Taming estuary tailor

You either love tailor or you loathe them. When schools of tailor plague an estuary, these saw-toothed assassins are considered by most bream anglers as real nuisances. If they're not devouring your hardbody lure collection, they are nipping the tails from every soft plastic in your collection.

The tailor has the best set of dentures in the business and can slice through any size leader with ease. When a tailor crashes your lure, you want to hope it’s pinned by the rear treble, otherwise you can kiss your lure goodbye.

I'm actually a fan of the tailor. Although their average is around only 30cm to 50cm, they fight really hard all the way to the landing net, with blistering runs and acrobatic aerial displays.

They can be caught with a variety of methods in all estuaries along the NSW coast and their fresh fillets perform nicely in beer batter.

In a healthy system they have the potential to grow quite large and I have seen them up to 1m long and caught them up to 70cm. At this size they make exceptional sport targets.