brisbane river and bay berley secrets

[adamfitz]

Hi guys,

Pete and I have been experimenting with some different berley combos recently. I thought I would give a description of what we have found working, and ask for other peoples berley recipes or secrets.

Have found that chook pellets or BCF berley pellets soaked overnight in tuna oil has seen some decent results. Tried several times 2 hours prior to high tide and 2 after at Fishermans Island point. Brings on the garfish in 1000's and after a while you see the numbers of juvenile snapper ramp up. Eventually some larger snapper and bream come around for a sniff of what's going on. Pike, a ray or two, small moses perch at this time of year, a wobbegong and a few shovelnose, keep you entertained for a while. We generally only take a couple of bream or snapper for the dinner table (generally around 40cm but only a few over the day). A couple of unidentified reef fish and believe it or not, a mud crab that hooked it's pincer on a size 5 hook!?! This was all in one session.

We have found that dropping a sealed bucket (taped securely) with holes punched in it over the bow with a rope works nicely. Gets the berley on the bottom, and the current drags the trail under the boat. We give the bucket a shake every 20 minutes to keep it dispensing.

Have heard of the frozen berley but never used it? Anyone tried?

A mate in Noosa drops his berley to the bottom with a river stone inside a brown paper bag that slowly disintergrates. Seems to work nicely if you have some decent water depth (20 - 30m too long for a rope). Not sure that the bay is deep enough for this method - more suited to bottom fishing around some structure.

We have a berley bin on the back of the stern between engines, but sound that the bottom berley method seems to work better than top dropping.

Never had much impact within the river - probably due to the massive current. Our boat is too big to drift or use an electric (or atleast we are not confident enough to tackle the channel traffic without engines running).

Any one got any tips or tricks?

Adam

[Brian D]

Gess mate, this is a good post. Thanks. I dont have anything to offer but it sure has sparked my interest.

[silver_rex]

My last batch of berley i made consisted of Mack Tuna, Pillies, Some mullet, prawns shell etc all put through a mincer then added some weetbix, bread and pellets through the mix. Freeze them into 1/2kg portions then we just drop them into my mates berley container down the anchor rope shake it around every now and again and works a treat with the snapper out of scarborough

[Gazza]

Now where's that thread I put up about anchor rope bombs :silly:

But the cheapest base is buy chook pellets from a produce store HEAPS cheaper :woohoo:

and avoid mincing squid

Chook pellets soaked in generous amounts of tuna oil and add freshly chopped pillies on the day

added advantage is the chook pellet/tuna mix can be made up weeks before and stored in a air proof 20lt bin

Gaz

[apoklyps60]

awesome berley combo. this is what we use here. it is made of the leftover sea urchin guts. but it seems to work really well.

/>http://www.unigoop.com/video.htm

[Davo_Dinkum]

some interesting stuff here.

i was going to try some basic tomorrow .

old bread ripped up soaked in tuna oil maybe some old cereal bread crumbs .maybe add some old bait to it.got stockings, small nets ,containers etc to try it in.

i usually throw the old bits of bait and prawn heads etc stuffed mushy bait etc around where i am fishing .

so this will be my first real try at berley.

just using leftovers cheap only cost is the tuna oil.

[pablo]

hey guys, my secret berly tip is fresh oysters or cockles whatever you call them off the rocks pic them yourself and smash them up roughly ,there fresh and the fish go crazy over them you can mixem with whatever takes your fancy. ive used this acouple of times and when you actually catch the fish there bellies are full of the stuff so they deffinatly lov it ,cheers

[zan0_15]

hey out of interest where would i find tuna oil???????

[burger93]

Mate u can get it from anywhere like preety much big w,kmart,bcf,all tackle shopss

cheers sean

[zan0_15]

cheers burger........iv always thought chook pellets would be the go..........i have used fishy cat biscuits before thinking they might be a goer but all they did was soak up all the water and joined togeather! ended up like a big sponge!

[burger93]

Hahah yea mate well i have used cat food the tin stuff bout 10 tins and all sorts of thins just as well as it smells i starded a thread on this ages ago if you want to look there is heaps of good ideas fellas gave me

cheers sean

[burger93]

http://www.australianfishing.com.au/forum/3-saltwater/206465-tips-on-making-burley

[Davo_Dinkum]

zan0_15 wrote:

hey out of interest where would i find tuna oil???????

i got a 1 liter tuna oil from big w for $8.44.

not bad i reckon.

[zan0_15]

sounds ok to me davo! might pay the w a visit tomorro! hope the back is gettin better!

[jeff f]

i was mincing old bait for berley last weekend when i discovered that a mincer has no affect on octopuss

just kept going round and round

[rumrunner]

for deep water!

i usualy just use fresh pillys chopped and dropped evry 1-2 min all day(dont stop)!

can go through allot of pillys using this method but it does work!

michael (nastymind) showed me this method and he sometimes uses up to 8kg of pillys in one sesh!

we have had all sorts of nice fish just behind the boat coming up for a closer look at where the food is coming from!

also when they start firing i dont stop i usualy throw in a few hand fulls to keep them interested!

seems to work for me !

for shallow water

i use pony pellets mixed with pillys and tuna oil!

sometimes use bread with sardines!

cheers Ian.

[rumrunner]

jeff f wrote:

i was mincing old bait for berley last weekend when i discovered that a mincer has no affect on octopuss

just kept going round and round

lol

yeah gazz and i found that out last time we tried to make a squid and pillie and pellet bombs for the brc! :laugh:

[adamfitz]

Some great ideas here fellas. Seems the pellets and tuna oil are a constant. I liked this one also from "Snaps" on a previous thread.

1kg fresh pillies,

1 X Packet of bread crumbs,

500mls tuna oil, (Don't use the oil if the berly is for Snapper) Snapper are not to keen on tuna oil...

1 X Large can of catfood ( seafood platter ) ( prefer whiskas )

A few slices of bread.

1 empty milk carton, 1ltr.

1 orange/onion bag

how to use

Place onion/orange bag inside milk carton

Mix ingredients together, place in into milk carton, freeze

When ready to use, remove bag from carton and lower into water and with a bit of line/string to depth that suits you, or your burly bucket if in boat.

A 1tr mix weighs approx 1kg and will last you for at least 4-6hrs.

Can anyone confirm that snapper dont like tuna oil? I have to admit that whilst we catch a lot of squire whilst using my berley mix, they tend to be small. THe larger snapper we have caught was when we had no berley working.

Adam

[Davo_Dinkum]

i got old bait to add to my mix now .

the tuna oil and bread in the bread bag holes in it seamed to look like it was working .there was a oily line coming for it .funny thing was i got over it tipped the bread out in the water let it float away and soon after i got a squire.

so next time i will remember the onion bags .

[Lizard killer]

Does anyone know where I can buy frozen burley from.?       I was fishing bribie last week and a bloke gave me 2 blocks of burley and my god it was non stop action once the burley had time to work. I fished the shallows up near toorbul then went to bridge for turn of tide.  

It took about 10 mins. And I had a school of gar that increased by the minute and by the end would have had a school of hundreds that I could see.  I got smoked 4 times in 15 mins each time increasing my leader until I was using wire.  I'm pretty busy and don't have time to make my own and just easier to buy it.  

He said he was starting a new business and was doing testing on frozen burley blocks. I'm trying to remember the name but I can't think of it. Can anyone help does anyone know where you can buy frozen burley?  

If I remember I will share the name as there are probably others like me who don't have the time or freezer space to make my own. 

[timtam_]

Finding an old thread Lizard... well done! Never used burley but might be interested to try these frozen blocks. Send me a PM if you find them.

 

Tim

[Lizard killer]

No worries tim tam will do. It was an easy name to remember but you know what it's like putting your boat in your just itching to wet a line lol. To be honest didn't think they would attract anything but it sure proved me wrong.