TOP TACTICS
A big mistake with smoothhounds is to use catch reports as a guide to where to go fishing.
These fish are notorious for being “here today, gone tomorrow”, so it is best to build up a list of beaches that hounds can be taken from and always have an alternative in mind because the fish deplete a food source and move on.
It is worth noting where the charter boats fish for them just offshore because they are often very close to the shore as well. Fish the adjacent beaches, especially at night, because the fish will be working the beaches too.
On the rough-ground beaches, try to locate those bits of seabed with the fastest tide and concentrate your efforts there. In addition, look for natural deeper travel routes between either patches of rough ground or areas of bigger than average boulders.
You can’t describe smoothhounds as a shoal species, but frequently large numbers will be attracted to specific areas and good catches can be taken.
Bigger fish are often taken when the main flush of fish has passed through or from ground not fished for numbers of fish between the bigger tides. It is best to treat big hounds as single fish that generally prefer to feed on their own away from the smaller ones and you won’t go far wrong.
Smoothhound bites can be strange affairs. Sometimes they hammer the rod tip over, lifting the butt off the floor and hooking themselves.
Other times you see a few gentle knocks on the rod tip, but when you wind in your crab bait has been mashed. If this is happening, release a couple of feet of line off the reel so that the line tension is slightly reduced. This can prompt a fish to pick up the bait and swim away with it more confidently, rather than feeling the tension and assessing something is wrong, crushing the bait, but not taking it fully in the mouth. Strike when the rod tip hammers over.
Hounds will pick up and drop a bait. If this is happening, don’t strike, but instead leave the bait to carry on fishing. The same fish may return or another will find the bait fairly quickly. It’s a characteristic of smoothhounds that is hard to fathom, but it’s what they do. ■