Collapsible burley pots seem like a good idea, but is there any disadvantage?

Really did feel like stepping backwards 10 years going back to bait and burly. The cost,mess and small gut hooked fish was annoying. 

Ya just don't get that with jigs, softbaits etc..... but it was a lads fishing comp and we were at little battier so anything goes.

Yep, that's pretty much my experience too. Either use smaller hooks and catch heaps of undersize fish, or bigger hooks and get loads of bites, but few fish which is frustrating. Then there is the mess and hassle as you say. Think I'm talking myself out of it! Nearly called the boat "Baitless" 

I was thinking about bait/burley for days when we can't get out the harbour (just stayed home when I had a jetski!), plus kids love seeing bait fish swimming around the back of the boat. 

Thanks, I had thought of adding a 1.25kg rubber coated dumbbell plate to add some weight. 

Yeah, that's been the approach so far, or Gulp on heavy jig fished vertically, so no casting required. Reasonable success. 

I use 5/0 or 6/0 circle hooks (Gammie or Mustad Demon) on strayline rigs and find they have a good hook up rate with almost zero gut hooking. I encourage the kids to just draw the bait away from the fish if they are getting nibbles, and usually they hook up. Rod holder is handy too.

In terms of berley system for harbour fishing, I use a cheap plastic basket (blue) from the Warehouse etc, weighted to the bottom with a strip of lead inside the basket. you could also thread a heavy sinker down the rope. That keeps it fairly vertical in light to moderate current in 8-15m. Any deeper and i think you need something like a Wobbly Pot.

Tied off to the corner, it attracts jack mackerels which we catch with sabikis (which in itself is great fun for the kids) and use as fresh bait.

Those baskets only fit the 1.5kg size bombs, but if I can only get 3kg I cut them in half. I used to love the NZ Salmon berleys, but have had trouble sourcing good salmon ones in the past couple of seasons. They seem to be too chunky, not enough slick created. I guess if you have a wider gauge mesh, a la wobbly pot, the chunky size doesn't make as much difference.

The long lasting berley 'sausages' in yellow packaging are also useful to keep in the boat. They work well and create a fine trail.

I recommend supplementing berley with chunked up pillies (last trip's re-frozen ones). Many times I've noticed those chunks in the guts of snapper we've caught.

Kandrew is on to it re the storage afterwards. Strategic use of buckets etc to keep everything tidy is key to keeping your boat from turning into an abattoir and empty plastic packaging blowing over the side. 

Likewise, using wobbly and 20l x/paint bucket ;)

I never fish near foul or with braid/jigs with kids.

Snapper flashers,mono and a burly bomb , anchored on the sand up-current from a weed edge was always my go-to when kids/ mrs on board.

On my centre console  years back -tying the burly bag to the top of the anchor chain worked a treat.

kept it clear of lines, spread down low and with the boat tugging on the warp it kept it well dispersed.

This does not work so well with a boat with an electric winch, unless you enjoy scraping oily mush off ya drum winch , fairlead, and chain when you winch up anchor and forget that its tied on and rip the whole lot through ya fairlead..... I will neither confirm nor denie that I have done this.

Cheers. Some food for thought there 

Interesting post Schampy. As a near 100% lure angler, lure fishing seems the simplest thing to me. No anchoring, no bait to mess with or rigs that can get tangled. Modern jigs and softies don't even need to be cast or worked in a particularly skilful way. One hook to keep out the way of small hands. Braid is more difficult as it's pretty essential, but I put some old 50lb Powerpro on my son's reel and no tangles as it's a bit thicker than the usual strengths I would use. Not trying to convince you of anything, just thinking things through myself. As I said in an earlier post, bait/burley might be the way to go when the weather limits us to harbour fishing. 

That also means I don't spend half the time saying "don't do...", "watch out...".

Also, I have a couple of rags to help the kids handle spikey snapper etc.

- i used to use a collapsible type pot, but as I said, it wasnt heavy enough to get down near the bottom. So I put lead weights in it, which worked, but I lost weights every now and then, so I changed to a wobbly pot - thats got netting around a sizable steel spiral. Enough weight to get down, and room for the biggest 5kg berleys, I think. Changed to 3kg berleys. That lasted about 1.5hrs, still not really enough but ok. Now I cut the 3kg berley in half, which lasts longer about 2hrs.

Cheers 

Good advice. I usually defrost a bomb in the garage overnight, wrapped in most of a newspaper - so I can cut it into pieces, rather than using it all at once. A half or even third of a bomb seems to work well at keeping a flow going. Out on the water I use a chunk, and keep the rest wrapped in paper and in a chiller.

There's a bit of an art in terms of keeping the whole thing from defrosting too quickly - unless you're a fishing show and sponsored by Top Catch or whoever! When they say "pump a berley trail" they mean like in the bad old days with Westfield killing chain floor running into the Manukau Harbour!

A berley sausage holder plus the berley sausage:

Above all works better when supplemented with fish oil poured liberally out the back and creates a real slick:

These are great options for sabikis/kids and come in a variety of sizes and flavours:

These were the bees knees but sadly no longer available and I've replaced with cans of fish cat food: