5 top tips for using berley on a boat

Known as “chum” in North America and “ground bait” in the UK, berley (sometimes spelt “burley”) is any material deliberately introduced into the water to attract, concentrate and excite fish — hopefully making them easier for us to catch!

While berley is mostly used by bait fishers, I’ve enjoyed red-letter lure and fly fishing sessions over the years by casting into a berley trail: either one that’s being used by bait fishers operating from the same boat, or a trail I’ve established myself expressly to attract fish to my artificial offerings.

For the most part, however, berleying sits best with bait fishing.

A berley “trail” can be as simple as a few scraps or offcuts of bait dropped into the current behind the boat, right up to the intensive efforts of serious bluewater shark fishers who will sometimes use hundreds of kilos of mullet, tuna and other oily, bloody fish across an extended session to attract their toothy targets.

Most of us lie somewhere in the middle when it comes to berleying.

A couple of decades ago, most trailer boats intended as serious fishing platforms were routinely fitted out with a transom-mounted berley pot through which fish frames and other offcuts could be minced and pounded using a long-handled metal chopper.

Interestingly, these traditional berley pots have tended to fade from favour in more recent times.

There are probably a bunch of reasons for this, but today, offshore fishers more often mix their berley in a bucket on board and then ladle it into the water, or simply chop up pieces of berley on a cutting board and flick these overboard at regular intervals.

Both approaches work well, on everything from bream and snapper to kingfish and tuna.

Here’s my pick of the five most important “secrets” for successfully using berley to improve your catch rate.

Develop a berley collecting habit

Stockpile berley ingredients for future fishing sessions. Having a small chest freezer in the garage or shed at home dedicated solely to this purpose (as well as storing your bait) is not only enormously useful in this regard but also helps to maintain domestic harmony.

Use cereal-based ingredients

You'll need to bulk up your berley. Stale bread, bran, pollard, boiled wheat, dry pet food and chicken-feed pellets all work well when supplemented with fish offcuts, bait scraps, and a splash of tuna or pilchard oil.

Ideally, this lot should be mixed thoroughly with seawater and allowed to soak for at least a few minutes before being introduced into the water.

Adding sand to the mix also helps extend it, as well as carrying those appealing tastes and smells deeper into the water column.

A little bit, often

This is the method that works best when berleying. In other words, introducing small amounts of berley into the water regularly is far more effective than dumping a heap in, and then forgetting to follow up with more. This latter approach can fill the fish up or — worse still — take them away from you.

Consider tidal flow and current

These are both important factors when berleying. If the water (or boat) is moving too fast, your berley will be ripped away and deposited far off, doing you little good in the process.

Remember, you want to bring the fish to your baits, not draw them away and take them somewhere else!

One good trick is to tie a berley pot to the anchor so the berley flows back over where your bait is set off the back of the boat. Other experienced fishers use a dog ball-throwing stick to cast burley out the front of the boat so it can drift down behind.

Avoid over-berleying

If you use too much berley you risk filling the target fish up to the point where they become much less keen to eat.

The effect you’re looking for is similar to the tantalising aromas coming from the kitchen as the oven door is opened to check the Sunday roast — the idea is to get the taste buds jumping and the nose twitching without actually satisfying those hunger pangs!

The bottom line is that berleying works well in almost every style of bait fishing, both at anchor and while drifting.

Get it right and you’ll definitely improve your catch rate.

Steve ‘Starlo’ Starling is one of Australia’s best-known and most respected fishing communicators.