Half Pilchard or Garfish Rig

Just about anything that swims will eat a half bait. The main thing you need to keep in mind is that you don't bury the hook point and barb inside the bait. Position the hook so that the end of the hook is near the end of the bait and it has only gone in halfway to the body of the bait. Secure it by two to three half hitches around the tail.

Snapper, bream, a variety of reef species, trevally, flathead, kingfish, mulloway, gummies and rays love pouncing on a well presented half pilchard or pilly.

Even though this rig is dedicated to using either a half pilchard or garfish, it can be used on any baits that have been cut into half, including whitebait, mullet, herring, slimy mackerel, squid and so forth. The main thing that you will have to change when using this rig is the size of the hook that you are going to use, which will need to match the size of the bait that you are using.

As an example, I would use a 3/0 to 8/0 size hook with half a mullet when targeting snapper or mulloway, while for bream I would use a 1 to 1/0 hook in a half pilchard.

Technique 1.

When using the tail end of the half baitfish, you will need to pin the hook through one side of the body. Once you have done this you will need to lay the hook shaft flat against the body so that the hook point and barb are completely outside the bait.

You can then put two to three half hitches around the tail, making sure that you flatten the tail down to avoid it becoming a propeller and making the bait twist.

Rigging the tail of a baitfish like this, you can also use it on the running sinker rig, hook and running sinker rig and the paternoster rig.

Technique 2.

Many anglers will tend to discard using the head of a pilchard or garfish as they find it hard to stop the half hitch from sliding off the nose of the bait. This is easily overcome by passing the hook two to three times through the eye of the bait and then pinning the hook into the side of the bait.

If at anchor, you could try lightly weighting the bait and feeding it out in the burley trail. A baitfeeder style threadline (spinning) reel would be ideal for doing this. If you don’t have a baitfeeder style reel, you could just fold over the bail arm and feed the line out, making sure to engage the bail arm before striking.

A baitcast or overhead reel will do the same job.

Technique 3.

Whether you put on the tail or the head of a baitfish, there are so many different scenarios that you could try using it. Cast it unweighted into the wash off the rocks or slightly weighted off the beach into a gutter. Maybe you could try casting it up against a rock diversion wall in a river or underneath a wharf, pontoon or an oyster rack and allow it to slowly float down underneath to the bottom.