies and to that end many anglers will put a piece of squid on the hook and top the hook with a small pilchard piece.

RIGS

The 4/0 chemically sharpened Tsunami Octopus is the favourite hook for most snapper anglers, one size hook doesn't suit all as bait size and not the target fish determines hook size. Some days it may be preferable to go up to a 6/0 hook, or if working cubes of pilchards for pinkies, drop back to a 2/0. When the fish are a reasonable size and you are working big baits, use two hooks on the same leader with the second hook either sliding or snelled.

The standard rig in most areas is a running sinker. This may involve a sinker the size of a pea, or something a little more substantial such as a bean or ball. At the southern end of Port Phillip Bay, there are strong currents. Light lines and pea sinkers give way to heavier rods and reels spooled with braid, and snapper leads that start at about 250g and are changed to suit the tempo of the tidal stream during the course of the fishing. A 330g sinker is common in such environments. In this scenario, a running paternoster rig, with longer leaders is used.

Leader material in the 15-24kg breaking strain is used on bait, but for soft plastics 8kg leader does well enough as most fish will be hooked in the mouth.

HOOK UP

For maximum hook-ups, fish with your reel in gear on a set drag of about 1kg to 1.5kg. Providing your hooks are sharp and the points exposed, snapper will hook up when they take the bait.