Thread: Snapper berley & electric mincer

Righto Iv had my first go at making berley recently and on testing it has worked bloody well
Im allways trying to get the cost of fishing down and having heaps of berley is allways something I want so I can throw it around without going broke

So far this is what I have learned

it took me a bit of time to work out a working system because iv worked out things need to be bulletproof when smashing up frames and thick skin
my rig is a No.32 hand mincer with a 1200watt drop saw motor connected and geared down with a pulley belt drive

it started as a boat mounted system with a wheel chair motor but my connection wasnt strong enough and it broke, as everything was defrosted and starting to get smelly I had to scramble and make a working system real fast

so far Iv used Kahawai, mullet, parore, stingray, pillies, squid, bonito and anything else lying around that was fishy

it is a big job cutting up the stingray and fish into small enough pieces for the mincer to grip, its messy and it stinks
parore is full of this black shit inside them that makes me less inclined to want to use them again, but hey they are a bycatch when I set the net for mullet so free
stingray is mint, sharp knife into long strips right thru the wings guts in and all that is left is a bony head, easy way to bulk out the amount and once again they end up in my net,

I ended up with about 70ish litres of berley, out of 3 stingray and freezer scrapings from me and my brother + the parore and left over bait

the berley comes out very brown much like the bonito stuff you buy,

I packed it into Ice bags that i got at a local wholesalers which are perfect to drop into a small onion sack and throw over the back of the boat

it stinks....... mainly due to everything going bad while each prototype kept breaking and me having to go to work each day

It works!! my brother and I had an amazing straylining trip on saturday catching some really nice fish (snapper) the best bieng 15 pound and both taking home our limit as well as letting a few go thru the day

I had a feeling it would be really good at attracting sharks with all the fish and stingray blood as well as the bonito but no issues with sharks this far, a few potential bite offs but only possibly sharks and this area is very very sharky at times.

I will definitely do this again, as it makes for very economical fishing (once I overcome the $100 mincer cost) but right now I should have enough for quite a while

very enjoyable seeing big fish comeing out of the berley trail you made, much like making accurate handloads

I would take wings off the rays and eat them

dad has done with the smaller rays before and crows how good they are,
snapper seem to like them too
the harbour is infested with them, and I mean reall infested, so id do what I can between orca visits to get the numbers down a bit

Hey my bro made a burley machine I did have a pic not sure where its gone..but he got a lawn mower took the wheels /handle off... then attached a base plate underneath pluss a big funnel on the top and a bit of a mount so you could slide it on the side of the boat...I was lucky enough to see the test run it was quite funny they were stuffing whole skippys through it at the entrance of the wellington harbour by the time they finished there was a slick 20 meters wide and half a k or so long

righto Im on it VC

That's its current form

That was mark 1 but the connection failed and the fish was going rotten so I quickly had to fit the drop saw motor on and go back to belt drive

Originally Posted by Boaraxa

Hey my bro made a burley machine I did have a pic not sure where its gone..but he got a lawn mower took the wheels /handle off... then attached a base plate underneath pluss a big funnel on the top and a bit of a mount so you could slide it on the side of the boat...I was lucky enough to see the test run it was quite funny they were stuffing whole skippys through it at the entrance of the wellington harbour by the time they finished there was a slick 20 meters wide and half a k or so long

I was very close to going with that plan too, I was just hoping to keep it 12v so its quiet on the boat, as it is now is pretty rough but it works as well as it ever will so it probably stay like that till something breaks

This is the dilemma, Make something to use on the boat or make something to use at home..... the obvious answer would be both but my spare time is at a premium so would rather be out there doing it than fucking around at work most of the time.
It will happen tho.

How did you find the wiper motor? for speed vs the drop saw and reduction ? presume the drop saw around 1100rpm?

the drop saw is a whopping 4500 Rpm thank fuck for the belt being so large the speed is ok untill it binds up on something but it certanly makes things go thru faster, so less time spent mucking around

that motor is actually a wheel chair motor, with a reduction box i got off trademe

4500! she must fair fly threw the mincer then.
Plenty to think on ta.

When I was a kid my mates dad made his own berley. Man it was so good, but F me it stunk like a motherf####r.

He just used old bait and frames, minced them into a 44gal drum and just closed the lid. It was just rotten as hell. He would scoop it out dry reaching at 5 in the morning we would go out. It sat in a 10ltr bucket with a wet rag over the top. Every time he chucked a bitin the water us kids would cover our faces with our shirts, and it still stunk.
The worst thing was the blue MM. They would sit at the back of the boat in masses and make it really hard to get the bait down. Worked a treat though!!

mine stinks like hell too, even when frozen!, works a charm tho
got another good catch of snapper over the weekend just gone, brought a ton of bait fish in too as well as some johndorys and plentiful kahawai.
so im stocked up on bait for a while
couldnt for the life of me get the dorys on either livies or softbaits,
Im a little concerned the berley might taint the meat of the fish if i leave them in the chilly too long but it definitely hasn't happened yet

the meat sure does fly thru once its grabbed at full speed, the gearing does slow it down a heap tho
speed is good tho but if need be ill step it down again

also a washing machine .5hp motor is not grunty enough Iv found
the brother uses a 5hp honda motor and that works a charm aswell

I honestly have no freezer space now to the point I have to go fishing just to use the bait and berley up so I can fit anything in my chest freezer
so this has been a great success

A garden mulcher can be used to make burly

I have some inclination to do somthing fairly industrial with a spare lawn mower motor I have