I have spoken to various people about using berley in fresh water, where some people have told me that berley does have a positive effect in fresh water (albeit not as much as in salt water), but it does help. Whereas other people have told me that with many species of fish (e.g. Callop/Golden Perch), berley is utterly useless, where unless you cast a hook or lure pretty much right on top of their heads, nothing else will help. I'm hoping someone who has actually used berley in fresh water can offer some advice. I'm not expecting a guaranteed catch from any advice I get, not at all. I only want to know if it would help to some extent. I found this post in another forum:
"I fish mainly for natives and do not use alot of berley. However i have used a type of berley that involved keeping household waste including fruit and vegetable scraps, bread and anything else i could find and putting it into a large onion bag. I did this for about two weeks (i advise storing this away from living areas as it does begin to stink. Then once i had enough in the bag i placed a brick in the bag and dropped it at the base of a targeted tree, nice depth with good structure. I returned to this spot in around three or four days shook the bag up and began to fish. This was in a redfin impoundment and i caught alot of fish including redfin, yellowbelly and of course carp. i continued to fish this location for the folowing two weeks with great success."
I actually had something very, very similar in mind.
I was going to put a berley pot in a yabby opera net, then put that net sort of in the area of the "upstream flank" of where I plan to cast out, either lures or bait rigs. And from the reading and research I've done, there are some things I have in mind that will definitely put out a scent....a long way. I would then cast out slightly downstream from this berley bucket. A guaranteed catch? No. But surely this must help to some extent?
Rear Admiral got a reaction from Seeseacol in Berley in the fresh?