When Winter is on us and you dread getting out of bed each morning because it’s dark and bitterly cold, there is one compensation and that is that the Tailor Train has arrived at platform nine and three sixteenths. From June through to October in South East Queensland the Tailor will infest our waterways like mice in a wheat silo, on their annual spawning migration.

You will be able to catch them just about anywhere in salt water, as I discovered a few years back on a warm October day, while fishing the Fitzroy River in the middle of Rockhampton. To our surprise a fellow angler, trolling lures for Barramundi, hooked and landed a 1 kilogram Tailor. This was rather odd as we were 45 kilometres from the sea and I was of the opinion that their most northern range was Bundaberg.

By nature Tailor are a ruthless predator that hunt down small school fish and prawns. When a bait ball has been located they will gorge themselves in a mindless feast similar to a plague of locusts. This ravenous feeder is not a gourmet- it will devour Pilchards, Sardines, Gar fish, Herring, Mullet and what ever else has the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is when Tailor are at their most vulnerable to fly fishers. Like Tuna, they slash through a bait ball on the surface of the water, creating a commotion that attracts birds making it easier for the fisher to find them.

They concentrate around rocky headlands, beaches and river mouths like moths to a flame. Their motivation to frequent these areas is the congregation of bait fish which makes selecting an artificial quite simple. Any fly that imitates a small fish, like a Surf Candy, Lefty’s Deceiver, Clouser Deep Minnow and a Joe Brooks Blond will produce strikes. The Clouser would be my first pick because of its versatility. Fished and tied correctly, the Clouser will cover the top, middle and bottom of the water column while using a floating line. Hook size varies between a size 2 to a 1\0. If at all possible use a stainless steel hook. As you will be fishing in the salt, this will allow for a few outings, if not a few seasons, before the flies need replacing due to rust. That is unless you lose them to the fish or snags.

Tailor have a set of interlocking triangular shaped teeth that can cut through mono. When rigging the leader there are 2 different ways depending on your point of view. The first and safest method is to haywire the fly to the leader with 25 kilo single strand stainless steel trolling wire. The wire trace only needs to be about 100mm long with a 20 kilo swivel at the leader end. This will ensure that your flies see next season but if the fish are wire shy, you will get less strikes than with mono which is the second method, however it entails more risk of losing flies. I personally use a 15 kilo mono leader about 1.2 metres long as the whole leader, no taper. This helps turn a weighted fly over and should have enough abrasion resistance to land the fish. I am prepared to lose flies only because I tie my own, so they do not cost much to produce and to me the most important single thing required for any type of fishing is presentation.

The best fly line I have found for chasing Tailor is a weight forward floating line matched to the weight of the rod - around a 7,8,9 weight should do the job. The 7 weight would be great from a boat and the 9 weight will give the extra power required to punch through wind if fishing from the beach. The brand of fly line in this instance is not important as long as it is able to be cast. In fact, the cheaper the line the better, because when Tailor are in a feeding frenzy they sometimes bite through a fly line turning a $135.00 line into extremely expensive string.

A corrosion resistant fly reel is advised but a well maintained fresh water reel with a minimum of 50 metres of backing will be just fine as Tailor generally do not run more than 10 metres during the fight. An average salt water fly reel with 200 metres of backing would see many seasons. The reel does not need to have a Tuna stopping drag as most Tailor would be fought off the rod with the reel being a line holder only.

When a feeding school of Tailor has been located cast the fly into the centre of the action and proceed to strip the fly slowly. If you are getting bites but not hooking up, the Tailor are tail nipping, so slow down the retrieve or change to a smaller version of the fly you are using. Do not change to a different pattern that has little or no tail like a Crazy Charlie, as I have tried before, resulting in the fish going off the bite. The tail of a bait fish pattern has a seductive movement which screams "Eat Me", it certainly is eye candy to fish.

One of the good things about Tailor is that they hunt in packs, so if you land one, you know that he has a lot of mates that just can’t wait to ravage your fly. A good trick after locating a school of Tailor is to start berleying with small pieces of pilchards. You will have to change to a berley fly like a Skinners Pillie Head or similar. This should stop them from wandering off and give ample time to land a brace or two for a friends dinner.