Butterfish as BAIT

摘要

Butterfish have a terrible reputation on the north coast of N.S.W. An all too common description of them is that they are useless bait wasting mongrels. This is generally followed with a tirade about how on the last outing the angler couldn't keep bait in the water long enough for a bream, flathead or whiting to find it because those rotten butterfish were in plague proportions. Butterfish are ravenous feeders and when they are in big numbers, bait fishing is basically a waste of time. If you cast astrip bait of mullet in the same place a few times, that is generally enough berley to bring them around in big numbers. These fish have a very small mouth and a bream hook is too big to regularly catch them. Their bite is a series of fast, sharp tugs on the line where they quickly tear off all the flesh leaving only skin on the hook.