Mitsubishi 4WD Club Trev's Tip 18. 

Trev’s Tips

Fishy Tail

Time for a deviation this month away from mechanics and into the wonderful world of fishing.  Actually I think I might be the last one in the club to know about this tip but just in case you have not heard of this before I think it is the most valuable piece of advice I have ever received when it comes to bait and fishing. 

Way back in March of this year when I was going through the planning stages of organising the camping gear for a week long trip to Steep Point I happened to be talking to Chris S about fishing gear and the bait I would be taking.  This was a bit of an issue for me because I was only taking one fridge for the food and didn’t really have any way of storing bait for the entire duration.  My plan, because I really had no other option, had been to take a small amount of bait but when that ran out I’d have to resort to catching some fresh stuff using either lures or a spear gun.  It was then that Chris suggested to me that I preserve my own bait so that it would not require refrigeration.

I had occasionally seen preserved bait in the shops and once even bought a packet of it when we went around the Eyre Peninsula at Christmas time but really had no idea how to preserve it myself.  Chris described the very complicated process of preserving to me and I have to admit I was very sceptical about how effective it would be.

So here is that very complicated formula for you all to try

1)             Layout a few sheets of newspaper. 

2)             Put a layer of salt over this.  Pool salt is perfect and can be

                bought cheaply from many hardware stores.

3)             Lay your bait on top of this. I used mulies. 

4)             Apply another layer of salt 

5)             Finish wrapping in newspaper 

That’s it.  One other tip I was given was that it is best if the wrapped package can breath so rather than putting this inside something like a sealed esky put it in a cardboard box instead (empty beer cartoon is perfect).

I can vouch for the effectiveness of this recipe.  As I said before I was sceptical so I did a trial run of it the week before the Steep point trip.  After salting the mulies and wrapping them up I left them on the bench in the garage.  For the next couple of days I would tentative check them, each time expecting to find a massive stinking mess of maggots but amazingly they remained in perfect condition and really had very little or no smell at all. 

After that week I then took them to Steep Point with me and purposefully left them lying in the open trailer for a further week with full exposure to the sun, dew, wind and flies neither of which caused the mulies any problems.

So there you have it.  If you’re not really keen on putting a load of stinking bait in your food fridge or esky when camping then try this.  You’ll never go back.  One more small benefit was that the mulies went slightly leathery so they actually stayed on the hook far better than a normal mushy mulie would and the fish seemed to like them just as much.

Till next time

Happy 4wding

Trevor

Sometimes the road less travelled is less travelled for a reason