Live Rig

[marlin1962]

HI GUYS , CAN ANYONE TELL ME THE BEST WAY TO RIG UP LIVE PODDY MULLET (PODDY'S ARE ABOUT 6-7cm) AND THE BEST WAY TO RIG THEM FOR DRIFTTING FOR FLATTIES. I HAVE CAUGHT HEAPS OF PODDY'S

BEFORE TO SHOW THE KIDS BUT NEVER FISHED WITH THEM.

THANKS MARTY.

PS. JEWGAFFER, I CATCH THE PODDYS JUST NEAR YOUR FAV SPOT ON THE COAST, SO MAYBE THEY MIGHT WORK THERE. LETS HOPE.

Edited September 20, 2007 by pops punt

[Sammy0884]

Mate, not sure about using a 'potty' mullet for bait Could leave your flatties tasting a bit nutty!

[marlin1962]

Mate, not sure about using a 'potty' mullet for bait Could leave your flatties tasting a bit nutty!

THANKS SAMMY I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING . HAS BEEN EDITED NOW THANKS.

Edited September 20, 2007 by pops punt

[jewgaffer]

HI GUYS , CAN ANYONE TELL ME THE BEST WAY TO RIG UP LIVE POTTY MULLET (POTTY'S ARE ABOUT 6-7cm) AND THE BEST WAY TO RIG THEM FOR DRIFTTING FOR FLATTIES. I HAVE CAUGHT HEAPS OF POTTY'S

BEFORE TO SHOW THE KIDS BUT NEVER FISHED WITH THEM.

THANKS MARTY.

PS. JEWGAFFER, I CATCH THE POTTYS JUST NEAR YOUR FAV SPOT ON THE COAST, SO MAYBE THEY MIGHT WORK THERE. LETS HOPE.

Hi Marty I'm quick on the draw today. I've got my gear and raincoat ready for a morning session.

You'll have other good advice too. There are many other top rig men always willing to assist

As stumpy tells me to say , I'll just say Right listen here-----:-

Poddys: Try them out first on three octopus hooks snelled one above the other with lumo tube in between, the last hook dropped down the top so it stands out the opposite way and it will turn out at an angle as you tighten the line. Run three poddies two hampered and struggling near nose to nose and the other one swimming freely with a bit of excess baggage slowly coming along.

Flathead will take one look at that and they break up those shananigans pretty fast, Marty.

Try out where you caught the poddies but around the perimeter. If no action there move to a spot where you only occasionally find poddy mullet, and always try the channel of thro a separate rod into it

Hope this helps Marty and hope you catch good flathead and I feel a bigger bait will go always go well to get them interested and you started.

Cheers Marty

jewgaffer

[marlin1962]

Hi Marty I'm quick on the draw today. I've got my gear and raincoat ready for a morning session.

You'll have other good advice too. There are many other top rig men always willing to assist

As stumpy tells me to say , I'll just say Right listen here-----:-

Poddys: Try them out first on three octopus hooks snelled one above the other with lumo tube in between, the last hook dropped down the top so it stands out the opposite way and it will turn out at an angle as you tighten the line. Run three poddies two hampered and struggling near nose to nose and the other one swimming freely with a bit of excess baggage slowly coming along.

Flathead will take one look at that and they break up those shananigans pretty fast, Marty.

Try out where you caught the poddies but around the perimeter. If no action there move to a spot where you only occasionally find poddy mullet, and always try the channel of thro a separate rod into it

Hope this helps Marty and hope you catch good flathead and I feel a bigger bait will go always go well to get them interested and you started.

Cheers Marty

jewgaffer

thanks byron, you have some great knowledge in that head of yours, we need to get together for a fish someday.

thanks again,

cheers marty.

[Bruce the Postie]

Marty,

I noticed you will be fishing at The Entrance soon so try lip hooking thoose poddys and suspending them under a float, Not only will it produce fish but float fishing is a sure fire winner with the kids!!

Good luck and let us know how ya go.... Ps. Most lizards in the lakes are only average size so those 5&6 cm poddys will do just fine.

Bruce

Ooops, got me smilie in the wrong spot

[marlin1962]

Marty,

I noticed you will be fishing at The Entrance soon so try lip hooking thoose poddys and suspending them under a float, Not only will it produce fish but float fishing is a sure fire winner with the kids!!

Good luck and let us know how ya go.... Ps. Most lizards in the lakes are only average size so those 5&6 cm poddys will do just fine.

Bruce

Ooops, got me smilie in the wrong spot

thanks bruce, i think the girls will only use prawns (dead ones at that) they don't like to touch anything thats alive,even the fish they catch, so they keep me busy. but i will be using the poddys and trying your float rig.

thanks again bruce.

[Davemmm]

If you are drifting for flatties with a poddie the easiest way is a running sinker down to a swivel, short trace and then a 2/0 or 3/0 suicide. You can then hook them through the shoulder, tail or lip.

When you hook them through the shoulder keep the hook up high so it doesnt hit their spine. They swim around slower with this method.

When you pin them through the tail they thrash about and swim better but you can miss hook ups with fish taking the head off and leaving you with a bit of tail and a hook.

You can only lip hook poddies when they are larger. It does mean they live a lot longer but I think the size best suited for flatties is too small to use this method.

Personally I prefer the tailhook method as it leaves the bait to swim with a more frantic manner but if its not working you just have to change to the shoulder.

The suicide pattern hook may not be the best but it works for me.

Dave

[Jewhunter]

There are a few simple of methods I use for small livies. Remember that the bait has to look right while you're swimming it out there.

If I'm in a boat or using a float I pin them through the shoulder. I suspend them just off the bottom so they swim naturally.

If I'm fishing a running sinker bottom rig I pin them just above the anal fin from underneath. This method also allows the livie to swim naturally. If your sinker is on the bottom & you pin a livie in the shoulder it tends to swim upside down & it won't live long.

If I'm fishing in a strong current I'll pin them through the top of the mouth & out of the nose or between the eyes.

This lets them have water flow through the mouth instead of back through the gills. Again this keeps them alive for longer.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Grant.

[james1990]

Hi there

I like to use those mustad wide gap hooks when i live bait with poddys, hooked just in the back.

Seem to do the job fine, got plenty about 30-45cm on them.

cheers james

[JayKay]

Thats interesting guys. Thanks heaps for the info. I was very interested to see what the responses would be when i first read the thread. Seems like a simple question, but the experience of all of these guys proves theres never one way to do things.

Jay Kay

[coastspinna]

if you kno the depth then sweet... blackfish rig... except i would up the mainline to 10 lb and the leader to 15lb.... beside that the rig is the same including split shot down the line to stop trhat pendulum effect...this keeps the poddy above the bottom (i would suggest being within 30 cm of the bottom..)

we then fish these like a plastic.... casting around the whole area and slowly and i mean slowly reelin up slack to swim the poddy over and around weed beds and drop offs.... i have found this the most effective method by far for land based sessions or drifting in a boat....

james is on the money to those wide gape hooks are the gun......

[jewgaffer]

if you kno the depth then sweet... blackfish rig... except i would up the mainline to 10 lb and the leader to 15lb.... beside that the rig is the same including split shot down the line to stop trhat pendulum effect...this keeps the poddy above the bottom (i would suggest being within 30 cm of the bottom..)

we then fish these like a plastic.... casting around the whole area and slowly and i mean slowly reelin up slack to swim the poddy over and around weed beds and drop offs.... i have found this the most effective method by far for land based sessions or drifting in a boat....

james is on the money to those wide gape hooks are the gun......

Hi flathead fanatic for fishing for flathead this is the most brilliant statement I have heard. for ages "we then fish these like a plastic.... casting around the whole area and slowly and i mean slowly reelin up slack to swim the poddy over and around weed beds and drop offs.... i have found this the most effective method by far for land based sessions or drifting in a boat.. .."

Flathead fanatic, inspired by your game plan to dig out flathead and the poddy mullet rig. I like what you say so here goes my bit to add to my post in pops punt's interesting topic.

Having a poddy mullet under a float while drifting or allowing it to "swim free" under anchor, you have control over the fish. You can coax it over weed beds , around the edges of sandbanks, you can coax it to swim wherever you want it to. After all we want to catch a fish with a livie so naturally we have to keep them out of no man's land.

For example If you are fishing for jew off a wharf you certainly don't want you livie swimming back under your feet and if you don't control the "free swim" , they'll hide somewhere otherwise! You want the livie to be in a good parimeter just as you would when fishing for flathead or anything else for that matter.

Otherwise you would need to rig it again and it's certainly not a lure it's a livie but I congratulate you for saying you are controlling it like a lure.You will cash in by having a livie struggling and pulling around and you do not want to always have to retrieve it back too you and with all the impediments a livie has to drag along, it would be darned impossible to have it swimming around as merrily as a modern day lure.

However we all have no option but to cop the livie as after all said it is just another livie and a livie will always be a struggling one, but that is the name of the livie game, they're flesh and blood and livies are far better than anything else artificial in taste.

You also need a livie to get you over more territory so you have to call the shots with your drag and rod and sool it up.

With hook line and sinker plus reel drag and floats or whatever, it is a fact of fishing life and there is no way we can change that! And that's prt of the reason to buy a fishing boat'

No one can have a livie just "swim free" and travel along fine and dandy because of the fact it is near stuffed from the hooks and the handlling and it was all straddled right up in the first place and it will bolt in panic till it hits the breaks and yet again a livie in panic is still the name of the livie game.

Now here is the point I am making >>>> As long as a livie has been swum out on a fishing line it's not in any conceivable way, a comfortable armchair ride. No matter what you do or anyone else does for that matter the livie will be hampered, uncomfortable and, dragging your hook line and some drag around, it will be panicking and sending out signals of distress.

It will swim very much slower than any other livie and will present itself to predators as can easy catch

Try as much as you like, you will always have a livie struggling in the fishing game and that's the name of the game!! You do not want your livie to be able to hide, bury in the sand, hide in weed beds, go up to the surface and there has to restriction on a livie otherwise it will spool you.

That takes me back to your excellent float and drifting method again flathead flanatic, the float tells you exactly where the fish is going and you have control over it to swim it any way you wish when drifting or fishing around in stealth.

Jewhunter's method of having a livie well presented, straight and being able to "swim free is cutting edge thinking as far as I am concerned but I am sure Grant will agree good lure spinners can make a soft plastics swim much better than any livie can in "free swim".

Marty, (Pops Punt) and I have chatted a few times now and we wil be arranging to go out together for a fish.

As far as giving advice on poddy mullet rigs is concerned, I mentioned a rig to suit that particualar occasion! I knew just as well as Marty did and the others who live up at the Entrance brought up in this topic and as othe fisherman who have fished up there recently will confirm, the flathead have been very paultry indeed and everything else has all but shut own.

I described the three hook poddy mullet rig in my post for the reason that I believe such a cluster of struggling poddy mullet doing a "swim free" would help dig good flathead out for Marty as it's certainly no boom time up there for soft plastics , hardbodies or anything else, and Marty will be fishing and trying every day and I wanted him to attract a few good flathead up there with a larger and more attractive and more noticable bait presentation for flathead in the murk up there, one that he can experiment with and he'll sure have to do that up there..

Cheers

jewgaffer

Edited September 21, 2007 by jewgaffer

[coastspinna]

i read your post with interest as usual jewgaffer.... i like using the float because it makes you wait a bit until you strike.....i've read your comments on jewfish runs with interest and if i lose my next fish while rolling a smoke i'll know who to blame... lol