Kingfish on yabbies / nippers

[anthman]

Hi guys, just wanted to share my experience over the weekend. Semi report but more about the use of saltwater yabbies as bait for kings.

The scene: there we were, anchored amongst the moorings, working through surface lures, soft plastics and metals. No bites and we decide to drop a yabbie on a 4/0 octopus hook, tiny ball sinker straight to hook to get it to 15m of a 20m deep area. This is on 16lb fluoro tied to 8lb braid on a 7' 3-6kg rod, 3000 size reel. This technique got us a nice snapper and a couple of bream. It also got us hooked into five kingies over a 3 hour period! Man they pulled hard on the light setup but were all well hooked and secured. Averaged about 60cm, all released to fight another day.

Will definitely be bringing live yabbies with me next time I'm out! 

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by anthman

[PaddyT]

save them for something else, rat kings will, eat anything, on Saturday went out from Broken Bay with a tank full of squid, wanted to troll up a couple of bonito on lures, caught a crap load of rats- the squid stayed in the tank and came home for dinner (ie my dinner)- no way would i put in the effort for squid or nippers and sacrifice them to the rats!

[GoingFishing]

I agree with Paddy

If your after rats for fun your better off catching a slimey or two and sending them down as strip baits, just as likely to produce the same results. 

It always pays to have a fresh or live bait out whilst working your lures. Some fish just cant swim past real bait. 

[anthman]

1 hour ago, GoingFishing said:

I agree with Paddy

If your after rats for fun your better off catching a slimey or two and sending them down as strip baits, just as likely to produce the same results. 

It always pays to have a fresh or live bait out whilst working your lures. Some fish just cant swim past real bait. 

What's the presentation for slimey strip baits? Weve been getting a few of them lately.

Nippers are very easy for me to get - so it's a small effort to get them the day before and use them straight away on the actual day. 

[GoingFishing]

1 hour ago, anthman said:

What's the presentation for slimey strip baits? Weve been getting a few of them lately.

Nippers are very easy for me to get - so it's a small effort to get them the day before and use them straight away on the actual day. 

Theres a number of ways but my favourite is to present the bait as "naturally" as possible. I cut the slimey fillets off the spine and then cut each fillet in half on the long section. This gives you 4 x strip baits per fish.... then a double gang hook through the fillet with the second hook just near the fat end of the fillet. I find this works well as the bait lasts long enough to survive the pickers and also presents naturally as a small slimey of its own. Much like the image below less the feathered lure.

Others might have other ways which also work. 

Edited January 14, 2019 by GoingFishing

[anthman]

52 minutes ago, GoingFishing said:

Theres a number of ways but my favourite is to present the bait as "naturally" as possible. I cut the slimey fillets off the spine and then cut each fillet in half on the long section. This gives you 4 x strip baits per fish.... then a double gang hook through the fillet with the second hook just near the fat end of the fillet. I find this works well as the bait lasts long enough to survive the pickers and also presents naturally as a small slimey of its own. Much like the image below less the feathered lure.

Others might have other ways which also work. 

Thanks for the info! Does that work when anchored, just dropped down, or does that need to be trolled/worked?