Hey all, 

Thanks for that smudge..

great advice, right there - to Smudge's points i'd add that the way I think of it when using a biggish bait such as most of a jack mackerel, you "scoop" to embed the hook, say in the shoulder, then kind of "roll" it in place.

I like the longline knot as well, similar knot.

Long strip baits work better than chunks and I find the hooks must be sharp because your relying on the fish hooking itself.

Was a fan of circle hooks as the story goes,lip hooked fish.Found most were getting down to gill area. Have gone back "J" hooks and having better success on hooking lip. Comes down to technique,

Fishb8 wrote: I have a 'lazy' style of bait snapper fishing with circle hooks. Mostly use 8/0 and either steamed mussel or squid and I have a rod holder with goes into a vertical rod holder and keeps the rod at a near horizontal plane to the sea. Drop to the bottom and leave rod in holder and keep hands off until rod starts bouncing, indicating a fish is hooked. No striking, just let the fish hook themselves - simple, eh?

Thx Fishb8, what setting on the drag do you use for this?  i have tried doing the same by chucking the line way back of the boat into the burley trail but nil hookups.

With circles, I put this 'picture ' in my head.. as describe to the grandchildren.
 U sitting on the shore with the children eating chips.. the seagulls come in, The smaller ones jump in fight nibble over the small chips thrown.. Couple bigger birds just stand back
 Then 1 or both decide on a juicy chip jump in push the other birds aside,
 And this is the important part..
The pick up the chip and skip/ fly out way from the crowd, THEN proceed to eat the chip in peace.

So apply thias in principle..
Use the lightest sinker , just enough to drop and hold on the bottom..
I like shamano baitrunners for this... main drag set to about 1 to 1.5kg direct straight line, off the end of the rod.
Baitrunner drag set to just, no more, to hold the sinker/ bait in positon or just very slowly 'roll out the back at most.
The bigger fish comes along picks up the bait/ hook, Just like the seagull above, and swims away, let him go, maybe 10 or even 20m (depending on water temp and season.)
Then slowly lift the rod, you will feel the load go on..There is a piont you can sort of see the hook start to roll and point start to sink in...then a turn, load up the rod, and sink the hook in the rest of the way.

I use braid on all rods except one...and this is why I use braid, can actually feel everything, mono is more judgement than feel.

Other Very very important thing is how you hang the bait...
 must be tidy... if you bring line up (no fish on) and there are twists in the trace, how the bait is hooked on is spining the hook and bait like a propeller....and the fish just get dizzy trying to follow it round and round in big circles.

Catching is getting all the little detail bits  all lined up...like most things.. eg a golf swing, get stance, back swing, grip, head down, .. then weight transfer , power to leading hand etc all right... u hit the green.. get one wrong and hit the rough, or straight up and down.

It is a combo of sinker weight and drag..
 As I said above only just enough weight to drop and hold on the bottom.. no more.
Combine that with just enough drag  so the trace/ hooks can bounce out along the bottom back into the burley trail.

So a non bait runner, just back off the main drag...so just holds the trace in the current where you want...

"......into the burley trail but nil hookups."

Which the burly maybe the issue (???)

 This brings another very common issue, where you hang the burley and how deep.

Draw a pick of the boat, the anchor position, how the boat hangs on the anchor with a little breeze not in same direction of the current..
So say the burley is on the anchor or even on the bow...the trail goes out to the side and your lines , once out the back not even close to the trail..
 Then there is depth you hang the burley..
 This depends on what targeting and at what depth...
Again draw a side profile of boat/ water column... If fishing the sea bed, and burely at the surface... bait and burley trail now different places on the vertical plane.

 Now throw in  that the current down at the sea bed are very often in different direction to at the surface or even up in the column.
 Now throw in what burley rope you use.. bigger the rope the more it gets dragged out the back due to drag.. further back the less control have the actual trail and actually fishing in the burley.

I have one of those round plastic hand line reels ( a suggestion made to me in these forms.. previously was a bulky electric cable extension reel )  The burley rope we use id 3 (or 3.5mm cant rem) haberdashery braid (about $45 for 100m) Every meter there is a small loop tied so can hang off the stern at any depth I like.
It hangs near vertical in all but big currents.
I hang it on my cnr.. It is me who hast to pull it in etc, it is me who everyso often pull up  with jerks then jerk it back down a few meters...therefore it is my rod(s) off that cnr that is directly down the burley trail.
 Sounds good, but over the yrs I still havnt found this an actual advantage.

When stray lining, even dropper sometimes, on the east coast, be it 2m water or 30m we never anchor up, just drift over reefs bouncing the sinkers, thru bays etc and burley abut 1 m off the bottom.

This is the thing with fishing, it is getting every detail you have control over, knots, traces, drag every detail right as possible.

I will add our stray line traces are different.. sort of go back to the old school 50s early 60s.
Mainline (braid), to bimmini loop.
A cats pawed swivel with clip. 
Trace with small surgeons loop and finish knot at top.
Reef sinker and trace are clipped onto the clip at the end of the main line.
 Must have very tidy baits so no spin up
 As current/ depth changes its a very quick easy sinker weight change..

Stray line trace with fixed keeper (J or circle) and end hook. (circle)

Drifting with berley, berley drifts back from the boat while the boat drifts away from the berley

Yes.. the burly drifts a little fast than the boat.. picks up the fish going to go over and holds them, also the bigger chunks drop and leave a trail behind, which the traces are in..
 Its about drawing ones self a picture.

 how do you know if your baits are in the berley trail.

Because we catch far more fish doing so than not doing so..
 We may not catch the big show off fish, as we do not target as such. Our fishing is out for good company and a feed, with big fish a common bonus, and the logs show we are damn good at it...being doing ity since the late 1950s.