Time to tame a tailor by Jamie Robley

Autumn and Winter is tailor time along the NSW coast and encountering these hard-fighting fish along our rocks and beaches can be a load of fun.

In decades of the past tailor were caught in big numbers, often by the 50s and 100s, and it also customary to line up a pile of dead tailor on the beach or back lawn to take a proud photo of all the carnage.

Thankfully the days of catching equating to killing are a thing of the past. We all know better now but regardless of our current attitude, tailor stocks just aren't what they used to be. Two anglers fishing a good beach gutter or headland back then may have had a good day catching 50 or 60 fish but a good day in 2008 would be more like 15 or 20.

The good news is that we still have tailor cruising the inshore reefs, headlands and beaches in enough numbers to make it well worth fishing for them.

There are also some quality fish, with 2kg tailor not uncommon. A sprinkling of much larger greenbacks up to 6kg or 7kg still exist...