Pelagic rigs made easy.

After being bitten by the balloon fishing bug big time, I've started experimenting with different rigs and setups, and this is the one I've found to work the best. Depending on where you buy the tackle from it can become quite an expensive hobby, with times loosing half a dozen rigs in a morning. 

Instead of buying the terminal gear from tackle shops I've gone to the online stores and have found I can get alot more for less, yet I have not had any of it fail or be faulty which is a Bonus. When you can buy 40 meters of 100lb wire for the same price as 10 from a store its really quite an easy decision. Here's the gear of choice for me:

•100lb multi strand wire

•50kg ball bearing swivels

•11/0 owner hooks

•8/0 octopus circles

•200mm squid skirts

•4/0 trebles

I cut a nice long piece of wire about 2 metres long and the first thing i do is a nice Flemish eye to tie on the treble with a crimp to hold it onto place. 

Then I snell a 11/0 owner hook on, about 10cm up from the treble, and repeating this with another 11/0 around 8-10cm above it depending on how big the baits are your using.

If you don't know how to snell there are plenty of videos on you tube that can explain it, and once you get the hang of them you'll be doing them in your sleep.

With me i use the 8/0 circle hook just to pin the head in place, saves using another 11/0 but its all up to your personal preference . With all the hooks snelled on slide a 200mm squid skirt along the wire. I use a nice pink one, but as before its up to personal preference as there are quite a few different colours out there to choose from and I've just found pink to work the best. At the end of the wire tie another Flemish eye to the ball bearing swivel and crimp it in place.

Once you've got the technique down they are really quite easy to make and normally take me around 5 minutes each. I've also found using these rigs rather than the gang sets of hooks you can buy from tackle shops that you get a far better hookup rate and they will also allow the bait your using to look alot more natural in the water.

 

Tight lines and hope to see you out there

Reece

All about patience

Well after a few pretty dismal attempts at trying for a landbased snapper after the storms (managed to net someone else's tho) I was invited out on my cousins boat for an after storm fish, how could a say no. After hitting the water around 6:30am we done a bit of drifting for some squid, brilliant four in the bag, perfect fresh bait.

A nice 20 minute motor out to the spot saw us anchoring up in around 14meters of water, with the mulie cubes going into the water it was only a matter if time for some action.

With burley the key I've found is having a nice constant stream going into the water, you don't want big chunks of fish in the trail just nice tiny cubes or the fish will scoff it down and have no room for your bait. One other thing is also try and match your bait to the burley being used, no use using gardie if the fish have a scent and been chewing on mulies.

It would have been around an hour and half before the burley started working with my cousing rod screaming off. The stradic 4000 ci4 and the gomoku storm rod doing a great job of knocking the fish over, if you've never seen these rods they are a bloody great light jigging rod that always loom like there going to snap and fold yet it managed to turn the fish quite easily. Bam first size fish of the morning landed.

With high fives all round, a bit of squealing in excitement and photos had it was back to fishing. The next few hours proved quite entertaining with many runs and hits. Two nice size eagle rays one around the 25kg mark boated, again on the gomoku. At one point even I was getting worries that the little noodle rod was gonna give, but as before it held its ground and turned the ray then quickly knocked it over.

With the bait all but gone and the burley drying up it was last drop for the day, with me yet to hook anything decent. Casting out the bait and letting it sink to the bottom i took in the slack to have the line start peeling off the reel like a bullet. First call was a sambo as the sustain 5000 just screamed in excitement, I can say for a little bit i felt i was gonna get spooled but slowly the fish began to tire. These sustain reels are absolutely awesome, with a reasonable pricing and a lovely smooth drag its a pleasure to use. After around 10 minutes of tug and war the fish slowly begun the float up, as we saw colour the next call was a nice mulloway, wrong again up floats a very nice pink snapper. 

Now as with most fish this is where's my are normally lost, first attempt at landing it proved quite difficult with it not fitting into the net, just my luck. A few more attempts sees us able to get the head of the fish In, just barely and lifting it into the boat. Now I can say that I was more than happy I was ecstatic, hand legs and knees were shaking just from the adrenaline of landing a monster pinky.

With a great day out it just proves that burleying up on anchor can produce some great fish, it may take a while for the scent to attract them but when it does its sure worth the effort.

Fishing, it's a passion...

Fishing for me involves anything from sitting on a sandy beach to spinning heavy lures atop a cliff, any of which can produce a trophy fish. Yet most times I'm seen sitting, waiting for that elusive fish to take the bait I find that to be the most exciting.

 What better way to feel walking down to the beach with the family in tow knowing that its going to be fun with or without a fish. There have been plenty of nights and days spent on the beach without a single bite. But when it happens its all worth it.

I cannot remember the  many many hours I have spent trying to catch certain fish like mulloway, pink snapper and such. Yet I can remember vividly landing these for the first time, the pain, sweat and adrenaline running through as it slides up the beach and that's what keeps me going out for more. It's that "what if" factor that always makes me go out weekend after weekend, what if my mates go and I stay home and they land that monster. 

More recently tho is the enjoyment of going along with my son and watching him land his first fish, being there when he lands many more and having the time to enjoy the awesome fish stocks and locations we so luckily have here along the west coast. So for me that's why I'm out there and I hope to be bringing many stories and photos onto this page.

Tight lines everyone

Reece