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Cockle alternatives for KGs


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With price of cockles so high I'd like to know what other baits work well with KGs. I've alwayws considered fresh cockles (fresh are never available anyway it seems) to be the best bait. Easy to use, stay on, the fish love them, and they were once inexpensive!

I've never had a lot of luck with Squid. Maybe others have? What else?

BTW, if anyone knows where I can get cockles at a reasonable price please let me know!

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Back in the day - all the whiting guru's used to carry metal meat tenderisers to bash the squid before using it for bait

Collecting and cleaning fresh mussel is quite labour intensive - even if you are good at it - yanking on their beards and shucking them takes a while.

Back when I used to fish for whiting, the pippies were real cheap aswell - Unfortunately you will hear alot of anecdotal evidence that pippies remain a stand out bait - Stuff like - "they werent touching squid or bass yabbies, all they wanted was the pippie"

Maybe marinating chicken flesh in cockle juice over night, would be budget option. Shucking a small bag of cockle into some cut chicken pieces might be an option. I know they will eat unmarinated chicken flesh - but if it smelt like pippies they might like it even better.

And that way you use the pippies first - then bomb out the scented chicken pieces once the school is fired up. 

 

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KGW like KGW flesh.... Ive had great success with trevally meat as well... and theres lots of pipies exposed on the sand flats at the moment... They are just sitting on top.. Thousands where I was yesterday. Might be worth a trip for you to gather some..

My old man used to gather them, open and lightly salt them, then freeze... He always did well with the KGW..

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31 minutes ago, MIKECATTS said:

KGW like KGW flesh.... Ive had great success with trevally meat as well... and theres lots of pipies exposed on the sand flats at the moment... They are just sitting on top.. Thousands where I was yesterday. Might be worth a trip for you to gather some..

My old man used to gather them, open and lightly salt them, then freeze... He always did well with the KGW..

P3171016.JPG

I made a mistake in the fish count one day and was one over the limit bye one KGW , they were in a hot bite and all big fish , they were all followed to the boat by large Snook , so I took a strip off of the smallest KGW to see if I could score a Snook , no I scored a 46cm KGW , so yeah Mike I believe ya .

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Years ago when I lived in the Port area & fished for KGW's I used to collect cockles from the sand flats opposite the old Outer Harbour boat ramp on low tide, I gather that area is probably changed now with the extension of the outer breakwater. Razor fish was also a great bait to use on the whiting as well, they used to be plentiful on the other side of the breakwater as well, I used to have a raze fish grapple in my boat to collect them. They were reachable on low tide too.. why don't you spend a day at Goolwa collecting them, always a good day spent on the beach. As yellow door stated, Squid mashed with a hammer was always a good bait on the whiting.. All of my whiting fishing was done on the other side of the revetment wall in the white patches among the weed beads.. Then again I'd say that area isn't what it once was either..

cheers

Adrian

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1 hour ago, MIKECATTS said:

KGW like KGW flesh.... Ive had great success with trevally meat as well... and theres lots of pipies exposed on the sand flats at the moment... They are just sitting on top.. Thousands where I was yesterday. Might be worth a trip for you to gather some..

My old man used to gather them, open and lightly salt them, then freeze... He always did well with the KGW..

P3171016.JPG

What sand flats Mike?

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So if you had a day to collect bait (and I do today), where would you go?

I'm heading out in the morning and need bait but don't want to pay nearly $20 for a tiny bag of cockles - and it is tiny.

I gather ghost shrimp / nippers are mostly great yellowfin bait, but are they any good for KGs? Could collect some this arvo and they'd be OK in the morning.

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26 minutes ago, Elecmuso said:

So if you had a day to collect bait (and I do today), where would you go?

I'm heading out in the morning and need bait but don't want to pay nearly $20 for a tiny bag of cockles - and it is tiny.

I gather ghost shrimp / nippers are mostly great yellowfin bait, but are they any good for KGs? Could collect some this arvo and they'd be OK in the morning.

A lot of KGW , I have caught over Moonta way , have had prawns in there guts , I always see what is inside a fishes belly , to help give you an idea of there eating habits , some days Pilchard will send them off as well  . I found that a finely cut up pilchard will keep the school around . The last hot bite we had , all big fish , had pilchard in there guts , and biggest 50cm , my PB 

 

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32 minutes ago, yellow door 1 said:

........,.

Have you checked with Ray and Anne’s. They some times have good deals on Cockles

You are right, $20 for a kg which sounds a lot better than BCF (don't know the weight of the tiny bag BCF sell but it is $18). Unfortunately they are out of stock until tomorrow!

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6 hours ago, Meppstas said:

Years ago when I lived in the Port area & fished for KGW's I used to collect cockles from the sand flats opposite the old Outer Harbour boat ramp on low tide, I gather that area is probably changed now with the extension of the outer breakwater. Razor fish was also a great bait to use on the whiting as well, they used to be plentiful on the other side of the breakwater as well, I used to have a raze fish grapple in my boat to collect them. They were reachable on low tide too.. why don't you spend a day at Goolwa collecting them, always a good day spent on the beach. As yellow door stated, Squid mashed with a hammer was always a good bait on the whiting.. All of my whiting fishing was done on the other side of the revetment wall in the white patches among the weed beads.. Then again I'd say that area isn't what it once was either..

cheers

Adrian

c7e8f791b573b4678d96b5dcb89d2a3c.jpg.0f4677b8b2e6e0950fc8c7964d2610f6.jpg 

Just be mindful - I think there is a ban on collecting mud cockles around the port area.

Sportsfishing scene are around $14 a kilo but if you can get your own, will save a fortune. I think I have about 5 kilos left in the freezer but will do a couple of trips down to goolwa after the april school holidays, when there is less people collecting them (the water gets pretty cold).

In saying the above, most of the whiting I've been catching have been on fresh squid - wouldn't touch the frozen stuff

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17 hours ago, lofty64 said:

A lot of KGW , I have caught over Moonta way , have had prawns in there guts , I always see what is inside a fishes belly , to help give you an idea of there eating habits , some days Pilchard will send them off as well  . I found that a finely cut up pilchard will keep the school around . The last hot bite we had , all big fish , had pilchard in there guts , and biggest 50cm , my PB 

 

I always use fresh tenderized squid with a little bit of pilchard on my baits, the frozen squid doesnt work as well as fresh... My theory is the pilchard brings them to the bait, the squid hooks them as it stays on the hook better.. If they are fussy and I have a KGW/trevally. Then I use a little bit of that  instead.. I dont boat fish.. Only off the land which is a bit harder to get KGW.. Its been hard this year due to the crowds everywhere... Hoping/wishing next summer is better.. crowd wise... 

Last few trips I havnt really fished as much due to the crowds... 

We went to Gleesons landing over the Adelaide cup weekend.... My god.. Rundle mall all weekend.. I didnt really fish... too noisy, too many people... 

I know the local cray guys and they let me squeeze in and camp next to them.. ALL the other camping spots were full. I counted 27 cars/vans/campers jut at one clearing...

I managed to go out on one of the cray guys boats for the day.. For my efforts I was rewarded with a small cray... By the way.. This year the cray guys have been doing really well as the pro isnt going out and catching them this season.. They have been getting their bag limit every day... 

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11 hours ago, David_C said:

Just be mindful - I think there is a ban on collecting mud cockles around the port area.

 

Its been banned for years... When I was working boats with my dad 35 years ago.. We made good coin gathering the cockles off the section bank.... Especially when the weather wouldnt lets us go work the nets.. I wouldnt eat them today though.... We gathered the pipies where I circled with green.. There was always millions of them... With one port adelaide pro, that was all he went for.. He was lazy..

There was always lots of prawns there at night as well..

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10 hours ago, mrfish said:

Don't forget you an also catch kg's on soft plastics.

have caught them on bloodworm wrigglers before but a worm or nipper plastic should work too. 

recently saw this vid by Luben Pfiefer catching kgs on ned rigs, looks fun 

 

Yeah I’ve got them on Berkeley gulp worms with a small stinger hook in the tail

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You can always try small pilchard pieces, prawn pieces or whiting snatchers. Blood worms & tubeworms (salted) can also work really well. I have used small pieces of trumpeter flesh (skinned) which has also worked. Mashed up/soft squid pieces are really good generally. 

The other thing I also do is put cockle flesh in a jar with salt & leave in the shed fridge. They last forever, become really smelly & stay on the hook really well. Half a cockle is usually enough as the flesh becomes really firm. Just stock up on cockles as you can afford them & eventually you will have a heap of jars ready to go from the fridge. 

I usually buy a 20kg sack & go halves with my mate so the initial cost is a bit but last a long time overall if you "pickle" most of them. With squid, I buy in 5 kilo blocks & split up into say half kilo packs which also last a long time. Just some ideas you can try. 

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On 18/03/2021 at 7:47 PM, David_C said:

Just be mindful - I think there is a ban on collecting mud cockles around the port area.

Sportsfishing scene are around $14 a kilo but if you can get your own, will save a fortune. I think I have about 5 kilos left in the freezer but will do a couple of trips down to goolwa after the april school holidays, when there is less people collecting them (the water gets pretty cold).

In saying the above, most of the whiting I've been catching have been on fresh squid - wouldn't touch the frozen stuff

pick me up on the way? I have a new toy on I want try down there haha

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