What is a good way to cook piper as they are very boney?

 

Also. I know there is a quota. Im not sure if it effects a one line fisherman  or if its just commercial, can someone fill me in if there is a catch limit, im dont think there is but just to be safe.

 

As you can see im too lazy to google. But then again i go with my instints and rather ask pro fisherman, if unsure i ask. :)

 

Cheers.

 

 

Yea i been getting some fat big suckers, thats what made me think of the feed side. I know they only small  cmapred to snapper and all, and they  basic bait fish but sure they put out a good taste and feed if i get a few.

 

Thanks. Cheers. Will stick there beak where the sun dont shine and fry them suckers, i know that sounds mean, but then again, fish only have 5 seconds of memory. What they dont know wont hurt em.

Hi mate, the bottom pic gives another way of eating them: when you've eaten the meat from the bone, rub a clove of garlic over the backbones and fry it until crispy. Looks about as appetising as barbed wire, but they're great!

You can fillet them too, it's actually not that hard or wasteful. In Aus you can buy them in fish and chip shops, they're usually butterflied with the backbones removed. You just crunch up the small bones. I always seem to get one hair-thin bone that slips between gum and tooth and is an absolute arse to get out, but that's about as bad as it gets.

Here's how I like to hook them for livies:

 

Piper is so underated!!!.

 

Nice pics. Cheers for your pics and story.

 

Thats how i ended up hooking them for my livebais in the end pic as they seem to be able to swim and survive more freely. Especially with the bigger hooks until i got told and unstastanable why 9/0 hooks are way too big for piper. But good for kahawhai and big yellowtail.

as for cooking just like Ahab but put ya thumb up their bum and push out all the gut but before you do that hold them by the head and run them through a cloth this scales them, you may have to do it a couple of times.

as for live bait I do the opposite side to the pic above this allows them to swim away just below the surface  and maybe a couple of metres out, no need for a balloon or float.

And when swiming them in a current they are hooked through the socket in the eyes, if you hook em like suggested they will drown.

you will have your piper swimming till they get chomped.i use piper as live bait on a sliding rig. 300lb main line down to a big snap swivel and then a 150lb sliding trace to the big swivel with a 5 bar hook hooked behind the bum and they go good in the current..if you wanted to you can hook them forward in the beak if fishing in a strong current..and they stay happy as..

The little wharf in Herne Bay is good on a high tide, but it can be crowded with canny old geezers with four or five 5m long piper poles, and then you get kids doing bombs. I had a great horde of them around my berley the one time I tried at Tamaki Wharf, too. Piper, not kids.

 I reckon berley is a good place to start, then just about anywhere in Auckland should produce! It's actually quite rare not to see them in most places around the inner Gulf.

 Sabikis are not always the best, I prefer a single, fine, tiny trout hook.

Edit B did a great post on catching piper in the Walkabout section a few months back, I'll try to find it.

EditB's excellent post.

BTW I crunch up their heads when I eat them. Eating the heads passes on their wisdom and courage.

 

Acturally i wouldnt mind smoking all bait fish and testing them all. Even a spotty. Knowone eats spottys but smoked they could acturally be a luxury. Who knows.

 

Im keen to try smoked:

 

Piper

Yellowtail

Herring

Spotty

 

The spotty will be like the trick. I will take it to the pub in peices and people will say " wow, thats some really nice smoked fish', then i will say" yea, its spotty. hahahaha

 

Is that a comm technique Sam with 300lb backbone?

 

I also assume that hooked in the rear they have to swim more actively to breathe and so maybe attract the predators faster as opposed to hooked in the nose and just hanging in the current?

Yeah Ahab,sibiki's tend to get real messy when you have a piper thrashing about on a 5 hook setup,they dont last too long.I ran out of bait awhile back fishing kauri point out here and used the end section of my surfcaster and an old trout hook with rooster feathers on it and nailed about 10 or so in half an hour.........they were the only fish we caught that day.Kids liked em(baby marlin they call em),i didnt....with all the scales that are held on with natures superglue its-self,keen to try them again though.

Interesting stuff about the trout fly mate. Reminds me that I've been meaning to tie up a few tiny flies to try on them.

As to the scales, I've found that if you keep them damp/wet the scales come off very easily. Someone above here said you can scale them with a rag-this sounds like a good idea. I usually just do it under the cold tap with my hands.

If they dry out I agree, stuck on like black on coal.

Gutting and getting out the black stomach lining (bitter tasting) is made a bit easier with a butter knife.

Classic stuff B A. A big piper could win you a grand in that big Coro comp nowadays!

This is my best so far, about 7oz:

You should send that post to Grant Dixon at NZFN, pretty sure he'd be keen to publish it. 

As to their cowardice, I agree! I saw a very nervous school of them at Goat Island a few years ago. Man, had they blundered into the wrong bay!

They used to do really well with that method..i used to use Pipis dug up from Mairangi Bay beach..god times have changed

------------------o--------------------o___)   works very well and you can cast it to :)

going to use some bigger ones for stray lining this season..

I'd say a willow grub pattern would be excellent. Anything you can strip in to get their attention that is small enough for them to chew would probably do the trick.

Yea i remember those maggots in the tins years ago. The was this one dude used to come down the whalf every time and put them on his flies and clean up. I never used them but they allways caught piper.

 

Do people still use them?. Where do you get maggots from?. I never knew. This was like 20 years ago.

 

 Im too clean to breed my own. lol.

 

I wouldnt wind getting into the maggots to catch my live baits. Especially piper.