A redfin is one of the first freshwater fish I ever caught – fishing in a farm dam. It wasn’t a monster but catching it on my own was a big enough event for me. The redfin perch is native to northern Europe where it is recognised as a popular sport fish. Commonly referred to as English perch they were first introduced to Australia in the 1860s purely for fishing opportunities. It thrived in Australia’s cooler southern climate and is now prolific from the southern corner of Western Australia and throughout South Australia, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.
Favouring slower-moving streams they are found in most rivers, dams and impoundments including the Murray, Ovens and Loddon rivers as well as many lakes like the Hume, Purrumbete, Eppalock, Eildon and also Blowering.
Redfin like to congregate around drowned timber, rocky banks and drop offs. Interestingly, they will often gather around specific trees while others remain empty. Maybe it is the size or with more fallen branches there is increased cover but the reddies seem to favour the biggest, most prominent trees.
As a schooling fish reddies often congregate in large numbers. To find them, especially in larger waterways, you need to use a fish finder that can sound up the schools and dramatically reduce your search time. Alternatively, you just need to cover the ground casting to all likely spots until you hit pay dirt.
FISHING TECHNIQUES
Redfin are opportunistic by nature and can be caught on bait, lure and fly. They really aren’t fussy and will happily eat scrub worms, yabbies or even a grasshopper. As a kid I used to catch heaps of them in the Murrumbidgee River on a basic paternoster rig and a bunch of garden worms or shrimps. Being an aggressive predator makes redfin an easy fish to catch and once you find them – it’s game on.
While they don’t have sharp teeth redfin do have big gobs and will swallow surprisingly large baits like yabbies with ease. Having a big mouth makes them the perfect candidate for wide gape hooks. The key is to feed the bait up the shank of the hook so that the hook point is fully exposed. A live bait like shrimp pinned lightly through the back is deadly. Alternatively, a scrub worm should be fed up so one end is over the eye of the hook. You can either fish the bait under a float or lightly weight it so it drifts down through the snags.
Casting deep-diving lures like the Tilsan around the snags is always reliable as is the humble old wobbler. Remember, as soon as you get a bite cast back into the exact same spot because chances are you will double up straight away.
While spinning is really good, trolling is something that has never been overly productive. Jigging is a relatively new technique but its deadly on reddies. A few switched-on freshwater anglers have adopted this saltwater technique to great effect. It is the perfect way to exploit the species’ aggressive nature coupled with its preference to school up. Small metal lures, soft plastics and especially Mal Holland’s homemade bucktails are perfect for the job.
One trick I have learnt over the years is that a school of redfin can often hold fish of all sizes from little ones through to 50cm monsters. The smaller fish hold higher in the water column while he big ones always hold deeper in the water column. Therefore the best approach is to get your bait down deep below the main school.
MIXED ATTITUDES
We have mixed attitudes in this country towards imported species. Where it suits us we embrace some ferals and condemn others. Trout have more regulations than any other species in this country while the poor old redfin gets condemned. I am not saying we should kill all the trout I am just simply pointing out how such double standards exist.
There is an upside to all this. Thanks to its noxious rating in many states this actually translates to no bag or size limits on redfin. With reasonable table qualities this makes the species ideal for anglers who want to load up the esky. Even better, when you find a school of redfin you can catch them all day and if there is one fi sh that is perfect for the kids then it has to be the redfin – now who can argue with that?
