r/FishingAustralia • u/dariusdreamss • 8h ago
🔎 Recommendations Wanted Best beginner gear?
I’m a super amateur when it comes to fishing.
Having said that I’ve been fishing a few times over the years in Australia and overseas and caught some nice fish. But I don’t know anything at all when it comes to rigging up rods, what gear is what, what to buy as a beginner.
It’s always something I’ve either done with friends who have a bunch of gear and know what they’re doing and have all the gear setup, so I just cast and reel it in.
I’ve caught your regular bream, snapper, and a shovel nose shark here in Aus. Overseas was mainly cod, coal fish. Caught a halibut & wolfish too!
But these were on tours, and they had everything setup for me to just go & fish.
I’ve been wanting to go and land some exciting new catches again now that summer is coming up. But it’s hard to rely on friends all the time and I don’t wanna pay loads for a boat fishing tour.
So I’ve signed up to a land fishing introductory tour recently who will take me through everything and i can learn abit.
That’s a bit of context regarding my experience and current mindset. I wanted to know if it’s worth for someone like me to actually buy some beginner gear so i can go out on my own. I probably won’t catch anything that excites me. Or if I should just to doing a tour like twice a year in summer locally. So i can just enjoy catching some good fish alongside experts.
I don’t want to invest in all the gear and for me to go out, catch something I don’t care too much about. Get bored and it just be a waste of money.
Having said that, I was looking at Shimano rods and reels. What would you said is the absolute best durable and reliable long term rod & reel for someone at my level, that can handle most regular species of fish. I won’t be out on a boat to land anything big like a marlin or mahi mahi or whatever.
But maybe an occasional king fish off the harbour, who knows. I just want to research the right gear within that range and see if it’s worth me spending some coin on, should I choose to go ahead with it.
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u/Cape-York-Crusader 8h ago
7foot 2500-4000 sized reel, 12lb mono will cover the basics
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u/Curious_Breadfruit88 6h ago
Eh just pickup some braid, will improve your experience significantly and only costs $20 or so
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u/defzx 8h ago
Buy your own gear but it really depends on what type of fishing you want to do.
Are you doing land based on the rocks, jetty, off the beach?
A good beginner setup is the Shimano sienna 2-4kg combo which is great for bream, whiting, flathead, squid.
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u/dariusdreamss 8h ago
Ye land based only. Jetty-wharf mostly.
Beach not so much,
Rocks I don’t want to get swept away lol.
Not a strong swimmer
But any rock areas near calm water is good not the big waves.
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u/Platypus01au 8h ago
I don’t know, you seem to be catching more than me and I’ve got a garage full of gear!
Seriously, it depends entirely where you are and what you want to do. Signing up to an introduction course is a very good idea. Another is to look around on YouTube for people who are doing what you want to do.
You mentioned the harbour, so you could be in Sydney. So looking at some videos from someone like Shroom might give you some ideas.
In the end, there is no such thing as beginner gear IMO. Really cheap gear will fail, which you don’t want to happen when you have a fish on. Shimano make good gear, and look for middle of the road prices, ~$100 for either a rod or reel is about the sweet spot IMO.
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u/dariusdreamss 8h ago
Yeh I’m Sydney based. Happy to drive max 2hrs up and down the coast. Only want to do saltwater fishing.
I just used Claude and it told me the good reliable reels that can handle most fish are the $600-$800 shimano ones. And I’d need a 7-15kg rod or something.
Does that sound right to you?
Where are you fishing btw? If I’ve caught more lmao
The shovel nose was at port Stephens btw
There’s a tonne of stuff there, relatively easy to catch something near the break wall1
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u/ldp487 8h ago
My best advice is to find a local bait and tackle shop. The big ones like BCF can be hit and miss, sometimes you can come across someone who really knows there stuff and other times, they really don't know anything outside their own preferences.
Go to them and tell them what kind of fishing and target species you are looking for. Tell them you have no idea and just want to get a good package.
The vast majority of these smaller shops rely on repeat business and word of mouth, so they usually do the right thing and help out beginners.
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u/SavingsPreference362 8h ago
You are entering a great new world. However such a combination doesn't exist. I recommend starting with a sienna 2500-4000 combo and seeing how you like it, you can pick them up at bcf for $100 at the moment.