try it lads

[chris elliott]

hi lads ive been exiled down south for a bit now but try to get up as often as possible,ive been fishing the south east coast and have witnessed a few lads live baiting with whiting,the method is to put a bit of macky or lug on a big pennel rig on a spare rod and just leave it out,you will know when a cod hits,i cant get up there at the minute,but can someone try this down the side of a pier,it may just be be daft enough to snaffle a pig

[david.northeast]

I witnessed quite a few decent cod taken from shields pier last winter that had whiteys in there mouth which would have taken the big bait and was choked by a bigger cod so it does happen up here

[Sea_Troot]

tried it on tynemouth pier earlier in season small pin whiting live baited about 20 yards off back wall, got a stonking bite but what ever took the bait just did not want to move. eventually i lost the lot.

[magpies]

A lad I know who has been shore fishing for years swears by this approach on a "sleeper rod" as he puts it. The way he described it was to cast out a spare rod with a 7 oz or more lead as far as you can, with no rig on. Then catch a pin whiting and hook it onto a big hook on a running snood. Just a hook at one end and a link swivel on the other. Then hook the snood onto the line of the rod which is already cast out and lower it into the water. Just let the live whitey swim where it wants although he claims it will work its way out towards the lead due to the line angle. I guess that works better from a high perch. never tried it myself but he sounded convincing. His point was that you know what size the whiting is whereas the other way it could be too big.

[toonboymc]

Seems worth a bash boys but I can't catch a whiting at the moment lol

[cod magnet]

most of my bigger cod have taken small ting or rockling , which i never new i had on

[Charlton]

a lad who is no longer with us used the same technique to good effect, taking a monster cod out the Blyth 27lb and another of 18lb off Rocky Island (think this was the biggest cod ever from there) and many more decent cod, he simply cast out a pennell rig, one of the hooks being tiny with a bit of worm on, hooked a rockling or other small fish, which was taken by a much bigger fish.

[Darnc]

I've seen Alan Yates do this before with a small live whiting I think it quite popular along the south coast

[thommaz]

ive had a 4lb 8 oz codling out of the river tyne and spat out a small whiting alive with a ahook in the whitings mout too, codling was on bluey

[Kentish Bassman]

A lad I know who has been shore fishing for years swears by this approach on a "sleeper rod" as he puts it. The way he described it was to cast out a spare rod with a 7 oz or more lead as far as you can, with no rig on. Then catch a pin whiting and hook it onto a big hook on a running snood. Just a hook at one end and a link swivel on the other. Then hook the snood onto the line of the rod which is already cast out and lower it into the water. Just let the live whitey swim where it wants although he claims it will work its way out towards the lead due to the line angle. I guess that works better from a high perch. never tried it myself but he sounded convincing. His point was that you know what size the whiting is whereas the other way it could be too big.

When I lived down south I used to use this method on Hastings pier quite a lot and had cod up to 9lb. In the summer months I would put a float on the snood line and use a small mackerel on the hook. This method was excellent for bass and I caught my PB bass (a fish of 11lb 10oz) this way. I haven`t used this method up here yet as I don`t really fish the piers much, but I will certainly give it a go when I do get on a pier.

[Davyred]

I lost a good fish on Roker the other month which had took a whiting that I didn't know was there - the whiting came in in skinned.

Roker would be ideal for this kind of fishing, I've often toyed with the idea of taking two rods and trying it out, as every decent cod you get out has at least one whiting in it.

[chris elliott]

lads some great stuff coming back,when i was up there last fishing the blocks on south shields pier we had a load of whiting which were released on the river side,some swam off but some of them unfortunately didnt make it,gotta be some big cod mooching about just off mark 44 just ready for a knackered whiting,the same with the top end of the pier,if the whiting or small coalie is undersized it goes back,it doesnt often survive,try it lads and see what happens,could work in the tyne too where a lot of lads fish?