Fishing with bait is the most popular method
of salt water fishing. But buying a block of frozen fish deemed
not fit for human consumption to use to attract fish that should
be, is not going to optimise your chances of success.
The days of whacking a hunk of any old bait on a
hook and tossing it over the side and catching fish are long gone.
Oh, sure you may luck out and park above a school of fish determined
to take a trip to your fry pan – but not often.
Don’t get me wrong, fish do get caught on frozen
baits, especially purpose caught baitfish such as pilchards and
skipjack. But much of the fish frozen for bait is by-catch, as
tough as old boots, and is probably as palatable. Many people
use these tough baits because they are tough they stay on the
hook longer. It stops pickers stealing the bait.
If pickers are plaguing you and your baits are being
scoffed before a decent fish can get hold of your bait try going
up in bait size, way up. And cast this bigger bait further back
in the berley trail. Bigger fish often hold back, below and further
down the trail than smaller fish.
There is a simple rule for baitfishing the better
the quality of your bait, the better the quality of the fish you
are likely to catch.
Fresh bait caught at your fishing ground is the
best bait.
Bait caught on the fishing ground tends to be the
baitfish your prey is chasing, and this makes your bait just that
much more attractive than imported bait. Freshly killed bait still
retains the oils, blood, and other attractions to your prey.
Any of the baitfish mainstays – yellowtail, koheru,
sprats, piper, etc. caught at the fishing site and used freshly
killed will be very seductive. If the size is suitable the bait
can be used whole – or if too big, cut up. If cutting up these
baits remember to cut across the fish at an angle from head to
tail to expose as much of the flesh as possible.
If you are chasing big snapper, try a butterflied
bait. From the tail, cut up each side of the backbone, to just
behind the head, then cut out the backbone behind the head. This
leaves two fillets still attached to the head. Hook the bait between
the eyes and fire it out. If the bait is still alive when you
turn it into a butterfly, so much the better.
Fillets of freshly caught fish such as kahawai and
trevally also make very attractive baits. When freshly caught
the flesh is still firm, and will stay on a hook much better than
when it has been frozen. Try cutting the flesh into strips, rather
than cubes, this will give the bait some added movement in the
water.
If the kahawai you are using for bait is freshly
killed, take off a fillet, skin it, cut the bait into strips,
and rig it with a two-hook rig, wrapping the line between the
hooks around the bait strip. This bait-rig has accounted for many
large snapper.
The gills of freshly caught bigger baits such as
kahawai, trevally, slimy mackerel, are top baits. Push the hook
through the pea-sized knurl at the top of the gills and send it
down. Do not fish gills for much longer than ten minutes without
a bite or hook-up the blood will have leeched out, taking with
it the reason for fish to bite.
Fresh-caught bait on the way out to the Spot is
next best.
Try and keep the bait alive if you can, from the
point of capture to the fishing ground. Fresh killed bait will
still be attractive even if it does not match what your prey is
feeding on. If you cannot keep the bait alive make sure it is
kept as cool as possible maybe in a bag on the ice you are taking
out to keep your catch in tip-top condition.
It is imperative to keep caught baits either alive
or as cold as possible. Keeping dead baits in a container of water
is a bad practice. This will actually speed up the process of
raising the fish s temperature, and turn the flesh into mush.
You can use any of the bait rigging techniques outlined
above for baits caught on the way to the spot .
Third in line is frozen bait.
Choose frozen bait using much the same judgement
factors you would use if you were planning to eat the fish yourself.
Fish that has been well cared for up to and including
being frozen will look better in the pack. The fish will still
be bright. Any bait that looks lifeless in the pack will probably
appear so under the water as well. It is essential that frozen
bait should retain the oils and juices that make it attractive
to our prey. Bait that looks flat in the pack has probably been
left too long before freezing and it is likely that oils and juices
have dissipated.
It is for this reason that frozen bait should not
be allowed to totally unfreeze before use .
As bait unfreezes, much of the oil and juices leech
out. A quick look in the bottom of a bait-bin or bucket at the
end of a fishing session will prove this. Keep most of the bait
you have taken out for the trip as cold as possible and only put
enough bait on the bait-board to cater for immediate needs. Many
frozen baits such as skipjack tuna and pilchards turn into a soft
mush when unfrozen a mush that is difficult to rig onto a hook
a mush that fish can easily pull off a hook. The best condition
for frozen bait is a texture something like the balsa wood or
polystyrene foam.
It is likely that fish have very little means of
detecting hot or cold, in terms of food, so bait that is still
partly frozen is no problem.
I can only think of one bait that is probably best
used after freezing, and that is skipjack. Fresh caught skipjack
is very soft and it is difficult to keep it on a hook. But in
saying that, skipjack that is allowed to totally defrost becomes
next to useless. Try and keep a skipjack out of the sun between
baiting up.
What to Look For in the Bait Freezer
When you look at bait in the retailer’s freezer
– and don t buy bait till you get a look at it – look for the
following key points:
Make sure there is no evidence of oil or blood in
the bag or box. This is a sure sign that the bait has either been
defrosted, or frozen too slowly, and the oils and juices have
leeched out.
Check that the bait has not been crushed. This can
indicate either that the bait has been badly handled, or that
the bait has been allowed to defrost. Crushed bait has flesh that
is bruised and soft often too soft to stay on a hook. Oils and
juices have been forced out of crushed bait.
Look for evidence of freezer burn . This may show
up as bruising on the skin, or discolouration of the skin. This
may indicate the bait has been poorly treated when freezing, or
that the bait has been in the freezer for too long. Again, freezer-burned
bait will be low on oils and juices.
To be successful in catching more or bigger fish
means starting at the fish’s end of the process. The first thing
that must exist is that there are fish to catch where you are
fishing. Having found fish, the next important factor is to set
up a ground-bait trail that will attract and hold fish near where
you bait is going to be. That is where the bait comes into play
– the better the bait, the better the fish that will be caught.
Everything else that follows up the fishing system hook, line,
rod, reel, and angler is of no use unless the first three factors
are in place. Bait selection and presentation is too often relegated
to a quick trip to a bait-freezer on the way to a fishing trip