Triggering the Bite

Hard lockdown in Sydney means I’m spending a lot of time talking to police, Maritime, Fisheries etc when out on the water. Thankfully being in the tackle business means I have an excuse to go fishing:

But when not on the boat I’m spending a lot of time watching fishing clips, on Youtube. One channel I’m really enjoying is The Lateral Line. A couple of top Kiwi blokes who love chasing big kings, in the remote top end of the North Island:

They’ve got some interesting techniques happening – particularly, heavy burleying. One of Sydney’s keenest fly fishermen does very well using something similar – working his flies through a burley trail at Long Reef. I’ve tried it myself, although have only caught small ones so far:

Not being critical! But one downside noticed with both the Kiwis and the Sydney fly guy is, their burley technique. The fly fisho uses a ladle to throw burley from a bucket, out behind his boat. The Kiwis put a burley log in a mesh bag, on the end of a rope. What’s wrong with that? Lots.

Of course, the current doesn’t usually get this hard close in – unless you’re at Fish Rock, or similar. But it still runs pretty hard.

In summer, when the inshore kingfish bite is at its hottest, is when the East Australia Current is running at its strongest. Meaning burley thrown on top of the water quickly disappears downstream. My guess is a lot of it never gets deep, where the fish are operating and, if it does, that would be happening a couple of hundred yards away.

So my idea was to use our downrigger to get the burley down to a depth where it won’t be passing over the fish’s heads. Here’s a rough diagram of what I was trying to do:

Get the trail to the fish: The burley guide explains this weighted-can experiment, surface delivery and matching the bait to the trail.

Here’s how it all works:

Drop the anchor, or use an electric outboard, to hold your boat upstream of the spot;

For Sydney spots, think Long Reef, Bluefish Point, South Head, Wedding Cake Island, Tabbigai, Jibbon Bombora etc etc

Attach the mesh can to your downrigger, and lower to the bottom. The weighted can replaces your usual downrigger weight. Then, bring it up a metre;

Attach a live bait to your downrigger clip – which runs off the mesh can on a dropback, in the usual way. Here’s the gear needed. I bought one of those metal mesh cans – which has a lead disc inside, making it sink fast:

It worked. Here’s how Friday 30th July went down. Launched at Roseville ramp:

Out to Balmoral Island, chasing small yellowtail for livebait. Thanks to Andrew Kulinski for the pic:

No joy, because the spot was swarming with trevally. Over to the Centurion wreck and dropped the burley can. That’s it, at 11 metres - everything else is baitfish:

Out to The Peak, an extended north/south reef in 70 metres of water about 7 miles off Maroubra, here in Sydney. Cut a burley log in half, put that in the burley cage, attached it to the downrigger clip, and set it 60 metres below:

Two weeks ago I had myself plus three crew on the boat and, at one point, we had four quadruple kingfish hookups on jigs in a row. But Friday was dead, at the Peak. Had a talk to the pro dropliner who told me he’d seen two kings taken around the tide change, early morning. Meaning the challenge was on! Would the deep burley method deliver? YES. Kingfish, and a mako shark:

Give it a try – if you have a downrigger? Confident this would be deadly on snapper, too. Thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow

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