Making Berley
Printed From: The Fishing Website
Category: Saltwater Fishing
Forum Name: The Briny Bar
Forum Description: The place for general chat on saltwater fishing!
URL: https://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=140150
Printed Date: 09 Sep 2026 at 7:09am
Topic: Making Berley
Posted By: rusty360
Subject: Making Berley
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 11:01am
| Morning all, im going to make up some berley seem pig pallets or chicken food works well in the mix. Any recommendations? |
Replies:
Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 12:19pm
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I put all sorts in there , oil from the sardine tin ,anything left over from filleting or gutting fish ,left over cat food ( yeah I know but between her and 2 fussy cats I dont stand a chance . Its real sad ....I spend more on cat food than beer 🙄🙂 ) ,anything meaty thats to far past its use by date , fish oil ( MD's) . Pretty much anything ....I figure that the fish dont actually have to eat it ..it only has to get them interested. But yeah pig or chicken pellets are good ....anything with meat or bone meal in it 🙂🙂 ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: Pcj
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 4:21pm
------------- "Times up" |
Mc Tool wrote:Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 4:36pm
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Nah , Just stick a hook in it arse and chuck it in , make a good livie ...plenty of thrashin about 😆😆 ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: Alan L
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 6:55pm
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"I figure that the fish dont actually have to eat it ..it only has to get them interested." The general rule is don't use bait you wouldn't eat. But yes - it ain't bait. You are only trying to get them to a place. Then let your primo bait - which looks a whole lot better than the burley, do the rest. Alan ------------- Legasea Legend member |
Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 7:09pm
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"dont used bait you wouldn't eat ",😆 yeah ...when we lived in Nelson there was sanmar (for example ) in the freezer at Big Blue ,and now Im seeing it in the freezer at packnsave , along with a lot of frozen imported stuff ....I mean I have often said to the Mrs that the frozen fish freezer looks like a bait freezer , and I have eaten bait before ,😆😆we got a bit pissed up at Durville once and bbq'd the squid ( thanks Talleys ) and the frozen garfish wasnt bad ....tell ya what tho ...it sure did hit the fan when the snobby #£&+'s found out it was sold as bait .,.😆😆😆😆my sis in law brings it up every chance she gets ....ah some people aye 😆😆 ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: Pcj
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 7:21pm
------------- "Times up" |
Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 7:30pm
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Oh some ...like probly most of it is good stuff but just not what we are used to . A lot of it I have never heard of before and a lot of it is farmed in less than ideal circumstances but hey we are a multicultural country now and a lot of "new" people seem happy to see it ....maybe I just need to open my mind a little . Thing is tho ...once you have been able to go "catch your own" dinner anything from a fish retailer doesnt seem that fresh , having said that we bought johnnie d at p n s tother day and it was pretty good fresh wise .🙂 ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 22 Jun 2026 at 10:45pm
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We used to make up berley by using an old-fashioned mincer to process kahawai, jack mackerel etc, also sprats. And defrosted bait we didn't use. I understand that you shouldn't put snapper frames in though, presumably it'll alarm other snapper. Though I've landed a big Northland snapper that spat out a baby snapper it'd eaten, so... Anyway, there's a YouTube fisho in Western Australia who just uses leftover rotisserie chicken carcasses (from supermarket chooks) and he does very well on snapper (a cousin of the ones we have here, and also live on the eastern side of Australia). He just puts them in a berley pot attached to the stern of his boat and mashes them up as he goes. He always seems to have one when he fishes, so they must get through a load of chicken.
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Posted By: Phantom Menace
Date Posted: 23 Jun 2026 at 12:00pm
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I think snapper will have a go at most things ... including snapper frames. I've seen this with my own eyes. We went spearfishing one day, processed the catch in the evening and kept the frames to use as burley the next day. I swam away from the boat with all the frames in an old chillybin (one kingfish, several snapper, couple of butterfish). Once I found a good looking gut in the rocks I tipped the whole lot in, took the chillybin back to the boat and swam away for 30 minutes. After letting the burly do it's thing I snuck back over to the gut and saw lots of snapper eating the burley - so the biggest one got speared.
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Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 23 Jun 2026 at 3:18pm
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Anything fishy works for me. I bulk mine up with chook food bread etc but I haven't made berley in years now. Scallop gut and cheap chook pellets worked well for me for gurnard. It was in their stomachs when I gutted them. The most important thing is to have it so your lines are in the berley trail otherwise you will take the fish away from where your baits are. The other important thing is to have your berley at the right depth. It is absolutely pointless hoping to attract fish such as snapper or gurnard if your berley is on the surface and you're in 10m or more with any sort of current flow for the same reason as the other most important thing. I used to freeze tennis ball sized balls of berley with a decent stone inside them so they sank and throw them around the boat at slack water. That worked real well. I'd take a 20l bucket of them sometimes. ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: Pcj
Date Posted: 23 Jun 2026 at 4:15pm
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Around the mussel farms,we would lower burley till out of sight,it would bring the bigger snapper up off the bottom and leave undersize on bottom,works well. ------------- "Times up" |
Posted By: krow
Date Posted: 23 Jun 2026 at 8:38pm
| When my bait freezer gets full of old bait leftovers I have a session with the mincer. Takes a couple of days in the fish bins to defrost the raw product in the back shed. Whatever can fit down the mincer throat goes into the mix. Bigger stuff like Kahawai gets the chop first. Most whole fish (jacks, Mullet, Kahawai, etc) I will take the tails and fins off pre mince as they just make the job harder for no benefit. An expensive pair of scissors is the go here. Also if it has scales these are removed too to ease the blockages and the arm. I then pack the end product into 300mm long 100mm PVC pipes with either an end cap or plastic bag taped to the bottom. I smear the insides of the tubes with fish oil pre loading to make the burley release easier. Slight defrost and it slides out of the pipe into my dispenser as needed. Making your own is cheaper and IMHO better than purchased products' though I often bulk out the mix with some anyway. I don't use any meat products as this is not legal in IGFA rules. I sometimes fish competitions that are based around these rules and you never know when that fish of a lifetime for me or the crew is going to make an appearance. |
Posted By: kimber7wsm
Date Posted: 24 Jun 2026 at 7:16am
| When making Burley, my mate and I use everything. all frames including snapper. old bait. The only thing we don't put in is the skin from fillets. That clogs the cutters. I can't prove that using snapper frames reduces our catch rate. Some of my other mates believe strongly in the can't catch snapper with snapper, so I don't tell them... |
Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 24 Jun 2026 at 7:46am
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"Cant catch snapper with snapper" ......yeah its the old bananas on the boat thing again 😆. Skin doesnt go thru the mincer well but I think a few scales doesnt hurt as they twinkle as they fall down thru the water like something has just been attacked ..,.maybe 🙂? ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 24 Jun 2026 at 11:38am
It's an eduring myth. Many years ago I was a regular on a charter where we were under strict instuctions but to gut any fish and throw the remains overboard, especially any kahawai remains (it was our main catch over winter). I've caught countless kahawai on the remains of other kahawai. Bananas? I struggle to understand that one as well. I prefer science over superstition. ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: SaltyC
Date Posted: 24 Jun 2026 at 12:03pm
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They actually had to stop trying to farm snapper up at Pahs Farm Kawau because they had such a low survival rate caused by them eating each other. The bananas on a boat being bad luck related to the gas they give them off in the hold causing other fruit cargoes to go off back in the sailing ship days. So had bugger all to do with fishing anyway! |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 24 Jun 2026 at 12:55pm
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There was a great top water lure maker from Australia who made some custom colours - yellow with a Bonita bananas label on the side. Nice sense of humour. There's a YouTube fishing guy who always pulls out a banana to eat on his trips, to make a point, and he does blimmin' well. but humans being what they are, they look to 'lucky' fishing hats, shirts whatever to give themselves a bit more confidence. To that you can add the psychology of "visualising" success turning something into reality, and people who utter religious recitations to ask for success. How those translate to a fish biting my lure, or the hooks not pulling etc is something I'm yet to have explained convincingly!
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Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 24 Jun 2026 at 2:12pm
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And then there is the guy who will tell you that "x " type lure is the best for the Aparima river because every trout he caught was on that lure (Jensen insect spinner ....cant get them any more ) ,and then will go on to tell you that is the only lure he ever uses. Yeah , it was me 😁 ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 25 Jun 2026 at 6:22pm
Haha, I am pretty sure we're all guilty of that way of thinking at some stage Mr Tool ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 25 Jun 2026 at 6:35pm
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Yeah well ....this thread has got me motivated because about 2 years ago I bought a big #uck off mincer ....like the cutter plate is about 200mm in dia and it supposedly needs a 9hp petrol motor to drive it ...I have a 6.5hp but I have been trying / waiting to find 2nd hand b section doule pulleys because I need to drop the revs from 3000ish (motor ) to about 100rpm for the mincer . I have a 6'³ freezer full of frames and chicken bodies and a bunch of other crap that I have been hoarding for a couple of years now ....in anticipation of getting the mincer going so now Im gunna pull finger and do it ...soon 🍺🍺. Pix if your interested in the build 😁😁. I wanna mince a whole possum ....or Leonie's cat ( ###kin thing has been on borrowed time for to long 😆) and being able to drop whole fish and chicken frames in instead of having to chop them up a bit really appeals to me .😁 ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 25 Jun 2026 at 7:41pm
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Wow, that's a decent mincer. I'm very keen to see the build. My mate had a size 32 one that would handle a whole kahawai that would grunt a little on the whole 2kg jobbiesbut it got the job done. From memory it was 1hp ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: krow
Date Posted: 25 Jun 2026 at 7:57pm
  
I didn't notice any issues with the Kahawai trevally or mullet skins
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Posted By: Alan L
Date Posted: 25 Jun 2026 at 8:07pm
That reminds me of one of the funniest fishingb vids I saw - I thnk it was Matt Watson making a sald for the fish. All the veges went into a wood chipper and he stood at the end with goggles and a bowl catching what came out - well - some of it. He wore most of it. Alan ------------- Legasea Legend member |
Posted By: Fish Addict
Date Posted: 25 Jun 2026 at 8:51pm
Here it is Alan.  https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=matt+Watson+burley+wood+chipper&mid=E25EE16E731C3DBAD74DE25EE16E731C3DBAD74D&churl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fchannel%2fUCzTfnC661R3LXu_mS9aRFKA&FORM=VIRE" rel="nofollow - Bing Videos
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Posted By: BananaBoat
Date Posted: 25 Jun 2026 at 8:57pm
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Made another batch last weekend. Takes about 45mins from setup to clean up & put away. The hand mincer is bolted to my greenhouse Works well, can get thru the lot in 15mins. Old baits, including snapper, chicken pellets, tuna oil Only enough room to freeze down 4x berley at a time... about 1.9kg each Once organized, its a no mess operation. It pays to tie on a large plastic bag at the end of the mincer, works like a chute, so everything goes straight into the bin, not everywhere else Big kahawai heads are split in half, everything else goes straight thru I'm mostly using the reusable mesh berley bag, seems the right amount comes out while kayak fishing   
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Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 26 Jun 2026 at 6:08pm
Great stuff Krow, we've had some similar sessions. Glad that I live in the country! ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: krow
Date Posted: 26 Jun 2026 at 8:04pm
Me too. Bananaboat looks to do same thing  I forgot to mention the caps are not clued on and once popped off just push the burley out of the tube from the bottom. I make sure to leave 3 or 4 cm from the top so can start it moving when tube upside down on the board etc, I also slide the last few out and glad wrap them up and place back in freezer to release more tubes when making the next batch. A lot longer between batches these days as I tend to softbait over the warmer months.
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Posted By: MB
Date Posted: 26 Jun 2026 at 10:28pm
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Believe it or not, I make a little burley too. Similar to some of the previous posts, pig pellets plus any fish or meat waste. I freeze in 2L buckets. They come with a lid, so can be stacked in the freezer. I throw the whole thing minus lid in to the burley pot and reuse the buckets. I only use it when I'm taking beginners/guests out on to the boat, so it lasts a long time. It's too hard to teach absolute beginners to softbait or jig, especially if a fishing trip is a one off thing for them.
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Posted By: BananaBoat
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2026 at 1:58pm
Yeah, wish I had known that from the beginning. Mine are glued on. Took the pots to work to drill a 1in hole in the base. Tape it up, then do the berley thing The berley pots need to thaw in a bucket of water for a bit.... I welded up a long "tee thingy" to help push the berley out..... you find out things afterwards eh Also welded up a plunger to help push the fish thru the top of the mincer.... keep the fingers away !! A bit of spray at the end to stop the rust situation around the bearings 
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Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2026 at 2:07pm
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Over complicate things 😁 I cut the bottom out of soda bottles ,drill small hole in top...get a bit of chicken wire netting and fold into loose ball ,tie cord to netting ,thread cord thru hole in bottle top so netting is inside bottle , invert bottle and pour in berley . Freeze while inverted . When time to use tie end of cord to berley rope and chuck the whole lot over the side . Netting stops the berley dispersing to fast or falling out . Rinse and repeat 😁 ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: Mc Tool
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2026 at 5:48pm
    Phew , just as well I got motivated coz when I went to take pix I found the cutter plate retaining ring seized on , took ½ hour of heating and beating to get it off ,anyhows here tiz . ------------- I wish I was young again .... Id be heaps smarter than this time |
Posted By: Alan L
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2026 at 8:03pm
Yeah, thats the one. Didn't think it was at first - but it came good at the end. Hilarious. I think they did anothe one similar on land at some time too. Brilliant. McTool - we expect some good coleslaw out of that thing. Wasted on Burley. Alan ------------- Legasea Legend member |
Posted By: krow
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2026 at 8:24pm
That's going to be a beast when you get that going. 
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Posted By: Fish Addict
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2026 at 11:02pm
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Mc Tool - that's an impressive berley mincer in the making.
As an alternative to slowing down the revs I'm sure a man of your skills could perhaps design and manufacture a pressurized feed system thus increasing the feed rate. The contents of your full bait freezer could vanish in seconds along with any annoying cats and / or local feral children.
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