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Barbel baits for sea fish.

K

Ken Jones

Senior Member
With 18'' of snow on the river bank'up ere',I am thinking about doing a bit of beach fishing on the Holderness coast over the next few weeks.
Target fish Whiting,Cod flatties maybe an odd Ray or late Bass.
Could I ask a serious Quetion has any one had any experiences of using pellets or boilies in the sea,or for that matter fishing a 6 oz feeder as you would on the Trent filled with lets say 15mm Halibuts with a banded 20mm on the hook.
Might be a daft Idea but would it work?
Ken
 
I fished a mainline boilie in Barbados and caught a snapper off shore to a reef. I found it at the bottom of my tackle bag hair rigged to a size 4 Raptor. I used a feeder stuffed with fish bits. The water was a tad warmer than the UK waters but it worked and the locals were convinced that I had a wonder bait. Sadly only 1 boilie came on holiday that year. A few more will be "found" next year when we go back.
 
Worth a try, might be inclined ,if cod were the target, to go along the lines of the catfish approach and use a big bait, 5/6 20mm pellets on the hook(hair). Cod are not exactly subtle in their feeding habits, and a big bunch of halibut pellets will give a much better scent trail.
Give it a try, but put a bunch of lug/squid/bluey out on another rod close by, see what happens.
peter
 
I agree with Peter, go along the Pellet route, i have heard of other anglers using pellets to catch all sorts of fish from the sea ;)
 
Crikey Ken, that's what I call 'thinking outside the box'. No reason why it shouldn't work but I can just imagine the reaction of some of the cynics who fish on my former home beaches of Holderness! Just make sure you hide them when they wander across to ask if you have "adowt?" :D
 
Having a chat in the tackle shop today and a few teeside lads having been having some success on the sea open circuit with a similar Idea.
Is this the start of a revolution.High tide around 16.00 hrs Sunday,who knows.
Ken
 
Hali pellets

As a confirmed Sea angler / Barbel angler for many years I have spent quite a lot of time over a lot of years researching what you propose. This ( Cod ) season I have been fishing the Holderness, experimenting with micro hali pellet packed in a squid mantle,the end tied up with elastic thread, pennel rigged and cast as far as I can into the surf.Results so far are negative, David nil.... the crabs love the stuff and wreck the parcel in no time, in fact I dont think that the parcel lasted long enough on any cast over a whole tide for any fish to get near it.!
I have also been using drilled Hali pellet mounted on a 6" snood with a 3/0 hook at the business end, I used this in the Mersey and the Humber when uptiding, I caught some quite decent Whiting using this method, but no Cod, in fact I abandoned the idea because it seemed that it was Whiting specific, irrespective of how many pellets I used at once.I used a similar method from the beach, using about 12 mm pellets x 4 or 5 on a snood with 4/0 hooks at either end but didnt get a sniff.Having said that I didnt get anything on conventional bait fished on a second rod (I always use 2 rods, to compare the catch rate )
Last year I made a few gripper / feeders, which were loaded again with micro pellet and fished off the beach,using lug as bait,expected Dab and Rockling, caught nothing, no gain at all.
I do keep at it and eventually I hope to nab a Cod or 2 on Hali pellet, I have not tried boilies as yet, prefering to stick to something fishy, although Monster Crab boily might just do the trick.
I have a feeling that any of the above fished over rough ground may have a better result, must try that.

I have posted my Pellet approach to sea angling several times on other sea angling forums, it seems that only a very small minority of sea anglers do this, and then they are also Barbel anglers.

If you have any luck Ken, let me know, although the Holderness Cod have not been showing in anything like the numbers I would have expected them to this year, though I have had some monster Whiting on Lug / Mackie baits, biggest going on 3lb.
I did catch a 31/2 pound Cod over in Rossall on the other coast 10 days ago though..on Lug.

Dave
 
Back in the eighties I gave boilied baits a try - mine contained fairly high levels of glycine which was believed to be attractive to whiting especially. Never had much luck, but at the same time didn't with conventional baits like lug. Guess it was a case of the fish weren't there on the few occasions I tried - I lost enthusiasm and gave up.
Not strictly sea or boiled but did catch some mullet on sodium caseinate based pastes.
Bob
 
The one thing these baits have over conventional sea baits is purely convienience, not to mention lack of sticky/stinky residues. The only real way to give them a proper test would be to take them out on a boat and fish them alongside the usual squid etc. Would be an interesting test,if the opportunity arises, I,ll give it a go.
peter
 
Done it as stated on the Mersey and Humber,fishing against 8 other anglers,IMO no appreciable benefit apart from convenience.

Dave
 
Well, for a sea novice had a reasonable session.
7 Whiting average around the pound and a flattie.Lots of bites all to frozen black lug and a piece of mackerel.Should have gone a hour earlier.
Nothing on pellets,interesting this sea game Ill be back for more.
I must admit I need to learn a bit more especially how to get those beachcaster rods to work.Must have improved around 50 yards today when punching instated of casting.
Some new skills to be learned (and rods bought I think)
Ken
 
Hello Ken
Very interesting point you raise I don't know about this time of year, but certain fish meal boilies have taken Mullet from my stretch of coast in the warmer months.
Don't want to hijack your thread but on a simmilar train of thought, what about sea baits for Barbel? A nice section of King Rag oozing all those juices, must try that.
Good luck with the pellets.
 
Hi Ken, I don't know about coarse baits working for your specified target species but I know crab and krill pellets are deadly effective for wrasse, short hair 16mm pellets but hold your rod as they hook up and head straight to the snags.

I found that baits 20mm or bigger just gets lots of taps but no proper bites, I'm guessing they don't like wedging to big of a bait in their mouths, preferring to chew the bait off the hair.

Colin, squid works for chub and squid boilies work for barbel, so squid has to be worth a bash?!
 
I've also caught pike, catfish and carp on squid.
 
Halibut pellets are designed for feeding halibut, my guess is that sea fish will find them irresistible. I must say that even though I've often considered using them I've never got round to giving them a try; something I intend to rectify this summer.
 
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