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Catching your own Pillies


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Does anyone catch there own pillies? I do a lot of my own bait collecting cause it's fun and cheaper. But I always find my self picking up a bag of pillies from a servo. So does anyone one know any techniques time of year and where to go?

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I don't catch pillies myself but someone may be able to give some advice soon (although many are away for Easter atm).

 

I just buy the frozen salted ones and are not too dear or even at the markets as fresh (but harder to keep on the hook) and a little cheaper again.

 

Also, I have read that you can buy a Sabiki rig which could have upto 8 hooks on the line - but with only 3 hooks permitted on one line I'm not sure how legal these rigs are or why they are allowed to be sold.

So I would just make up your own rig with 3 hooks (even with the little feathers on them) and/or white coloured bait and sinker at the bottom and start jigging away until they hook on.

 

Temperatures also will need to be a little cooler, so maybe another month yet, but where to get them I'm unsure.

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You will need a bloody big trawler with a big fine net & get out a couple of hundred kilometers off shore to catch pilchards (the size you purchase in the tackle stores) in this state they do come up this gulf but are usally on the much smaller size (juvenile fish) & will congregate in the port river for a couple of months later in the year then disappear till the following year.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Used to catch them for live bait off outer harbour wharf years ago. Used a big crab net or home made square net with fine mesh. Lower it down so it was about 6 inches deep or so. Then lower a light (kero tilly latern for me) so it was just above the net. They would swim over the top and we would pull the net up to get them. On a single hook and straight to the bottom then reeled up about a metre off the bottom. It was the only way to get the resident mulloway living under the wharf interested. Used to get a few tommies, squid, gar and crabs as well. Always used surf rods as well with the butt held by a loop of rope through the planks to get the pilly as far away from the piles as possible to have a chance of landing them.

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