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Slide Baiting on a budget


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First up, if anyone on here uses the slide baiting technique, I'd love to see or know what setups you use and what sort of success you've had. I am a complete newbie to this technique after watching a lot of South African beach and rock fishing on youtube and it really appeals to me for whatever reason!

 

 

After a recent change in employment, I had to unload a bunch of my fishing gear, and together with a somewhat lessened money flow, I have had to re assess how I'm going to approach catching certain species for a little while.

 

Basically the only heavy gear I have left is a big surf setup, and I have decided I would like to give slide baiting ago.

 

Being on a tight budget, but having free access to certain materials (namely stainless steel wire), I figured I'd have a crack at making the majority of the required terminal gear myself.

 

From watching plenty of videos, and doing a bit of research on the topic, the technique seems to require three main bits of terminal gear:

-Grapnel/Surf/Breakaway type sinker

-The Bait Slide

-The slide stopper

 

I had a look at my local tackle stores and didn't come across anything in the way of the Slider/Stopper setup, So I was set on making those myself, and after having a look at the price of surf sinkers, I decided that paying $4-$8 per sinker was not feasible with my current budget. As a result I picked up a packet of 4 Snapper leads (4oz) from KMart for the thrifty price of $5 total, with a view to modifying them into a breakaway type setup myself.

 

I won't go into too much detail about the process, but the wire is all 1.6mm stainless welding wire, which seems to be a happy medium between strength and flexibilty. I tried 3mm and it was way too heavy and bulky and hard to work with. In the future I'd like to try 2mm wire (I think this will be perfect) as I suspect the 1.6 will prove a little flimsy for the slides.

 

The snapper leads were turned into a breakway type thing by simply drilling holes through the bottom, making a few divots, and insterting then bending the wire to shape.

 

Tools used were two pairs of pliers and a screwdriver for forming the bends around.

 

 

 

As mentioned, If anyone else fishes slide baits, I'd love to hear about the setups (rod, reels, baits) and target species etc. Its something I'm very keen to learn more about.

slidebaitgear.jpg

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Booma , very impressed with your test products.

 

Must have watched those videos for hours on end.

 

A nice shot of the ingenuity and get it done.

 

Seems like you are halfway there now, all you need to do is rig up, bait up, and throw it into the surf.

 

Best of luck, and keep at it ... trial and error, think out of the square, repeat, until it all comes together.

 

Well Done

 

SF

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Thanks SaltyFlyer!

 

Hopefully give the gear a crack later this week at some point. 

 

 

For anyone that isn't familiar with Slide Fishing, its basically a technique you would employ to get large/fragile baits out to surf casting distances. Basically you attach the grapnel via a slightly lighter line to your mainline via the slide stopper (the smaller wire bits in the above photo) and cast that out to your desired location. Once it grips the bottom firmly, you clip your bait onto the mainline using the sliding clip (the bits with the coil of wire in the above pic) and slide it out to the stopper.

 

 

It sounds a fiddly method (and looks it too), but it means you can get bigger baits (big fillets/whole fish baits etc) or fragile baits (live squid/mullet etc) out a lot further than casting them. The shape and design of the slider means it will only travel one way along your line, so once it gets to the stopper, thats where it stays.

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I've tried a few times targeting sharks off the beach, although no luck yet.

 

My rod is a fairly stiff model from the US, 11' and rated to throw 8-12oz. The reel is a Daiwa SL-X50SHA loaded with 40lb mono and a bunch of 50lb braid as backing. I also run a 80lb mono shock leader.

 

Here's one of the slide rigs, 18/0 Mustad circle, 150lb nylon coated 7x7 wire, double barrel crimps with heat shrink and tape. The sinkers were made up for me by the fine folks at Let's Go Fishin, 8oz with grip wires.

 

20170423_154026.jpg

 

I use whole fish baits, salmon or mullet usually, trim the fins/tail and feed the hook through the mouth, out the gill slit and then back through the gut with the hook shank inside. A zip tie helps to keep things from shifting around.

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