Sardine as bait?

[Ste]

I was in Tesco last night and they were selling fresh sardine fillets so I bought a few and I'm hoping to try them this week. They'd give off as much scent if not more than a strip of mack.

Anyone tried it?

[willie bendit]

Tried sardine last sat.was totally outfished by everything else,hard to present properly,too much bait elastic cuts into it.might work if wrapped in squid.ah feck it,I'll stick with the old reliables.thank you please

[shamoo0804]

Also tried them before but couldnt mount them on the hook properly, ended up chucking the lot out in front of me as ground bait.

Might be worth salting them as you would black lug - might toughen them up sufficiently to present better on the hook.

[Richie07]

Excellent on a float set up over rocky ground, Pollock and Bass will take it, don't need to use too much elastic either.

[Richie07]

And Im talking about whole Sardine, maybe the fillets you saw were herring as Sardines are only sold whole.

[shamoo0804]

Excellent on a float set up over rocky ground, Pollock and Bass will take it, don't need to use too much elastic either.

How do you mount it on the hook?

What size/type of hook do you use?

[Richie07]

Excellent on a float set up over rocky ground, Pollock and Bass will take it, don't need to use too much elastic either.

How do you mount it on the hook?

What size/type of hook do you use?

Usually just hook through one eye and bring hook out through the other eye pull line through and then insert the hook around the anal area, give a coulpe of turns with bait elastic just to keep it on when casting, a size 4 should do you but a size 2 would be better for the smaller Sardines. You can also hook behind head and pull line through and hook around bottom of fish.

[Ste]

And Im talking about whole Sardine, maybe the fillets you saw were herring as Sardines are only sold whole.

Nope, sardine fillets... Hadn't seen them before. Pretty small fillets, only cost around €1.50 for 6 of them.

[croppyboy]

i had a 3lb rockling on one conger fishing a few years back .

[Ste]

So I tried it out yesterday evening, but more than the bait I wanted to try my new gear. (I bought a Penn Powerstix Pro surf 13ft and a Penn Surfmaster 750 loaded with Ultima F1 15lb black mono.)

So anyway... I was on the harbour wall in Bray and didn't expect to catch much, if anything but I thought I'd give the sardines a go. They actually go onto the hook nicely and don't break apart during casting.





I didn't get any bites, but I almost caught a speedboat so I left after just 2 casts

I'm getting a lot more range with the new gear though so I'm happy about that and I'll try the sardines again at some point. But in a location where I know there's fish though.

[PJH]

Back in South Africa whole sardine would be the bate of choice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3L1zqc7c9I

[unfit]

Great video

[diegoconor]

Nice video