Bigger fish - bigger bait/lures

[GoingFishing]

At the ramp this weekend I met a lovely old fella who said to me "you want bigger fish you gotta use bigger baits or lures"

That got me thinking, generally I'm just happy to avoid a donut, but in the event that many many decades from now if I have garnered some sort of knowledge about fishing, would I go about spending a full day specifically targeting the BIGGER fish AND if so, is old fellas advice useful.

Obviously common sense would apply- ie one would not target a marlin with a prawn and that's not to say that big fish have been caught on small baits- we could all agree that's not the norm.

So enough jibber jabber from me- in your experience do bigger baits/lures consistently produce bigger fish more often than not ?

[fragmeister]

That is a good question and I am interested to see the opinions out there.

Personally, I would say it depends on the species and what they are feeding on at the time.

[Krispy !]

The opposite for me, but my definition of big is different since I don't have a boat and cant head out to target XOS kings, marlin etc. I get all of my kings on small lollipop size liveys and pilly cubes and I get a fair few a session when ive had people using big yakkas for livebait next to me and not a touch

[stevefish]

You're last sentence %%%%%ed my ears!

Well err yes but no. If you're after BIG fish regardless of the species you will start to rule out the small and maybe medium sized ones. Be it by location, season or what's on your hook.

You probably should adjust your goals as well, what is success?

The fish you are now targeting are not readily available, if they were they would be average fish right!

Measure your success at the end of the season rather than each trip individually, it will take a while to crack the code on the big fish you target and you will get a lot more zeroes along the way.

But hey, when you've got that 20keg jewie on the deck and people are saying how lucky you are all the walks of shame are forgotten.

Edit first line was pr ick ed, but got auto corrected???

Edited October 7, 2015 by stevefish

[Guest no one]

If say in my experience that bigger baits means less smaller fish certainly. And while fish feed in schools if you avoid the small ones you're more likely to hit the big ones.

On top of that match the hatch.

From experience in fly fishing no matter how big/small/colourful your fly is, if it doesn't match what the fish are feeding on you won't catch at all. Take the current salmon situation, they're feeding on almost microscopic transparent fish, so a 55cm salmon which is class as a good fish wouldn't take a 1", 2" or 3" lure because they weren't small enough!

[stevefish]

True,

Then down rig the salmon to see if there is something bigger underneath them

[Yowie]

Sometimes the smaller fish may have trouble swallowing a larger bait, but not always.

Many years ago, a school of small jewies turned up in Port Hacking, they were less than 30cm long but were swallowing large baits meant for the larger jewies. A couple did not survive because they choked on the large baits.

Last month when drifting off Cronulla for flatties, I foul hooked a yakka about 15cm long. The hook lodged in the back just behind the head, so I lowered the yakka back to the bottom. It was grabbed by a fish almost immediately, and I retrieved a flattie about 25cm long.

In general, the larger baits allow a bigger fish time to eat a bait where the smaller fish cannot swallow it straight away. The smaller fish may be nibbling at a larger bait, but quite often a bigger fish will swim up to the bait and grab it out of the mouth of the smaller fish. Have seen that happen often with bream in shallow water, the small bream will grab a bait it cannot swallow straight away, and a larger bream will swim at speed to the smaller bream and grab the bait from it's mouth.

Also, some of the larger fish will take a small bait. I have caught kingies to 60cm, salmon and tailor on my yakka handline, just using a size 10 hook and small piece of bait.

[Scratchie]

To answer your question. Yes! Big bait=big fish!

But but but but, it's what your targeting with your big bait in the right areas that matter. You will not often encounter small bycatch with big baits or big lures!

For example, Often using a big flesh bait chasing jew may get picked apart by smaller fish but if your in the right area, leave it there as the feeding frenzy may entice the big fish to bite!

When ocean going and drifting an area, I always have a livie drifting behind me!

However, on the flip side. You can catch a big fish on a small hook, but you can't catch a small fish on a big hook!

That's my opinion anyway!

Cheers scratchie!!!

[Jay88]

Interesting read. Now, to go back to my hand line days where I used to use smaller bait. And all I got was Bream.

Smaller fish can pick at big baits, but obviously as their mouths are tiny, its not always possible for them to take the bait. In saying that, bigger baits are usually put on larger hooks, not all fish have a wide enough mouth to get hooked by a big hooks. And in saying that, in most cases, bigger fish (just like us), wants a meal proportionate to their size.

Now I have read before, if the bait is live bait, like even a small yakka, predtaory instincts kick in and a Kingfish, Jew would be happy to hit that moving, stressed target, even if it is a small bait fish.

I have seen bigger fish get caught on Bream sized bait, but hey, nothing stops us from getting a snack eh? So thats entirely on what the fish feels the time I guess.

I used to use BIG bait 90% of my time fishing, I would spend 6 hours getting nibbles (from smaller fish), and no hits unless big fish were in the area. There is a saying I believe, lighter the gear/bait the MORE fish you should catch, but once again, depends what you want for that day/night.

I have a few outfits now. One for a big bait to sit in the water, while I use my ligther gear. Would rather catch more fish than none. But thats coming from someone new to the hobby who is land based and limited. I purely got a lighter outfit due to this reason. Didn't want to have one rod, one big bait, sit there and get nothing.

Big lures, big bait would attract a bigger mouth

Edited October 7, 2015 by Jay88

[GoingFishing]

Some very interesting feedback gentlemen.

Evidently it's a very complex question ! My experience is that bigger baits do consistently produce bigger fish, looking back most of my PB fish are from larger baits or lures. But not all

I agree with some comments above that what the fish are feeding on, local food source makes a big difference. What I am also interested to hear about is whether or not specific species respond better to bait vs lures as they get larger ?

[Dave_]

Big baits = big fish, small baits = all fish.

[brad_tate]

Interesting thread. The most recent experience relevant I have had is fishing down a burley trail at the Drums in Botany Bay. Small peeled prawn pieces on a small Octo hook took two 54cm Kingies in quick succession. Along with several legal Trevally and a legal Tailor. Nothing small, I guess because the berley trail fired them up and the tiddlers didn't get a look in.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[stevefish]

From Bluewater magazine cairns article a few years back.

To me big fish =

100cm+ king and Jews

80cm+ lizards

Etc

And big bait

Tailor

Bonito

Frigates

XL mullet

Salmon

[Twinfisher 4.9]

At times, I agree "match the hatch" but if you after that prize fish, then you need to have a bait that stands out. I used to fish the rocks for many years and lost count of the number of times that large kingies chased my bonito to the rock ledges. These were 3 or 4 kg horsies and they would have taken them in a moment but on 18lb line was not going to let that happen......it wasn't going to end well. Big baits for big fish.