Livebait

Live baiting has turned around many a bad day’s fishing

It might be easy to buy yourself a bag of bait from your local store but catching baits can yield much better results in deep water

Fishing is a sport we can never master, only improve. Sometimes it is the smallest changes that make the biggest difference as Al McGlashan recently discovered while live baiting. Things were looking good, really good.

When it comes to catching kingfish live bait is undoubtedly the best way to get the biggest fish. Al McGlashan lets us in on a few tricks of the trade to connect you to a big king.

Bridle rigging a livie should only take a matter of seconds, but for inexperienced anglers it sometimes takes agonising minutes. A bait that is going to be slow trolled, or bigger baits with smaller hooks, are often best rigged with a bridle rather than hooking directly into the baitfish.

Kahawai are a common kingfish live bait choice, but delicate piper can sometimes be the winning option. Find out how to better fish these fragile little live baits.

When fishing for kingfish from the rocks or in the boat, fresh live baits are always welcomed as the best offering for the kings. But the kahawai, piper or mackerel that are favoured do not always play ball and can prove frustrating to catch. There are some tricks that will help put the livie on the end of your kingfish tackle.

When it comes to fishing for kingfish there has been much talk about mechanical jigging and stick baits, but most are still caught by the tried and true live baits.

10 quick tips to get your kingfish livebait game on like a pro!

Here is the best sabiki rig tutorial video we have seen. Excellent tips for rigging, storage and use of the sabiki rig to maximise your opportunity to catch livies. Even if you are well experienced in using sabikis, there's a tip or two in here you may have missed.

Live piper is not commonly associated with catching snapper. But as Geoff Thomas recently found out, they are dynamite and worked a treat when taking a familiar Kiwi face out for a bit of fun.

The ability to bridle rig and deploy a healthy skipjack tuna live bait is an essential skill for any serious game fisherman.

Slide baiting is an awesome way to target big predatory species such as kingfish and snapper from shore. Beach, rocks or even from the wharf, this is a very effective and clever way to get you live bait out way further than you could normally cast. Check out our Aussie mates for a few pointers.

Here's Part 1 with Markus Church taking you through the basics and a bit more on how to rig and fish live baits. In Part 2 we cover gear and technique

This video takes you through rigs, gear and techniques with expert angler Markus Church

Multiple kingis chasing our live mullet with eventual hookup and landing on camera.

With fishing you can make things as complicated or as simple as you like. Sometimes you've just got to whack a hook in the back of a big kahawai to get results.