Hooking Livebaits

[snakecatcher]

When hooking livies such as silver bitties, mullet or herring should you hook em through the tail, nose or through the back - be useful to get your opinions on which is the best and why.

Thanks

[bowds13]

hey mate i all ways like to hook them through nose i find if its in the tail they tend to struggle alot and die and in the back dosnt make them last to long and can make them swim funny. a little tip is if u want them to swim to the surface chop the top half of the tail off and the bottom if u want them to dive( i think thats right :-? its the way i do it seems to work) i all so like to have a small treble floating freely about the lenght of the bait behind the main hook i use that rig mainly for mackerel u will be suprised how many fish get hooked on that hook may not look like much it it sure dose work

cheers bowds

[al-straddie]

G'day,

I used to do a lot of ballooning and corking off the rocks, and thru the nose is the best, cause the bait wont drown from line drag. ;) this probbably applies if your fishing in a lot of current as well.
always seemed to work best for me.

regards ......al 8-)

[Panda]

I like to hook them thru the mouth and fish them under a float.
I also hook them thru the mouth and use them like a lure with a slow, stop- start retrieve. Sometimes they can be sitting out there for half an hour swimming around and you dont get a strike untill you start to do the retrieve.

Only thing with mouth hooking smaller baits is that you have to use smaller hooks and you usually need to give the fish a few meters of slack line before you strike to increase your hook-up rate. I reckon you get more strikes using smaller hooks, but harder to set it when they hit.

[snakecatcher]

Looks like through the nose is the way to go. Heading up north in a couple of weeks chasing barra so will try this.

Cheers

[onerabbit]

Is that through the mouth or up under the chin??

[Panda]

I prefer to use a 1/0 on 10cm mullet and hook them up through the upper jaw so as to leave their mouth availiable for breathing. Use bigger hooks on bigger bait. The bait will stay alive literally for several hours this way. But of course you want it to get eaten before that.

[onerabbit]

Thankx Panda, I'll try it tomorrow,
Muzz.

[cuzzamundi]

mate i usually hook one larger through the top lip then a smaller stinger towards the back. works well for jacks. hook sizes depend on bait size, as has already been said. let us know how you go mate.

cuzza