Hooking a jellyworm

[dachshund]

I presume you leave the tail trailing loose and waggling away? Is the standard just to hook it once around the 'head' area?

[Leon Roskilly]

Jellyworms are usually fished as lures and you need to use a lead head.

 

A lead head is a hook with a lead weight moulded at the eye, usually painted and sometimes with eyes.

 

The head of the jelly worm is threaded onto the lead head hook and either jigged or retrieved like a normal lure.

 

Or, there's this:

 

http://www.seafishinginfo.co.uk/jellyworms.html

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 14. May 2005, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[dachshund]

Cheers for that - I was going to fish it on a trace from a 3-way swivel, with a weight on the other loop of the swivel, but I may look into some leadheads

[Bob on Stronsay]

I don't use lead heads. I normally tie a clip swivel on my main line and then clip on a 2 or 3 oz lead. I also clip onto the same swivel a 2 or 3 ft hook line with the jelly worm threaded on the hook as you would a normal worm with the tail free to wriggle.

 

On a boat I also use jellies as you would a set of Cod feathers.

 

Have a look for a thread called "Soft Plastics", there is a picture there showing some American ways to set up but they are similar to above.

 

 

Bob

[Snatcher]

Or try a drilled bullet above a swivel with a 3/4 foot trace.With jellyworms I would normally put them onto a 3/0 hook and just thread on about 1" of worm and leave the rest trailing. Try varying your retrieve and depth all the time. They are as cheap as chips so I like to try and get as close to the bottom as possible.

I know this may sound silly but try not to strike when you get hits,just keep retrieving steadily and the fish will hook itself. It may have 2 or 3 goes at the jellytail before it hooks up!

Everyone has their favourite colour,mine for the Mull of Galloway pollack are the black ones with red/pink fluoro tips.

Tight lines

ps if you have no luck giz a PM and I will send a few of Snatchers sandeels for you to try. :cool:

[dachshund]

Thanks guys, will have a crack. What are these sandeels you mention? Redgill types? I won't be fishing until June anyway, just doing some research at the mo. Quick question - if you're boat fishing over clean ground, is there any reason, other than cost, not to use a pirk instead of a leger below a string of feathers/hokkais? Just on the off chance

[KennyC]

Clean ground usually doesn't offer the species, that would go for a pirk.

 

Pirks work well over wrecks and rough ground - with muppets/hokkais fished above.

 

If the pirk is heavy enough to be used in place of the lead ( allowing for depth/tide and the sink time of the pirk ) - then it's sometimes advisable to remove the hook completely, using the pirk purely as an attractor, so as not to lose the pirk on underwater features.

[Toerag]

Kenny C - good advice re. pirks, I use them on my launce feather rigs as a weight and they definitely increase catches. As for using 'killer gear' (pirk + muppets/jellies) on wrecks, it all depends on how snaggy the wreck is, and how many fish are on it. These days there aren't the quantities of fish to justify killer gear really, plus most charter boats aren't licensed so there's no way to sell large quantities of fish. Your skipper should be able to tell you how snaggy a wreck is. Generally speaking you'll be using pirks for cod and flying collar gear for pollack, so there's no point in pirking on a wreck that doesn't hold cod (most of them these days). Pirking on clean ground? There aren't the species to catch there.