OK... We all talk about bait, rods, reels, boats, jigs and fishing spots all the time but it occured to me there has yet to be a discussion on berly. To me fishing without berly is bloody nearly a crime, unless the boat is not anchored. So lets get some ideas and thoughts flowing on berly; how you deploy it, flavour, who makes there own, top or bottom and when? Stories about berly, tricks or tips etc...

Usually when I am going out for a channel fish and know I will be in 12m or more I will tie the berly 1-1.5m above the shackle on the warp before we leave the marina, to do this I use two or three strong cable ties, seperate the rope a wee bit and push the cable tie thru... works a treat. Of course This means you must clean the anchor well at the end of the session.

If in 15m or less I have the berly on the top... But if the tide is too strong I will set it a bit deeper. But in the channels I will set it on the bottom, unless it is wind against tide and the boat lay is yucky then I set it where I can see which direction it is flowing...

ok your input please...

I use the same flavour of Burley as my bait. You don't want to use pillie burley and fish with mullet or you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Where I put it depends on how I am fishing. Most of the time it ends up free floating where ever it lands

I understand how important burley is but I dont use it everytime I go fishing.

I fish the Manukau and I dont usually use burley there because it brings in sharks and rays, of course what it means is you need to find a spot where fish are feeding (natural burley) or where they are passing through. The strong currents kind of detract from it too as they way I see it the fish are likely to hold too far back and the idea of a fish swimming up the burley trail in a huge current doesnt make a lot of sense to me. I do use burley when gurnard fishing though but I make it out of a bread (or chook pellets)/scallop gut (or crab) and I put the bag about a foot or so off the bottom with a big weight on the sea bed. This burley doesnt seem to interest the rays or sharks so much and gurnard come right up to the bag so I generally fish pretty close to it.

When I fish the east coast I always ... well usually ... take burley usually my own and stick it on the top if its shallow say less than 10 metres or down a bit depending on depth and current.

Before a trip I go down the local boat ramp in summertime and catch a pile of yellowtail, use half for bait and grind up the rest, i get lots of kahawai in winter time ...not so many this year and I use the frames for burley too.

With a burley trail at the top it often brings in bait fish so if its quiet I'll catch them for bait and burley.

It is a lot of work making burley but with the amount you need it gets pretty expensive.

I usually throw chunks of bait in as well. One BAD habit I have is squishing up pilly heads and fish frames with my fingers under the water, one day a shark will bite them off ..especially on the manukau where you often cant see more than a metre down.

Kahawai respond real well to burley but I dont use it because I figure its not worth the effort as usually they are pretty easy to catch.

When fishing for piper burley is pretty much a neccessity if you want to catch a decent amount.

If you dont use burley or just use a token amount, just think about how bait fish swarm around coming from nowhere when you use it,  kingfish especially show up in that scenario, mainly because they are on the surface and you can see them, the same happens down below but you just dont see it.

I also like to get burley right on the bottom if there's lots of little fish about preferably at the front of the boat because the bigger fish will hold back and hopefully the little fellas will barge right on up to the burley and leave your baits alone.

I think the biggest mistake I make with burley is that it probably needs to reflect what your bait is, snapper especially will favour one bait over another so why tempt them with a mussel burley and try and catch them on pillies, what do you guys think about that.

Best burley system I have seem is those wobbly pots but an auto grinder thing on the back of the boat would be a good trick aye.... just drop the old bait in  ...

mate have you seen his hipnotic rainbow yet???

I think the biggest mistake I make with burley is that it probably needs to reflect what your bait is, snapper especially will favour one bait over another so why tempt them with a mussel burley and try and catch them on pillies, what do you guys think about that....i think that seeing snapper are scavengers they will eat most foods, in my opnion i think that its good to try something different esp with minced burlies as they dont usually contain anything worth eating but are extra good at getting the fish to bite....anything fresh is my suggestion

I'm no expert, But these have been my experiences.

up to 30 feet burley on top, unless the current is flowing, anything deeeper than that it gets tried to the anchor warp ( I'm just waiting to get towed around by mrs bronzie).

Burley Ive tried and didn't like

Course mussel burley, crayfish burley, pig pallets and tuna oil. I found all these burleys to course and some like the cray one stunk bad.

Ones I like,

Koi carp, nice and oily. samon burley, again nice and oily and minced nice and fine, Pilchard burley not minced that fine, kina burley and that stuff from woolworths works well also.

The Key to burley as I see it is 50 %  material used, and 50% how well its minced up, having good burley that is to course and keeps blocking up is no help.

I don't belive you need great quanites of burley just enought to keep a fine trail in the current. And I have found that you don't need to "match the hatch" so to speak.

For after work fishing at the  moment I'm using Hooked on you, hand genades in a burley bag, in the light currents it lasts from 6 - 9 pm and only cost $3. It's a fish based burley thats minced up fine, so it  puts out out a fine trail.  

One tip when out on the Maunkau don't have your burley sitting on the bottom over slack water, as sure as eggs some bugger fish will rip it to peices 

Ohh and Smudge I love to squish up pillies in my hand to, just feels right, And I'll give that bread burley a go for my little red friends next winter.

Wefaknis

Smudge, post! Very good.    I'm not too worried about using bait that's not the same as the berley. I dont think you need matching berley and bait. I dont think berley fixes fish to its flavour. Berley attracts fish and gets them excited and feeding. I think if you have good bait the fish will take it, and it doesnt matter much if your berley is something different. I'm also not too concerned about feeding the fish with berley. I think it's pretty hard to fill a snapper with food. It'll have room for your bait. Having said that about berley and bait, i remember fishing for alert trevally. Pilchard chunks for berley and pilchard chunks for bait was the way to catch them.

Rock fishing: berley in 2 litre milk bottles. This is sometimes annoying. Berley is released too slowly or you lose it all far too soon. A bucket brew is probably better. Ingredients: any old fishy stuff you have, except snapper. Bread, bran, cooked rice, tuna oil are good things to add. Method: grind it up.  

The best berley is fishing bait fish from the berley trail and smashing them up with one of this stainless steel mincer rod thingies.

Fresh bait is best ... so is fresh berley. I use a plastic drum with holes cut in the side, which is mounted on the aft boarding step (the side I can't use because the steering cables etc come across it.

I agree that there is no need to match burley with bait. I mean Kina works very very well as burley but we dont bait our hooks with them do we.

I do like to mash up some of the bait to get them feeding on what I'm useing.

Most of my fishing is in less than 20 metres so I use surface burley.

I have used crushed mussel and deployed by hand. This worked very well.

I'd use kina on the hook but they've a bugger to get the point through , and you have to use so much force that something sharp inevitably ends up somewhere soft - like through the hand.