Catching Whitebait
Since I mentioned catching whitebait (greenbacks) I thought I would give a little information about using it as live bait. The best live bait is of course pilchard (aka, whitebait, greenies, greenbacks, fish crack etc) every predatory fish ( Redfish, Snook, Grouper, Snapper, Dolphin, Tuna, Sailfish, Cobia, etc) will eat them. Pin fish work well, but are mainly used offshore for grouper. And the ol standby is mud minnows. And of course there is shrimp, one of the easiest, widely available bait around.
Bar none whitebait is my favorite.
But they come with a high cost, in efforts, equipment and time. In the spring catching whitebait can be difficult. It is not difficult to spend the day looking for bait, traveling 20 miles searching without success. And few days I have spent so much time looking, I ran out of time and went home. Once you find them, most of the time you have to chum them close enough to net then. Of course you have make the chum first (jack mackerel, oats, menhaden oil and garlic oil). I use a food processor to puree the chum in to a fine, gooey, sticky, stinky, fish paste. One important note, DO NOT USE YOUR WIFE'S FOOD PROCESSOR, your food will never taste the same.
The mixing lab... One quart of chum should last several trips.Then there is the cost in equipment. First off you need a good cast net at least an 8 ft net (when opened it spans 16 ft). The average cost for a net is around $100 for an 8 ft and $120 to $200 for larger nets. I have several nets, two 8ft, one 10 ft and the monster 12 ft. The 10 ft is my favorite, a hand tied 1/4, 1.5 lbs per foot net. A 1/4 net is good for smaller baits since the small baits will not gill, but it also sinks slower. My 12 ft net is 3/8 in net, it sinks fast, covers a lot of area and weighs a ton. I can only throw it a few times then I done. Since it is so big, I make sure the first throw counts. (I use this method to throw the cast net.) Then there is the time spent cleaning the nets. At the end of the day they must be washed and dried then properly stored. Then a couple of times a season they must be soaked in water and fabric softener over night then rinsed and dried. This will keep the net soft, if the net become stuff, it does not open as well and tends to do damage to the bait.
Once the bait is caught, they need to be very happy and have deluxe accommodation in the form of a very good live well.
The live well in a nut shell; the water is pumped in to the bottom of the live well, from ocean, then it drains out of the top, back in to the ocean. The live well needs to have water flowing in all the time. Depending on the size of the live well, will depend on the size of the pump(s) and high speed pickup(s) needed.
Since I have built all my live wells, if anyone is interested I did post a DIY live well project. In my small live I have one high speed pickup and one 750gph pump with a float switch. When the boat is on a plane the high speed pick moves about 800 gph and when the boat is not on a plane the pump moves about 500 gph. This creates a lot of current in the live well and the bait is only happy when swimming. Also whitebait have a very high metabolism, which requires lots a O2 and they produce lots wastes proteins. This is why a flow through live well is a must. If the proteins are not removed from the live well, all the bait all die at the same time. The protein comes in the form of white to off white bubbles, when the bubbles start to stack up it's on only a matter of minutes before all the bait is dead and all the hard work and time involved is wasted.
Now why would anyone work so hard to catch live whitebait. Simple because they are worth it. When I have 100+ baits, I can move from area to area tossing out a handful of bait at each stop. If I see the fish busting the top of the water (only takes 1 or 2 minutes), then I know my efforts are about to pay off.
Whitebait is not for everyone. If you are not willing to go the extra mile or 20... do not waste your time trying to catch whitebait. You can pick up some shrimp or throw gulp jigs. But if fishing is your passion and you have not fished with whitebait, then you are missing out on the most intense fishing you'll ever experience.
Good Luck
Zippyjr
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