This has been a consistent pattern. Sometimes no bites at all. Usually, bites beginning about half hour from start, and tailing off an hour or two later.

 

I assume its due to berley working, attracting fish from in and near the foul - then eventually berley reducing and running out, no longer attracting fish.

 

This wont be news to anyone - I am thinking off how this could be improved. Several areas come to mind.

 

The berley is 3kg, in a wobbly pot, which has a large net bag with large holes. I have used a hard plastic pot and an onion bag - but they have I think too small holes (not allowing much berley out and clogging with lumps).

To slow the loss of berley, I cut 2 slices in the plastic  each side, about half the length. At the start, berley is frozen, and this presumably reduces its release until it thaws a bit. Berley lasts about 1.5 to 2 hrs. But, I think the later part of this is poor release as the remaining small lump falls to the bottom inside a pile of plastic and doesn't seem to release.  

 

So - I reckon - berley effectiveness, is low at the start, improves in the middle and reduces to nil towards the end - probably only about one hour of good effectiveness. Not so good eh.

 

I would like to improve - the evenness of berley effectiveness - and the length of time. Using a second berley would do this, but another $10 is off-putting.

 

Any pearls of wisdom, or ideas at all, would be of interest.

 

Also 50m from the foul sounds like a long way to me... depends on depth though I guess.

 

In terms of keeping the berley effectiveness relatively even, I like to leave 1 berley bomb in a bucket on the deck while we trailer the boat down and drive to the spot, that way the outside is starting to go soft. Then when deployed, take the next berley bomb and put it in the bucket so it's primed to go in a couple of hours. If you hiff a rock-solid frozen berley bomb down in winter waters it will take forever to start doing anything useful.

 

In winter I just put them in a mesh bag inside a wobbly pot. They last a good 2 hours but I am in Wellington with our single-digit water temperature.

 

In summer I tend to slash the plastic a few times then throw it in the mesh bag otherwise it flows out like crazy.

  http://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/this-report-sadly-could-fit-on-a-blank-page_topic119784.html" rel="nofollow - http://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/this-report-sadly-could-fit-on-a-blank-page_topic119784.html

 

We have been having consistently good catches, usually limits from the same locations before that, even without berley but on our trip out Thursday the results were pathetic ( see blank page thread in reports ) & everyone we spoke to had the same experience so if you scored 3 keepers then you probably did well.

 

It is a mystery to us as to where the fish have gone as there as barely any were showing on the sounder & if they were they were invariably sporadic tiny bites resulting in the occasional hookup on undersized snaps.

 

Reckon you would be just as well off to wait about a week or so until the fish return then resume using your normal berley technique.

 

Does anyone have any theories on where the fish go to when they disappear from their normal habitat ???????????????

 

Maybe it has something to do with their pre spawning rituals.

Rozboon - berley about 1.5m off the bottom. All frozen is going to take time to get started - which explains part of the half hour before bites - I don't think want it completely thawed as it would go quicker than necessary, but partly thawed should be faster starting. 

Barrie - berley is Pilchard& Bonito - both are oily which I assume is ideal.

Skidogg - agree berley is king! (Providing fish are there where the berley is). WHen fishing is easy, anyone can catch em,; but when its hard, berley makes a huge difference.  Expanding berley with some cheap bulk pellets - good idea I will experiment. But it would reduce the strength of the berley, so could reduce its attraction.

Steps - yeah without waves (which I try and avoid naturally), the wobbly pot isn't wobblying enough to release much berley - pumping it obviously helps but I get sick of that.

 

Brainstorming - what we want - a contraption that automatically releases berley at a pre-set rate. How about someone design this. Thought - sounds like a person eh, ie someone else (not me) whos job is to ladle gobs of berley off the stern.

Ive noticed that big launch drivers tend to not know much about fishing. That's no excuse though for not behaving courteously.

Also, the water temps are really cold, and my understanding is that the fishes' metabolism drops, leaving only very short bite times around dawn and dusk.

Another point is that - interrelated to the fish metabolism slowing - you don't want to basically provide all they want to eat with too many big bits of berley or ripped up pillies etc.

My gut feeling is 1.5m from the bottom is too deep if the foul is 50m away and you reported not much current. I wonder if the berley was  hitting the bottom before it got to the reef?

And don't forget to move it up or down as the tide rises or falls, rather than leaving it in the same original rope length. 

you could try further up the water column next time.

Sometimes we have the basket only 1m from the surface, in the shallows near foul, other times near the bottom (if fishing open worm bed type flats).

Brought in plenty of gurnard a few blue cod and a few Terrys.

The 5meter deep one would have been probably 3-4 meters past the stern with the current even tho tied on the bow, sometimes I tie one on the anchor rope about half way down but this can be a pain if you might have to set anchor a couple of times to get the boat where you want it.

Point is even tho that even with burly well up off the bottom and im guessing 4-5kn current at peak it still sucks in the bottom feeders.

I get one burly out of the freezer the night before so it deploys rapidly,if not much current or swell pull it up and down fairly often and always seem to get a fish just after giving the burly a shake up......another downside of having on the anchor rope is you cant easily do this.