Who says berley doesn’t work. Just take a look at what was in this ludericks stomach.

The trick to successful berleying is to have the correct combination of ingredients, consistency of the flow and timing, and to my way of thinking those anglers who don’t use berley are mad, as it would have to be the most effective way of attracting the fish to you.

But when using berley, no matter what the combination is, you need to use it as a technique of getting the fish to you. Not as something that feeds the fish or takes them away from you. The main thing that you have got to remember is that the largest object that is floating down that berley trail is your bait with a hook in it.

If you have been using berley and have found that it has not been very successful or you may have never ever used berley, you need to ask yourself some of the following questions;

• Does the berley take the fish away from where you are fishing?
• Are you just feeding the fish so much that they will not want to eat what you have on offer?
• When should I berley or when should I not berley?
• How often should I berley?
• Is it a waste of time and effort?
• What types of berley should I use for each fish species?
• Do I have to berley differently from a boat than to when I am fishing from the shore?

It is these questions that I get asked time after time and it may come as a surprise to many anglers when I tell them that I berley about ninety five percent of the time when I am bait fishing, and about ten percent of the time when I am lure fishing and believe me I wouldn’t do it any other way. To help you on your way to being more successful when using berley I have broken each of these questions up so that I can explain to you some of techniques that I use.

Does the berley take the fish away from where you are fishing?

During the winter months John Dory will start to show up in the estuaries. You will need to use berley to attract the small yellowtail, which inturn attract the John Dory.

The only way that the berley will take the fish away from your bait is if the current is racing so fast that as soon as your berley hits the water it is taken away from where you are fishing.

To counter react this you will need to either use a berley device that will enable you to lower the berley down to near the bottom, don’t soak the bait before it gets into the water or throw it up current.

If I am fishing is say five metres of water and the current is racing, I will throw a handful of the larger dog pellets up current. This will allow them time to sink down to the bottom and roll along with the current to where your bait will be positioned.

Are you just feeding the fish so much that they will not want to eat your bait or lure?

Sometimes when anglers who are new to using berley will actual throw out so much berley that they will actually feed the fish to a point that the fish will not take the bait that is intended for them. What you need to do is keep the berley pieces to a smaller size than the bait you are using. A couple of years ago I had a chance to go cubing for yellowfin tuna out at Browns Mountain off Sydney. We had taken out six blocks of WA pilchards that were to used for both whole for bait and cut up into 3cm pieces for berley. Once the pilchards had been cut up into 30cm pieces and fed out from the drifting boat, the whole pilchard with a 7/0 Mustad Big hook in it was then fed down the berley trail to the waiting yellowfin. It took me just over an hour to land a 29 kilo yellowfin on ten kilo line, but that’s another story.

Continued...

How often should I berley?

If you were using a combination dog or cat pellets, chicken layer pellets and small chopped up pieces of pilchards to attract snapper, bream or mulloway into your berley trail I would prefer to disperse them by throwing out a handful of the larger dog or cat pellets, then a handful of chicken layer pellets, followed by a few pieces of chopped up pilchards. The order of this combination is critical, as the dog or cat pellets will sink the fastest, then the chicken pellets, followed by the pilchards giving you an even spread through the water column and over the seabed. Initially you would repeat this process every two to three minutes. Once the fish are starting to pick up your baits, you would space it about every five to six minutes apart.

If you were fishing off the shore, for example a break or retaining wall for mulloway you could try a combination of the larger dog or cat pellets, half pieces of pilchards and pieces of cut up mullet. All of these ingredients would be placed into a twenty-litre bucket and then thrown out into the water at about every ten minutes. The main thing to make sure is that the current does not take the berley away to quickly, so keep the berley rather large in size.

What types of berley should I use for each fish species?

A mixture of bread and chicken pellets was the un doing of this catch of fish.

Many anglers will go out for a fish and just use anything that they can get their hands on or what they have either left over in the freezer for berley. Now a lot of the times this will work, but there are times when you have to be more precise in what you are going to use for your berley to get the fish your are targeting to swim up your berley trail.

I use a variety of different ingredients and combinations in my berley to attract the particular fish species that I am targeting on the day. These ingredients can be any of the following items: bread, bread crumbs, chicken layer pellets, dog or cat food (larger pellets), pilchards, prawn heads and shells, pipis, worms, maggots, fish frames, chopped weed and green cabbage, sand, wheat, bran, corn, tuna oil and various fish scrapes.

For instance if you are after luderick during the winter months in Sydney I find that a mixture of cabbage from the rocks and green weed from the estuary mixed up with sand will do the trick. Then on the other hand when I chase luderick during the winter months in the Shoal Haven River it pays to have a few chopped up squirt worms, pink nippers mixed in with the weed and sand. Not only does it get the luderick on the chew, it also stirs up the odd yellowfin bream.

While berleying at the end of the third runway in Botany Bay this yellowtail kingfish took a liking to a peeled prawn.

The year of 2003 has been the year of the silver trevally in Botany Bay, and believe me they have been everywhere, but there are still many anglers who have been having trouble getting amongst them.

The best combination that I found that works on the silver trevally has been bread and chicken pellets that have been soaked in water for a few minutes. Once the bread and the pellets have been broken up, you then need to grab a half a fist full and squash most of the water out.

Leaving you with a ball of berley about half the size of a cricket ball, which you through out into the water about every three to four minutes.

If you are after yellowtail, slimy mackerel or garfish for live bait, you can’t seem to go past mashed up pilchards. It is the oil in this fish that adds to the berley trail making the baitfish bite more readily. On the other hand if you are after a feed of estuary leatherjackets you can’t go by using chopped up prawn heads and shells.

Bream, snapper, flathead, tailor, Australian salmon and yellowtail kingfish will respond to a combination of chopped up pilchards, tuna and chicken pellets.

Continued...

Do I have to berley differently from a boat than to when I am fishing from the shore?

Whether I am fishing from a boat or the shore I will use a floating rig to chase luderick, and when fishing in the estuaries or bays there are five ingredients that you need in your berley, finely chopped up green weed, sand, water movement, consistency and placement. When fishing from a boat I prefer to have my boat anchored at ninety degrees to the shoreline so that there is no swaying from side to side of the boat. This then allows me to keep direct contact with the float. Once I have started the float on its drift away from the boat I can direct a handful of the berley to land around the float. This will ensure that while the berley sinks it will stay with the float as it moves away from the boat. To keep the luderick in the berley trail you will need to keep up a reasonably steady flow of berley and when you have hooked a fish this is usually a good time to throw another handful. By the way the sand gives the green weed some weight to get it down to where the fish are feeding.

While berleying with chopped up pilchards and chicken pellets this cobia came up the berley trail.

Whenever I am fishing off the beach I always have some kind of bait bucket strapped to one side of my waste and the other side will have a berley bucket. They could be a store brought one or a cut out plastic milk container. I tend to use chopped up pilchards and every now and then throw a handful as far out into the surf as I can get. You will find take this type of berleying will attract tailor, bream, sand whiting, along with other fish species. They inturn will attract the larger predator, the mulloway. Once again you need to make sure that you bait is much larger than the berley you are using. Say for instance, a fillet or whole tailor, mullet, whiting, luderick or squid.

Even though I have never use this technique before I have it on good authority that it does work. Firstly you need to build yourself a berley cage that is cylindrical, about one and a half metres long and a metre in diameter.

It then has to be covered in birdcage wire with a trap door at one end. The berley cage then has fish pieces or pilchards place inside it, which is then anchored to the sand by two spikes and two lengths of chain or rope. The wave action will cause the cage to roll up and down the beach releasing bits of the berley into the surf. The only problem that I would have is that I would have to carry it down onto the beach and as I like to fish as light as possible when chasing mulloway from the beach, this would restrict me to one area to much.

Rocks.

Whether fishing in the estuaries or bays, or fishing off the beach, berleying once again is a must off the rocks and I never fish off the rocks without berleying. Luderick are very responsive to berley and the four main ingredients in the berley are finely chopped up green weed or cabbage, water movement, white water and once again timing.

A good trick is to drift over where you have been laying out your berley trail. Flathead will tend to hover up the missing pieces of berley.

It doesn’t matter whether you are fishing in a wash, gutter, wash out, off sloping rocks or a flat platform there needs to be some kind of water movement when fishing for luderick off the rocks. This comes in the form of the change of tide and the swell. Most of the places that I fish for luderick off the rocks you will find small tuffs of either green, brown or black cabbage.

It is this growth that you not only use for bait, but you scape off with the cleats or spikes on the bottom of your shoes. The swell and tide will carry the berley away from the rocks and hopefully bring the luderick into where your float is. Now as for the timing you should scrape some off before you start to get your gear rigged and then every time that you move about on the rocks.

If you are going to target mulloway off the rocks you could always get yourself a tuna or a bonito and tie it around the tail. The other end is then secured to the rocks where you are fishing. The whole fish is then put into the water and allowed to wash around, causing small piece to break off every now and then. This berley will go out with the tide and current attracting the larger predators in closer.

Another method is to put some fish frames, heads and pilchards into a small meshed bag and also secure it to the rocks where you are fishing. This will also give you a slow release berley into the wash.

Now there you have it, if done correctly berleying is not a waste of time of effort and to my way of thinking you should berley more often, rather than not at all.