Understanding burley

[sashkello]

Hi all!

Looks like many (if not most) experienced fishos swear by burleying and claim it's absolutely necessary for catching fish consistently. But so far I haven't seen any detailed guides on how and what to use and not to use for different styles of fishing, targeted species, and locations. How much is too much, how little is too little? Consistent small portions or giant bucket in one go when you start? Does the burley itself make big difference or a mix of cheap white bread and frozen fish/squid offcut leftovers is good enough? Are premade burley bags worth buying?

So far the only thing I learned is that bread does attract blackfish, weed+sand works just as well. But with warm season coming, I thought to expand my use of burley. Anyone can give any advice? Maybe an article on this topic is in order?  

[wazatherfisherman]

Hi Sashkello burley has several functions- attract fish to your location, stimulate a feeding response and thirdly, keep the fish in close proximity after being drawn in. The question of how much to use is location dependant, species sought and the changing environmental factors such as wind, tide, current etc.

Luderick are a good example- in many locations Luderick are present in the area for much of the time, biting in specific locations at different stages of the tide. For example when the tide is reaching towards it's highest point they may come into shallower water to forage in areas unable to be reached (safely) on lower water levels and conversely may be in deeper spots towards the bottom of the tide. They may also be just 'schooled-up' in a comfortable (to them) area and not specifically feeding, however still present.

By utilising a consistent 'stream' of burley (in the same location each time) the fisher can manipulate the concentration of fish to a particular smaller area and often trigger a feeding response by presenting a small but continuous flow of food. This stream needs to be monitored closely so as to make sure that it stays where the fisher hopes to keep the attracted school of fish and keep them interested without 'overfeeding' them.

There is no 'hard and fast' rule as for how much to use, but as a guide, on arrival at your location drop a handful of burley in (chopped weed and wet sand if targeting Luderick specifically) and observe where the dispersed 'cloud' travels- remembering that the sand is used to travel and sink the weed- which will sink much slower once free of the sand. Try to determine where you think the weed will have travelled to to achieve a submersed level of say 3 mtrs (which is a good depth for finding fish) then concentrate your bait presentation in roughly that area.

The major influencing factors of dispersing the burley really come down to the tidal movement/current. In areas of high tidal flow it may be difficult to maintain a constant stream for any extended period, however, in slower areas such as many wharf locations and the ends of most bays, burley only needs to be applied at an interval of a few minutes between handfuls to initially attract the fish.

One thing extra about Luderick when fishing from the rocks- rock fishing in areas of turbulent water (known as 'wash') where green growth is naturally being dislodged by wave action, many fishers simply use their rock cleats to scrape/kick.dislodge the abundant green growth underfoot. Although this is the 'accepted method' for burleying in this manner (no sand is needed/carried) it is vitally important to ensure the kicked-in growth is distributed at the right time/s. If you kick it in and it floats off some distance prior to sinking, then the fish will follow it until it reaches down to their 'happy' feeding level (which in deeper water locations is between approximately 2.8-3.8mtrs) and may cause the 'reverse effect' by taking the school of fish further away. Just be mindful of distributing burley so that it sinks closer to your location.

More to come- I have an eye problem currently and typing is becoming 'laboursome'!

[frankS]

Hi. Just keep 1 thing in mind. Berley is an attractant not a feeder, in saying this different species act differently to berley.

When I was a youngster learning the art of fishing I would make up a batch of flower and water to make doe and mix white rice in the doe, when fishing I would roll balls about the size of a golf ball tightly with my hands and lob it in the water about a safe casting distance ( if shore based ) or straight over the side if in boat . I would have a small bag of flour to put on hands before rolling the balls so it didn't stick to my hands. As the ball of doe sank it would break up and release the rice which attracted all sorts of fish (including unwanted rubbish species) I would make up all sorts of berley concoctions using fish minced or cat food or any left over offal from a previous outing.

Bread should be used at a minimum contrarily to popular belief as too much bread will bloat the fish into making them feel like they have a full belly and put them off the bite, except fish like Tailer which with spew up anything they have in their guts just so they can gorge themselves more on whatever is on offer, which in turn adds more berley to the mix.

Keep the berley pretty fine for inshore fishing, as you get further out into the brinie increase the size of the berley, for example for tuna fishing chunks about 20mm square  are good these should be thrown in on a steady flow, as one cube disappears into the depth that you can't see it anymore throw another one in, eventually you will have Tuna swimming close to the boat. You may not see them but now and again you will see a flash of silver, that's when you hang on for dear life.

Frank

Edited September 13 by frankS

[noelm]

Burley used properly can increase catches considerably, but (in my opinion) it’s not just simply get all the crap you can and munch it up in a burley pot, doing that is fine for attracting bait and piles of rubbish. My method is much more “refined” if I am fishing for (say) Snapper, then my burley consists only of the same bait I am using, and a bait sized piece dropped over steadily, much like Frank described for Tuna. I find the catches are much more consistent, far less unwanted bycatch, and it’s generally much “cleaner” if I am using Pilchards, I cut them in half, use the tail piece, then cut the head half in a couple of pieces for burley. It’s kind of like using weed for burley when Blackfishing, the same principal applies.

Edited Friday at 11:40 PM by noelm
Typo

[Steve0]

In Estuaries, I've never managed to burley successfully, but have used other people's efforts to burley. Burleying where there is fast water movement may result in fish congregating away from where burley is dropped. 100m down current or rip from someone tossing burley in can sometimes be a productive place to fish. 

Chasing Luderick on rocks in the wet foot zone, your plates/cleats will release tiny bits of weed as you walk about. Scrape a tiny bit when you arrive. Otherwise, let your walking about do the work. Your float should follow the direction the occasional wash takes the tiny scraps of weed. This seems to work, even in well-trodden areas. If standing on dry rock, you may need to manually burley occasionally. Tiny bits to entice, not big bits to feed.

Think about water movement to let you use nature's burley when you can. For example, fish in deeper water where waves washing across a wide area of shallow rock would take any food particles.   

 

[noelm]

1 hour ago, Steve0 said:

In Estuaries, I've never managed to burley successfully, but have used other people's efforts to burley. Burleying where there is fast water movement may result in fish congregating away from where burley is dropped. 100m down current or rip from someone tossing burley in can sometimes be a productive place to fish. 

Chasing Luderick on rocks in the wet foot zone, your plates/cleats will release tiny bits of weed as you walk about. Scrape a tiny bit when you arrive. Otherwise, let your walking about do the work. Your float should follow the direction the occasional wash takes the tiny scraps of weed. This seems to work, even in well-trodden areas. If standing on dry rock, you may need to manually burley occasionally. Tiny bits to entice, not big bits to feed.

Think about water movement to let you use nature's burley when you can. For example, fish in deeper water where waves washing across a wide area of shallow rock would take any food particles.   

 

Yep, this more or less is what I alluded to, just throwing stuff in the water, or munching up left over rubbish is not always productive, burley could end up a long distance from where you release it.

[Little_Flatty]

Good topic @sashkello.

It’s funny with fishing, there are so many important aspects that are never talked or written about in any great detail. Berleying is one of them.

When we look at the ISO anglers in the Sydney area, you can see that the good practitioners have berleying down to an art form. It’s little wonder that they are wildly successful on many species.

[sashkello]

On 9/14/2024 at 5:50 AM, noelm said:

Burley used properly can increase catches considerably, but (in my opinion) it’s not just simply get all the crap you can and munch it up in a burley pot, doing that is fine for attracting bait and piles of rubbish. My method is much more “refined” if I am fishing for (say) Snapper, then my burley consists only of the same bait I am using, and a bait sized piece dropped over steadily, much like Frank described for Tuna. I find the catches are much more consistent, far less unwanted bycatch, and it’s generally much “cleaner” if I am using Pilchards, I cut them in half, use the tail piece, then cut the head half in a couple of pieces for burley. It’s kind of like using weed for burley when Blackfishing, the same principal applies.

This is quite interesting. That is exactly the problem I'm thinking about - the outcome of throwing chopped old bait in water for me only ever resulted in crowds of yakkas, pinkies and other baby fish swarming around and biting chunks off the bigger bait on my hook. I kind of assumed that small fish would eventually bring bigger fish, but that never really worked out for me when I tried this approach. So, that's some food for thought, I'll certainly be thinking along these lines next time around...

Edited Sunday at 12:28 AM by sashkello

[noelm]

Sometimes the small fish do attract big fish……but (in my opinion) it’s all about confidence and decades of experience to compare different methods. No one system is right or wrong, but at times, fish can be very single minded and will only eat a certain bait, so I don’t see a lot of sense in burleying with (say) cut Pilchards, then use Prawns for bait! It’s not a golden rule, or a guarantee, but to me, it gives you the best chance.

[wazatherfisherman]

5 hours ago, sashkello said:

This is quite interesting. That is exactly the problem I'm thinking about - the outcome of throwing chopped old bait in water for me only ever resulted in crowds of yakkas, pinkies and other baby fish swarming around and biting chunks off the bigger bait on my hook. I kind of assumed that small fish would eventually bring bigger fish, but that never really worked out for me when I tried this approach. So, that's some food for thought, I'll certainly be thinking along these lines next time around...

When we used to live bait for Kingfish etc from the rocks we always had far, far more success when we had burleyed up a big school of bait (mostly Yellowtail) and kept them around until the predators arrived. After the predators arrived it was usually pretty hard to keep the bait fish around and active, as they were usually pretty 'skit-ish' from the presence of said predators and we used to try and get a fair few baits each before deploying one out live, because after a big fish was landed, on many occasions you couldn't catch a fresh bait unless you moved away to another location (we had 3 spots for catching bait in about a 150mtr area)

[sashkello]

On 9/15/2024 at 4:14 PM, wazatherfisherman said:

When we used to live bait for Kingfish etc from the rocks we always had far, far more success when we had burleyed up a big school of bait (mostly Yellowtail) and kept them around until the predators arrived. After the predators arrived it was usually pretty hard to keep the bait fish around and active, as they were usually pretty 'skit-ish' from the presence of said predators and we used to try and get a fair few baits each before deploying one out live, because after a big fish was landed, on many occasions you couldn't catch a fresh bait unless you moved away to another location (we had 3 spots for catching bait in about a 150mtr area)

This is very useful. You mean livebaiting with the same yakkas which you attract with burley, right? I assume this wouldn't work with squid, as smaller fish will attack it if you burley up and they are swarming around... 

[wazatherfisherman]

4 hours ago, sashkello said:

This is very useful. You mean livebaiting with the same yakkas which you attract with burley, right? I assume this wouldn't work with squid, as smaller fish will attack it if you burley up and they are swarming around... 

Yes same Yellowtail. Don't forget that squid eat small fish and are likely to keep away. The best way to attract any predators is to 'assemble' their food/prey species to a concentrated area- same principle as using 'dead' burley, but using live 'burley' that is excited/feeding and maybe less wary is the most natural attractor.

Most predating species are constantly on the move looking for adequate prey for their school/themselves. From the rocks it isn't unusual to have different schools of predators pass by, keeping them around is key to catching several of them, so by first attracting, then keeping their food/prey in the vicinity is the best approach.

In the estuaries, Hairtail are a good example of predators that are attracted to congregations of bait fish. Keeping the school of bait around the spot you are fishing gives you the best chance of getting your bait to them.

There's no better burley than 'live' burley