Homemade berley scoop

Something I rarely do but I should do more regularly is to use burley/berley. Most of the time the water I'm fishing is very wide, so the chance of a good fish finding my bait is little unless I'm lucky to be in a spot where fish are hanging around. The purpose of a burley is to attract the fish in the neighbourhood but not to feed them.

The subject of this post is not the burley itself, but a DIY berley scoop. I'm planning to explore the world of Iso fishing and burley is one important aspect of it. As you are fishing from the rock, the burley need to thrown accurately and sometimes at a distance, that is why Iso fishermen use a berley scoop with a long handle.

A good burley scoop costs around $30 - $40, the cheapest I've seen is around $19. Alright... fishing is an expensive hobby hey!

I've spent enough and need to save to buy an Iso landing net (it's a lightweight, telescopic 5 to 6 meter long landing net), because an Iso rod wouldn't be able to lift a big fish off the water and from the rocks you have no other easy way to land your fish. So this is another opportunity for a DIY project :-)

So I need a scoop and make it long enough. So I went to Coles and see what I could find and saw this:

OK, it's more a spoon than a scoop but it should do the work. To add length to the handle, I've used a piece of wooden stick I've found in the corner of the garage and used a length of soft rope to attach it to the scoop handle using the same knot as you would use to make a float stopper knot which is similar to a Uni knot. I left a length of rope at the end of the handle to be use as a leash to attach the scoop to the bucket, it's probably be a bit short so I might need to extend it a bit in the future.

The spoon is not very deep as opposed to a scoop, but let see how this homemade burley scoop works. Another option is to use an old ice-cream scoop instead.

Total cost: $3

Berkley GULP Minnow 3"

My favorite softplastic would be the Gulp Minnow 3" in Nuclear Chicken.

I've caught many Flatheads, Flounders Leather Jacket and Trevally with them. Even big Yellowtails would sometimes grab them.

 

 

Yellow Tails

My favorite bait for surf fishing big fish is pilchards. I usually buy them frozen and would keep them for several sessions. Old left over will become stink bait for beach worming.

The problem is they can be expensive in the long run especially in times like these last three weeks when fish seem to be gone on holidays.

The second great bait is yellowtails or yakkas. They are great as live bait but still very good frozen. When too big they can be used filetted on a gang hook. And best of all, you can catch them for free.

Yellowtails are easy to catch, but it can be frustrating if you don't have the proper hook and bait. You can fish right next to another fisherman catching loads of them and catch none.

So what's the secret?

The rod:

Any short rod will do. I love catching yellowtails on my microlight fishing rod the Pen Rod Goliath from penfishingrods.com, they add fun to yakkas catching. Those miniature rods are so sensitive that makes yakkas feel like breams fighting! There are a lot of fishermen catching yakkas on handlines with a lot of success.

The rig(s):

I would go light fluoro 4lb or even 2lb line. A small hook, size 10 is about right, long shank is ideal. A medium to small split shot sinker or if you don't have any and hand you can use a small swivel instead. Some people would even fish yakkas without sinker but I prefer using a small one as it is easier to cast. Sinkerless rigs are more suitable when fishing with a hand line.

Alternatively, you can add a small float above the split shot sinker. With the float you will be able to target yakkas if they hang around a bit further away.

A third rig would be a Sabiki rig. They are dead cheap and very effective.

The bait:

Baits for yellowtails are in order of preference: small cubes of pilchards, minced beef, bread.

Minced beef can be hard to hook and would fall off as it touches the water, but with experience you will manage to roll the minced beef in small ball, then wrapp it around the hook and massage it till it sticks well to it. As the yakkas eat the bait it will shake it off which will act as burley and make other yakkas go wild. You will need to rebait often. But you should hook up often too.

My preference goes to pilchard. With one pilchard I should be able to catch 20 to 30 yellowtails.

For a Sabiki rig, usually you will not need any bait at all. The sabiki hook have small flies on them which will attract the yakkas as you move the rig up and down the water column. But there are days when yakkas are a bit slow, so tipping the Sabiki hooks with a bit of bait will help kicking off.

The location:

My favorite location is Balmoral Jetty at night. Yakkas are there by hundreds.

Alternatively, instead of catching yellowtails you can catch herrings with the same technique. My spot for them used to be Floyd Bay in Lansvale, but since I moved to Artarmon, it is now too far for me.

In Balmoral Jetty, they seem to like days when there is no wind and the water is calm. Fish during a rising or lowering tide about one hour away from high tide.

Yellowtails like to hang around wharves and jetties. So just pick one not too far from your place.

Here is a little video:

Beach worms

In fishing, after having bought my main gears, what costs me the most is buying lure ans baits. When you are a beginner it is easy to buy what you don't need or loose lures to snags so you end up going for another trip to the store. The bait I'm buying most are pilchards. They are just all rounder baits used whole or filletted or in strippes / cubes. I also sometimes get some worms.

Realizing lately how much they cost me I'm looking for other ways to get baits.

With the weather getting warmer, collecting sand worms / beach worms is on of the free way to get quality bait.

I'm not writing a post on how to catch them, there are enough blogs and video out there, Google will help you.

I read a lot of fishos saying Gulp Sandworms are awesome, but I must be doing something wrong cuz never caught anything with them... But anyway live worms are just leathal to species like breams or whitings. You can even get the big jewfish with worms.

I will never buy frozen worms again, having tried them they don't seem to work for me.

If you're on budget, these are baits you can get for free if you put the effort on catching them.

Tomorrow the low tide is at 10am so I'll be beach worming in Dee Why at 8-9am. I'll be teaching the technique to some mates.