Fussy Yakkas Question

[bcooper21003]

Hi Guys,

I was recently out on the harbour in very clear water and had real trouble getting some yakkas. I wonder if anyone can give some advise?

Essentially, I was doing what i normally do, berly up just off shark island, with bread and some fish flake soaked in a litle water and some tuna oil, and drop in a sabiki rig with a 6" shininy metal lure and a berly coil full of bread attached. Normally works a treat, but on this day, a clear day in terms of water and cloud we couldnt get the fish to bite. We thought the fact we could see so many of them around the hooks might be an issue, so we tried in deeper water. No great change, so we moved back. We tried at different depths. After hooking two (on seperate lines), and leaving them down there to motivate the others i thought we'd be in luck, but after 5 minutes still no action. Turns out one of these was foul hooked. We tried little bits of bonito and a little prawn, nada. So we eneded up with only two yakkas.

Luckily one caught us a Kingy, off North Head, only 60cm though, so went back.

Any ideas / advice?

Thanks

[fishythings]

Hi Guys,

I was recently out on the harbour in very clear water and had real trouble getting some yakkas. I wonder if anyone can give some advise?

Essentially, I was doing what i normally do, berly up just off shark island, with bread and some fish flake soaked in a litle water and some tuna oil, and drop in a sabiki rig with a 6" shininy metal lure and a berly coil full of bread attached. Normally works a treat, but on this day, a clear day in terms of water and cloud we couldnt get the fish to bite. We thought the fact we could see so many of them around the hooks might be an issue, so we tried in deeper water. No great change, so we moved back. We tried at different depths. After hooking two (on seperate lines), and leaving them down there to motivate the others i thought we'd be in luck, but after 5 minutes still no action. Turns out one of these was foul hooked. We tried little bits of bonito and a little prawn, nada. So we eneded up with only two yakkas.

Luckily one caught us a Kingy, off North Head, only 60cm though, so went back.

Any ideas / advice?

Thanks

Is there anything to do with the current low air pressure ( check seabreeze)

Cheers,

Andy

[elite]

never had this problem when they're about.

normally a bait jig and a spoon full of burely at a time near the jig is all is needed.

[jim77]

Get rid of the bait jig. Use a single size 12 longshank hook, either weighted with a very small spilt shot or even better unweighted, and small pieces of fish flesh or meat for bait. When the yakkas are tough this method will outfish a bait jig by about 10-1 or more.

[MOE^MOE]

your rite jim77 last nite my mates had bait jigs on they only managed 3 yakkas a just had size 12 long shank unweighted i cleaned up

[bcooper21003]

Thanks Jim77, but we tried bonito and prawn (on the bait jig hooks and separately) and still nothing, they just looked at it. That was the annoying part, I was watching them watching everything we put down, and nothing happened.

Needed a big treble...

[slinkymalinky]

Bait jigs still work fine when they're fussy. I can almost guarantee that you need to go smaller on the jigs.

When they're fussy I use absolutely tiny Gamakatsu 'shrimp' style jigs instead of the little white 'fishskin' type. They look like tiny pink grubs with a bead head and are REALLY small on fine leader. They work when bigger ones just get ignored.

The only problem with them is that the line is so fine that the individual jigs break off easily... they're strictly a one session only item.

Cheers, Slinky

[jim77]

we tried bonito and prawn

Use tiny pieces of raw chicken - it works everytime. When I cook with chicken I save all of the offcuts and freeze them in small portions in zip lock bags. You will catch 4 or 5 yakkas at least on the same piece of bait.