yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 12, 2019 Report Share Posted June 12, 2019 bjorn2fish 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hunter69 1,461 Posted June 13, 2019 Report Share Posted June 13, 2019 Arts n Craft whilst waiting for a bite ? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 13, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2019 Hehe - yeah theres been plenty of spare hours for activities over the years Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hunter69 1,461 Posted June 13, 2019 Report Share Posted June 13, 2019 Used the bells alot as a kid, whitting fishing from the pt hughes boat ramp. Multiple rods layed out. Very handy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 13, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2019 Yeah I used to use the spring loaded ones but Id have to take them on and off while casting - and they' get catapulted off if I struck hard and missed a fish. So I decided to take the bell apart and tape it to the rod so it would never fly off. Alot of guys are against bells but I find them invaluable when fishing livies. I tape mine down the rod tip a bit, so they dont ring when the livie blinks - but if my livie starts getting really spooked, they'll give me a heads up. But the real reason I put them on is there is - We have this jerk fish in Melbourne that chomps the head of your livies - sucks the juice out - and leaves the rest without taking Bait-runner drag. But this activity will register on the rod tip like a clunk. If I know my livie is dead, I'll put a new one on - so the bells let me know if one of these Mystery fish is in the area - If I ever catch one, I'm going to punch it in the balls - coz I've had nights where 6 livies have come back with crushed heads and I didnt even know they had been hit. The bells make that much less likely to happen Squid Inc. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mrfish 327 Posted June 13, 2019 Report Share Posted June 13, 2019 Ha that's funny, but nothing to lose you head over Does that happen in the ocean or in an estuary? Squid pretty much always go for the neck of a fish and chomp through with their beaks. might be the culprit if they are in the area you are "losing your noggins." would explain why it doesn't take drag maybe?? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 13, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2019 Yeah the photo above is a bit misleading. It shows the head taken off but they quite often come back with the head still on - but crushed - I'll try to find some photos of the crushed heads When we used to fish the bays alot, we'd get a fair few squid taking livies - but a squid take is much more "Lungey" than these clunking "Head Crushers" - Squid also often leave a semi circular bight on the shoulder right near the head. These takes are weird - it just one clunk - then they leave it alone - there are no follow up nudges or nibbles These "Head crushers" live in the rivers around Melbourne - but because they are estuarine, with big changes in salinity levels, its hard to ID them because there's so many options. Deep down I think they might be eels - but I have no proof mrfish 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 p.s. - the livie above was rigged the same way this one was - so the "Head Crushers" are very good at avoiding hooks Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 Jesus - you have no idea how far back in the archives I had to go to find these pics. But I got into serious livie fishing pretty late in life - I went from mainly dead bait (first 25 years) - to mainly small live bait(3 months) - to bream and other species on lures (10 years) - then serious livie-ing for a bit (2 years) - then back to lures. The main reason I avoided landbased Livebaiting in Melbourne......... - was all the "social media guru's" and well known "under ground" Mulloway guys said it was hard to do. I gave their words more respect than they were due - coz words are just words - and they can occasionally be deliberately misleading (plus I spent a night out with some guru's and froze my arse off, catching nothing and said to myself -this isnt fishing - its just waiting around praying for something to happen.) ( I found very little logic in their approach) But I ride a push bike, so I can basically cover about 20km from the mouth of both our main rivers in an evening - and I would do recon missions, where I wouldnt cast a lure - quite regularly. (but I would bump into all sorts of Jewie fisherman and have a chat - most pretended to be fishing for bream with surf rods and live mullet ) - admittedly fishing the rivers on boats with a sounder for about 15 of those years, should have been a huge advantage - but we werent even looking for Jewies until the last 3 years. If I had paid attention from the start - this game would have been alot easier to work out But what I absorbed over that period of time is - if you have a sounder - jewies are quite easy to find - getting them to bight isnt quite so easy Softy and Squid Inc. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 But I inspect every livie I bring back in - I'm looking for puncture wounds - sucker marks - crushed heads - teeth patterns and general signs of malicious intent - I change quite regularly - because I'm paranoid about lethargic livies not putting out enough signals into the water. ie - I dont want one laying on its side gulping for air - I want a maniac with stamina to panic for at least an hour - but I also dont like huge livies because I use a single hook and want them the be inhaled So heres a few of the signs I look for - heres what those freakin "head Crushers" do - in my mind they slowly approach the bait - grab it by the head - crush it - suck the juice and move on - its like bears well fed bears only eat the eggs of the salmon and leave the rest to rot Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 But have a geeze at this bulldust - each of these livies was caught with a size 12 hook and chicken thigh bait - putting 20 mullet in a bucket, isnt always easy this way - so when you have some "Head crusher" out there making your baits inedible to other species - thats a justifyed basis for a grudge None of these decapitated mullet took click of bait runner drag while their heads were removed Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 But you will also get livies that come back like this - its usually when you ignore the first few taps - (dismissing them for a nervous live bait getting stalked by a jewie) - but its actually good bream taking chomps out of your live bait - puffer fish are an outside chance for doing this damage - but these bight occasionally convert to 40cm+ bream Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 Then we get to the baits that have obvious teeth damage - I've watched a 20kg kingy pick up a trev - take it for 30m...... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 and not leave a mark on it when I tried to set the hooks Call me crazy but I've had runs where sharks dont exist - that feel alot like shark runs - They snip mono leaders the instant the bait runner is flicked into gear - I can still tell the difference between the mark of a deeply lodged Jewie tooth on a savage strike..........and something that snips a 40lb leader when you casually engage the bait runner on a weird slow run, - thats stops and starts as the beasts hoovers up your burley trail. The spacing on the conical Jewie teeth usually gives you a good indication of what you just yanked to hooks out of Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 A "tailor" does waht it says it will Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 but I dont have photo's of the shark runs because they snip my mono leaders before photo's can happen Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 But I spose what I'm trying to say is - I think alot about what is taking my livies and never ignore an opportunity to learn something from the corpse of a missed take Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dutchy 451 Posted June 14, 2019 Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 Cheers for that, I feel so much better about all the livies that iv'e missed fish on. It can be ****ing FRUSTRATING can't it!!! I just use a circle hook as a lip piecing The head crushers are aliens just messing with you Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yellow door 1 1,823 Posted June 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2019 1 hour ago, dutchy said: Cheers for that, I feel so much better about all the livies that iv'e missed fish on. It can be ****ing FRUSTRATING can't it!!! I just use a circle hook as a lip piecing The head crushers are aliens just messing with you Yeah dont get me wrong - I'd take everything I have to say with a grain of salt - I never know, with any certainty, what actually happens under the water - these are just guesses And when it comes to circle hooks - I've had my livies convincingly out-fished by guys using circle hooks and frozen local squid - but I love striking fish too much to ever make the switch to circles - striking fish is a big part of the spectacle for me Squid Inc. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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