How to Catch Blackfish on FLY with Royce Shanks

Luderick or Blackfish on fly is growing in popularity, and it's not hard to see why - they are accessible along a huge portion of Australia's coast line where most of our populations resides, fishing for them in harbours and estuaries is easy, relaxing and safe, and they taste delicious! Today I'm fishing with Royce Shanks, one of Sydney's luderick masters, and Royce is going to show us how he goes about targeting these feisty fish in the harbour......
#flyfishing
#blackfish
#sydneyfishing

[@markhoffman9655]

Enjoyed this look at the fly and berley approach - which I use for snapper in Auckland (New Zealand) except berley is chopped up pilchards. I use small plastic bobbers and suspend a small clouser. Best snapper so far was 3 kilos. On the flip side, we catch Parore/Luderick/Blackfish in winter/spring crawling clousers on the bottom on a very slow retrieve with long pauses. Great fun the local harbour. Can see examples of both on my YT channel.

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Thanks Mark, sounds interesting! Pretty rare to catch blackfish here on anything other than weed, though I have very occasionally seen them caught as a bycatch on small shrimp patterns while bream fishing. I haven't targeted any big snapper here yet, would love to catch a good one on fly some time! :)

[@petermcconaghie7745]

Brilliant - thanks Steve. Gets me fired up Royce!

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Cheers Peter! :)

[@MrGreenfisha]

Good stuff, I have been fortunate enough to have spent time on the harbour with Royce. Time well spent. The curried blackfish fillets were delectable 🤤

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Cheers Ken! :)

[@Paul-yv5yj]

Love it! Royce IS one of the best out there..

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Thanks Paul! Yes Royce is a wealth of knowledge and very generous with sharing it, I really enjoy fishing with him. :)

[@Yipmanhands]

Thanks Steve and Royce, this is the one I was hanging on, great stuff.

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Great to hear mate, thanks! :)

[@kymboy1]

Good one, Steve. Structurally I really like how you set up the story with the footage of Royce on the hunt and the voice over that hinted at the mysterious ways of the luderick fisho and the secrets that have been passed down through the years. Good stuff. Fun and informative.

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Thanks Kym! I’m gradually trying to improve my somewhat primitive video creating skills, great to hear that it’s having some effect! :)

[@kymboy1]

@@PeachyFlyFishing Often the best videos are ones that connect with the audience from the get-go by posing a question, or making an observation or presenting a scenario that the audience can relate to. In this one you pose a really interesting question/scenario at the start, then give the audience a chance to see how a gun angler like Royce goes about his fishing. It's so much more interesting than just telling people to fish harder, cast further or use some magic fly. It was really good Steve.

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Thanks Kym! :)

[@Troutmajor]

Another great vid. Thanks Steve

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Thanks mate! :)

[@wasntPete]

Very informative video Steve well done.

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Thanks Pete, glad you got something out of it! :)

[@johnklansek8898]

Great vlog nice to finally see Royce in action with his flies great insight to the burley setup clearly I don't add enough to the sand. With regard to the fly does Royce make them himself or does he buy them there was an interesting comment about the the fly length potentially being to long

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Thanks John, Royce makes his own flies, though I’m pretty sure there are commercially available ones.

[@mattkoselowski-wh9vj]

I think I went fly fishing with Royce back in 2011 to Lithgow with him and Angus....He had a diabetic crisis on the way home. Was that you Royce?

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

That sounds like Royce!

[@adzoutnabout8666]

Do not eat any fish out of the lower parra.
I have caught blackies on soft plastics all around the upper parra. They do swim down to the heads.

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

Thanks, yeah I don't eat anything out of the harbour. Royce has been eating the blackfish for years, I'm sure he's aware of the risks of eating them out of the harbour though... :)

[@Jimmy-n6j]

Inspiring vid Steve and Royce! Might try some indicator fishing for melbourne docklands bream. Swap weed for bread berley and bread flies. Could be a winner on the frustrating melbourne bream me thinks~

[@PeachyFlyFishing]

For sure mate! We sometimes use bread flies for mullet and bream down at Narrabeen lake, I like to fish a 2 fly rig with a floating fly on a dropper and an unweighted sinking fly on the point, works well! You can even pop the floating fly like a popper, stirs them up sometimes and makes them think another fish is taking it, brings out their competitive streak!