How To Stop Pickers Taking My Live Squid?

[river_bouy]

Hi,

Any advice on how to stop pickers taking live squid. I spend hours trying to catch squid and then when I anchor up around the Sydney Harbour markers, I often lose them within minutes.

I am not sure if it is pickers, or is it possible for kingies to pick the squid of the hooks (are they that smart?).

I fish with a 4/0 or 5/0 hook through the hood and a decent sized treble down near the head.

I can often feel decent sized 'bites' on my heavy gear and wonder if that is the kings pecking at the squid but avoiding the hooks???

Thanks heaps in advance.

[slinkymalinky]

Comes with the territory river_buoy.

It's unlikely to be kings... they just slam squid. If you get a hit from a king on a live squid and it doesn't hook up you can often tell because the squids skin will be noticably 'blistered'... you'll know what I mean when you see it.

The only solution to pickers is to move. You can try moving further from the marker and lifting your bait higher off the bottom but usually once the pickers move in, you need to move on. Drifting instead of anchoring can help as does downrigging but some days, any squid that touches the water gets hammered by rubbish fish!!

Sorry

Cheers, Slinky

[jewgaffer]

....Any advice on how to stop pickers taking live squid. I spend hours trying to catch squid and then when I anchor up around the Sydney Harbour markers, I often lose them within minutes.....

Thanks heaps in advance.

Perhaps slow troll the squid a little higher up in the water column on downriggers, and cover a bit of territory and then see if pickers get to the squid first.

Cheers

jewgaffer

[Captain Spanner]

Slinky's right. Can't really get around pickers if they are there and hungry. often strips survive better than heads or live and whole baits but if they want it they'll take it. so you'll have to move

sometimes if im suspicious of pickers and don't have squid to burn i'll quickly send down a test bait like a scrap piece of squid, wing etc first and if it gets picked off straight away with no obvious strike or comes up with those nasty little telltale holes and tatters just move to another spot. Don't trust your hard earned live or fresh whole baits down there if they are in short supply and if you're not sure if the kings are there or not. I learned this one the hard way when we were going from marker to marker fiddling with the new sounder, trying to figure out the difference between bait, jackets and kings.

[Davemmm]

Slinky is right and it goes with any bait in any area. If I am catching bucket loads of pinkies on nippers the only hope is to move, the same goes losing poddies but no hook up. The only time I persevere is when I get a heap of little whiting, a cracker is only just around the corner.

Dave

[river_bouy]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Often I put down a whole live squid, and it come up with the head and tentacles gone and just the hood left.

Now I am sure they are not kings biting it, I will just move on.

Maybe yakkas are a bit more resilient to this problem.

[A.dawg]

Slinkymalinky is right just move unless u want to dump 2kg of pillie cubes in within 30 mins so the pickers are busy taking that ur squid will still get stolen

[tide'n'knots]

quite often there are a lot of leatherjacket around the channel markers and they can make short work of a great looking squid in no time flat! drifting is definately a better option. If a live squid isnt getting slammed by about the 2nd or 3rd drift then simply move to the next channel marker because there probably are no kingies at that marker.