Mangrove jack are generally found from the central coast of Western Australia, around the tropical north and south to the central coast of NSW. They are a greenish brown to reddish in appearance and juvenile fish often feature pale bars on their sides and bright blue lines on their cheeks. They inhabit creek and estuary systems, even up into the freshwater reaches, moving to offshore structure up to 100m deep as they reach larger sizes.
Targeting mangrove jacks in the estuaries is exciting on light gear. Mangrove jacks love structure, and by hiding under cover are able to explode onto unsuspecting prey that moves past. By fishing structure such as rock walls, sunken trees, bridges, wharfs and pontoons you can give yourself the best chance of running into feeding jacks. Jacks in the estuaries feed on prawns and smaller fish so a mixture of lures will work. Paddle-tail soft plastics and surface lures are my personal favourites, but vibes, prawns and jerkbaits are also great options. Try to match your lure to the size of the bait in the system – something between 3 and 5 inches is usually perfect.
Light gear such as your bream or bass combo (2 to 5kg rods, 2000-size spin reels spooled with 10lb braid) is perfect for accurately casting small lures into the jack snags; however, you may need to go heavier depending on the size of the jacks. If 10lb leader isn’t cutting it and you find the jacks are busting you off, you can up that to 15lb or 20lb to help you pull the bigger fish out. But sometimes the really good fish will need a heavier combo such as a 4 to 8kg rod matched with a 3000 spin reel spooled with 30lb braid such as a soft plastics for snapper combo.