Pillies on hooks

[Lukey]

Can anyone suggest the best way to present a whole pilly. One hook, two hooks with a snood, or maybe ganged hooks??? Does anyone find that they tend to pick at it if its on ganged hooks, and do you miss bites if its only on one hook??

Any help would be great. Cheers;)

[kriso]

i hate usin pillies cause they mostly are crap and just mush once they thaw abit in syaing that i think ganged is the best when using them whole.

[Dan23]

Half pillie with a reasonable sized hook works well. Just thread the hook through the eye or in the boney bit of the tail then pull it all the way through and present the hook through the meaty part with the point sticking out where the blood and guts are. If you use Whole pillie try gangs and float it out unweighted.

[Angus]

I rarely use a whole Pillie. However I have found when i do you can get away with one hook. When fishing for tailor at Straddy I often use one hook and some thin wire.

The way tailor eat prevents the one being a problem as they agressively smash the whole thing. Gang hooks are really (im my opinion) used to keep the pillie together rather than to ensure hook up.

Unfortuanly many frozen pilchards are terrible quality and one hook is as good as useless (but the again so are gangs sometimes as the fish literally just dissolved).

Another fantastic option, go to one of the various seafood markets around Brisbane, there are great ones at Darra and Capalaba. By a dozen garfish. It will cost you bugger all and will stay together until a fish rips them apart on one hook or gangs

Angus

[benno573]

a single hook (about a 4/0) through the bony part behind the eye floated will account for most things - generally most fish swallow the bait head first. gangs are great for surf fishing for tailor as they tend to hold the bait together a bit better. for in the bay, gang with about 4 1/0 mustards and your catch rate will increase markedly.

as dan said - half a pillie is awesome. a long shank 1/0 - 3/0 would be about right hook size. the half pillie is much underrated. think like a kid. if you have just eaten kilo of lollies, chances are if you are given another kilo you won't eat it. however, if someone gives you just one jellybean no problems. if the fish are being finicky, go down a bait size until they start feeding then go up to increase the size. pilchards are a bit like a self-saucing pudding (but they don't smell quite as good) in as much as every time you send one down and it gets hit, it will burley up for you as well.

[kriso]

yep thats the go i reckon gus i dont buy pillies i just cast net up some gar at colleges before i go and chuck em in the freezer heaps better as they dont fall apart

[rayke1938]

It may depend on what fish you are targeting. I have always used ganged hooks for tailer depending on the size of the pillys I use 3 or 4 hooks,

I try to get quality pillys and usually pay a premium to get IQF ( individually quick frozen)That way you can keep them frozen and defrost as needed.

Any that have defrosted you can chuck in a handful of salt and then refreeze. The salt toughens them up and doesnt seem to affect the catching ability too much.

When I used to go camping down the pin we used to just chuck the defrosted blocks of pillys in a sugar bag with salt and hang them up in a tree. They used to keep ok for a week abeit a bit dried out and tough but still caught fish.Just dont hang the bag above the bread It doesnt taste too good.

Cheers

Ray

[username_taken]

The way tailor eat prevents the one being a problem as they agressively smash the whole thing. Gang hooks are really (im my opinion) used to keep the pillie together rather than to ensure hook up.

From memory Tailor will often bite the tail off their pray and then eat them on the second strike. Gang hooks are great for this, I use 3 or 4, start from the last hook at the back of the fish, and the closest hook to the line should go up through the jaws to hold it closed.

I've caught Mack Tuna, Spanish Mackeral, Snapper and Taylor from a charter with that hook method.

[Dazzamcgee]

Pillies, I use most of the time when bait fishing and are very versatile for many different situations.

This is how I use them....

Whole Pilchard:

Ganged hooked for larger toothy critters that prefer to take whole baits/or for further casting.(Tailor,Jews,Sharks etc)

Whole Pilchard:

Snelled hooked with 2, 2/0 hooks spaced about 6cms apart for larger fish that tend to pick at the bait or take whole. Presentation wise make sure the hook points are pointing in opposite directions for maximum effect..(All of the above plus the pickers ie: Bream, Moses Perch, Flathead, Jacks best suited to estuary fishing).

Half Pilchard: (Heads or tails as I call them)

A 2/0 hook passed through the eye on the head half of the pilchard and turned through the flesh and back on itself works well. Same thing with the tail half but include a couple of half hitch loops over the tail for a firmer hold. (Mostly used in the estuary.)

Pilchard fillet:

A very soft form of bait used mainly with a light leader. Good for picking/finicky fish but it doesn't last very long.

All above Pilchard baits can be fished with larger hook sizes or be weighted/unweighted, floated or what ever is need for the situation.

Hope this helps...........

[LIVE_2_FiSH]

Dazzamcgee wrote:

Pilchard fillet:

A very soft form of bait used mainly with a light leader. Good for picking/finicky fish but it doesn't last very long.

Ypu would be suprised what you'll catch with pillies, even pilly fillets. Up at caloundra about 6 months ago all we were getting was average sized bream on white bait. Had one pilly left so decided to fillet it and chuck it out, on those really small gangs. Brely in the water for 5 seconds beforeee zzzzzz up pops a 75cm jew, blew me away.

Generally i gang my whole pilles. if im using a running sinker rig i tend to have the pille facing away. That way i can release line slowly and it looks as if the pillie is swimming down current. If im using a standard sinker and trace setup i generally have pille facing towards the eyelet of the first gang (opposite to before).

[chubbstar]

75cm Jew Nice 1:woohoo:

I mainly use snelled rigs when using Pillys. I use 5/0 or 6/0 hooks with a 6-9cm gap between the hooks. I normaly place the bottom hook threw the eye socket of the Pilly and then the top hook threw the meaty tail area, I then use a half hitch around the tail to help hold the bait.

I have been told to stop small pickers, Bream etc from striping your bait, use Tuna oil on the Pilly. Was told that Bream etc wont go near the bait:huh: I havn't done it, but would be intersted to hear if anyone has and if it works?

Jayson

[Lukey]

Thanks to all for the great info, but I'm still just as confused as i was before this thread!! Seems like everyone has their own way of doing it which is good.

I'll just have try the differene techniques and see which works best for me.

Cheers everyone.

[Cowfish13]

I pretty much always use a whole ganged (3-hook) pilly for big (ish') Snapper, and Tailor & Mackerel.

When I'm going for smaller fish or we're running out of bait, I use a 2-hook gang rig with half a pilly.

[Bait Bringa]

3 ganged 4/0's starting at head with last hook, then criss cross bind with cotton. This will enable multiple casts when normal pillies will fall apart.

[waldo]

Lukey you got some great responses and it's varied because it depends on what you are fishing for. dazzmcgee uses a very similar approach to me but I don't like snells so don't use them.

Rough guide anything with sharp teeth use a 3 gang (3/0s a nice sixe imo) I also use them at times for smaller snapper.

Smaller species such as bream, moses perch, trevs, grassies use half pillies or fillets on single hooks.

As you said try and see what suits you best though and get quality pillies if you can it makes all the difference.

[fishyman]

Bait Bringa wrote:

3 ganged 4/0's starting at head with last hook, then criss cross bind with cotton. This will enable multiple casts when normal pillies will fall apart.

have to vouch (spelling) for anth here, he came across this technique and it is very good, just burn off teh cotton when you wanna rebait

[kevinchen19870316]

pilly's nearly the only bait i use. ha

when targeting bream, i use tubes or half pilly on single hook. when targeting anything big, i use ganged hooks whenever possible. will go down to single hook if the fish r not in the mood

[faulked]

i go to the wet fish shop and get hand picked squid large enough for me to rip the heads of [for a separate bait] and stuff a pilchard up it then a snelled 6/0 goes through the squid pilchard and the snelled 9/0 goes through the guts this works a treat for big fish

JASON