I have been fishing heaps lately, but the bait at the servos stinks, and the occy legs are too small.

I want to start catching my own occy! I have no idea how to catch them!

Any tips?

Get someone who's good at throwing them to you

close your eyes , imagine the occy coming to you , you will be occy ......grasshopper

having met the dude a few times, i reckon your best bait would be maccas breakfast

Servo bait costs more/kg than the seafood at woolies etc. Just buy green prawns or whatever tickles your fancy OR better still if you luck out fishing just cut out the middle man and just buy some seafood for yourself.

WA bait supply have the best occy, most tackle shops including BCF stock their bait. Just buy a 1kg block and cut it up into smaller portions to use as you need, it'll be cheaper that way.

Make some traps from 100+mm PVC pipe and drop them in your local marina. Easy peasy.

Become a cray fisherman - they are always catching the buggers.

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theDoctor said...


having met the dude a few times, i reckon your best bait would be maccas breakfast

Or a karioki completion

Like Smiko said make some occy pots or if your really keen buy the ones with the flashing crab in them. I think the bought ones are too much like hard work, if you can get occys with home made tubes from a shore based situation all good.

Personally I think locally caught squid craps all over occy for bait, so when the squid are in go out and stock up, best bait ever! Cuttle fish is good too..

You need two gidgies, one should have a herring secured to it by wire the other should be ready to sink into the occy. Walk along a marina wall(inside) and place the herring into likely looking spots, you will see the occy have a bit of a feel and then it will emerge to finish the job, wait for it to fully emerge then plunge the gidgee into the middle of the beast. You will then have a bit of a battle on your hands! get the bastard out of there as quick as you can then cut the head off to finish the job. Good fun and cheap as, try scoring a couple of gidgees from a swap meet or garage sale as you will bend a few!

to kill an occy insert thumb and fingers into its head through the hole and turn it inside out. so much easier than a knife and its fast.
as for catching them, a bent metal clothes hanger and snorkel and mask. don't grab little ones. ever.

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saltiest1 said...
to kill an occy insert thumb and fingers into its head through the hole and turn it inside out.

works for any animal

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Mark _australia said...

saltiest1 said...
to kill an occy insert thumb and fingers into its head through the hole and turn it inside out.

works for any animal

Yep specially dolphins.

i find buying them dinner then taking them dancing is the best way.

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Underoath said..

I have been fishing heaps lately, but the bait at the servos stinks, and the occy legs are too small.

I want to start catching my own occy! I have no idea how to catch them!

Any tips?

use them for bait? fark that marinate over night in lemon olive oil pepper salt oregano and cook over the coals yum

I might go give it a crack on Monday. Make some PVC pots over the weekend.

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Underoath said..

I might go give it a crack on Monday. Make some PVC pots over the weekend.

We used old engine blocks to secure our original mooring at Herring Bay,
Between the empty blocks and the nearby pile of old clay pipes and of offcuts of pvc pipe, we were never short of occy or crays.

Then some muppet replaced our DIY mooring with a ruddy great industrial sized lump of concrete...


stephen

If you got gonads of steel they dig themselves under boat moarings You can see the holes. wear gloves and stick your hand or hole arm shoulder deep in there and grab them out or get a head shot with the gidgie. next season come down my way underloath for occy dive training. my mate is like bear grills.

Pump nippers, catch Whiting and fillet excess meat off 'and eat' .

Place yummy whiting in crab pot and wait for sand crabs to enter pot,

Then explain to crabs they are going to get farked by a eight legged monster.

Pull pot when Occitan is to fat to escape after eating every dam crab I ever got!.....

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bakesy said..

You need two gidgies, one should have a herring secured to it by wire the other should be ready to sink into the occy. Walk along a marina wall(inside) and place the herring into likely looking spots, you will see the occy have a bit of a feel and then it will emerge to finish the job, wait for it to fully emerge then plunge the gidgee into the middle of the beast. You will then have a bit of a battle on your hands! get the bastard out of there as quick as you can then cut the head off to finish the job. Good fun and cheap as, try scoring a couple of gidgees from a swap meet or garage sale as you will bend a few!

Bakesy, it wasn't you I held the spotlight for in Mandurah (won't say where exactly as it was a bit of an unusual spot for them I thought) while you were battling an Occy using a similar method as described was it? Drizzly night a few weeks ago.

When were underwater i generally dont hit them untill after the quota of crays. See them all the time there messy and leave shells everywhere. stingrays seals and dolphins smell occy a mile away ! Having a hungry stingray/seal tryn to dry hump you all the way back to the boat isnt fun.
There pretty powerful i stabbed a big one in 12 metres with a 900 speargun It almost took out of my hands untill i discharged it.


Baksey Youve done it before ! lol we only use solid fiberglass gidgies Use locktite on the screw so you can do the twist ! . ! if you dont get a head shot first and they dig in there hard to get alot of them are that smart they have multiple exit strategy's

"Having a hungry stingray/seal tryn to dry hump you all the way back to the boat isnt fun."

Sounds like a normal Tuesday night in Smith Street Collingwood!

nah moohan not me, left the occies alone for the last few months, the prawns have taken a hammering though!

I have a 100% success rate with the catching occy problem.

I have never tried to catch occy, I have never wanted to catch occy, I have never even though about why I would want or not want to catch occy - and I have never caught occy. So I figure that is 100% success.

I did find Wally once though.



Glad to have been of help.

Got 6 this morning. Homemade pvc traps as per busters illustrations. Set on weed from a boat a couple of weeks ago. No floats. Just gps where you put them and drag a grapple hook or reef anchor to pick up the rope.

Gotbait? 6 kilo

Nice work. I went to the effort of making 6 pots only to have them stolen from Two Rocks the following day.