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Rigging a skip Garfish bait
Garfish trolled at or near the surface are called skip baits. You will need suitable leader material, a length of light galvanized wire and maybe an awl, although not essential. The same rig can be prepared as in the swim garfish rig, without the bean sinker but with a stinger (as demonstrated on this site). The Garfish skip bait outlined below will give you long hours of trolling without the break down of the garfish rig. If toothy critters are present, 49 strand cable, rigged as a stinger as outlined in the garfish swim is a better option.
Presenting Baits
Bait presentation is sadly overlooked by too many fishermen. Today the lure making industry make a fortune out of lazy fishermen. Rigging baits in place of presenting a lure will, in 100% cases, out fish the lure.
A well rigged squid makes the very best flathead lure. Small well presented squid, worked as a lure, will catch more bream than lure or standard bait! In fact catch more fish than any lure or standard bait.
Small Bait fish too, can be rigged and presented in place of a lure. The first couple of try’s may seem fiddly, however, once you set yourself with the right equipment and have some practice under your belt, you’ll out fish everyone around you and never look back.
With much smaller baitfish such as hardyheads, herring, minnows, galaxids, gudgeons and smelt, you may need to use a fine two hook rig. Use a sliding snooze to have the secondary hook sliding. Place the secondary hook through the lip and the primary through the tail. Tweak it and you’ll quickly get it set to swim well. Split-shot or small bean sinkers can be used to add weight. Simply place the weight between the two hooks and use hosiery elastic (Bait Mate) to hold them snuggly in place.
Intertwining the shaft of a hook through a bait, takes away its natural action. Before long the bait will quickly gather around the point of the hook, which is just what you don’t need. If the bait is large enough to thread, quite often it is better to opt for a two hook rig.
I once fished alongside a gentleman that used a three hook sliding snooze rig when fishing with Pipis, cockles and goolwa off the beach. The hooks where small but I never saw him miss a fish and not once did he have to strike to hook them up. I on the other-hand, using a one hook rig, I had to worked hard for a third of the fish he took home!
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Fish Baits
Fly Fishing
