How do I prepare dough for fishing those long needle bait fish(aka ballyhoo).. and what rig do I use,
Can someone post a photo comment of the rig, how do i place the float and hooks... thanks in advance

Guys you gotta reply I posted this a few days ago, thanks in advance.
Happy fishing ya'll

maybe nobody knows the answer

I only know Gulp Artificial Trout dough.
Especially formulated to stick on the hook and works really good.
If you can get that, might be worth a try for catching your ballyhoos.
For catching baitfish I usually use a sabiki rig which I buy from a fishing store.
It has a couple small hooks and a sinker.

Gulp Dough bait:


Sabiki Rig for catching bait fish:

Thanks for the reply, I don't think we have that dough, I mean the normal bread dough, home made, is it just normal dough or there are some stuff I would add. Thanks again

I think you need to add some stuff to make it sticky and to attract fish.
There are a few recipes online if you look for homemade trout dough.
I think you could use them as a base and experiment with ingredients.
This should work for attracting ballyhoos or other bait fish as well.

For example this one:

Ingredients:

- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1/2 cup of regular granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon of garlic powder
- 1/4 pound of cream cheese or processed cheese
- water

Method:

Mix everything with some water until a dough forms.
The dough should have such a consistency so that you can knead it with your hands.
Adjust the water and flour accordingly, then knead until you have a smooth dough.

You can then take pieces off the dough and make small dough balls.

Then drop these balls into boiling water for two minutes or so.
Afterwards let them dry out and then the dough bait is ready to be used.
You can keep the dough balls in the fridge until use.

You could experiment with more ingredients.
I would think it would be a good idea to maybe add some fish oil into the mix or perhaps even some
fish based cat food dissolved into the water.

Another good idea would be to add some food colouring to the dough.
Try some pink, orange or blue.

Could also add an egg to ingredients of the dough.
Or perhaps, as a variation, try to use the dough without boiling first.

Lots of room for experimentation.

Would be interesting to hear how you get on with it and if you can catch something with the homemade dough.

happy fishing!

Hi There,
In New Zealand, we have similar species called piper.
As children we used dough made with plain flour and water or best of all live maggots or fine slivers of fish bait.
Dough was simply made by kneeding the flour with water in a mix similar to making bread. We sometimes added essence of aniseed or vanilla. Another friend used to add "blue" tasting cheese. But simple flour and water is OK. No need for gourmet food. Live Maggots usually take a couple of weeks. Just leave a piece of meat or leftover food in a small container. Let the flies blow the meat and you will have many small maggots in no time. Fatten them up on old bread crumbs or oatmeal. When they are a good size, you can use them live on tiny hooks. These make effective bait, especially if you add some red food coloring for attracting power. Raw fish meat works as long as you cut tiny slivers . Long and thin is better than chunky.
Reason being , they have relatively small mouths. The secret is small fine hooks and fine nylon ( best is 1-2kg)
Your float can be made by shaving a dry piece of wood or simply find a good size feather and use just the quill.
The rig is Float, trace and hook(s). I usually make the trace about 1-1.5m long with two tiny hooks.
If the current is too strong, I use a tiny piece of lead above the hooks to keep the trace vertical.
You dont even need a rod. A long piece of wood or bamboo will do as we normally target piper from rocks or jetty.
To attract them we like to burley using stale bread or mixing oatmeal in water. When you catch the fish, take an old piece of damp cloth or towel. Hold the head of the fish in one hand and wrap the damp towel around the body and slide along its body making sure there is good pressure on the under belly with your other hand. The scales and stomach content is dealt with immediately. The fish is then very clean. Good luck------bongwong1

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'll take everything in consideration.

Hi abdulla265, here in Saudi Arabia we only use kubus (bread) as bait for needle fish, using smallest hook and .25 or .30 line with floater. I mix water in kubus (bread) at night to make like a dough then put inside the refrigarator to make it firm or hard to keep the small bait in the hook. You can try 2 hooks at 30cm & 40cm below the floater is enough. Also try to throw some pieces of bread in the area to keep the needle fish playing around.

Put flour in little boiling water and mix it till you see the dough. While boiling, add some fish oil for the smell. The flour boiled in water to make the dough it sticks much better to the hook and the fish oil attracts fish due to its smell. Good Luck with your fishing and let us know once you have tried this.

hi. I read most of the ideas suggested .. Can the dough be used for bait when doing fishing at sea
using a rod . Not deep sea fishing but casting from the shore using a rod . please suggest . thanks

If you are to fish with dough /bread, try this it works great. don't use any swivels, on the end of the fishing line tie two pieces of line about 4 inches /125mm long with a size 10 hook on each line, you then tie a rubber band where all the lines join, this is for folding around a slice of bread. on the hooks, you put white cotton wool, then cast out the bread, it acts as a float and attracts the fish, they think the cotton wool is bread, the only worry is the bread on the surface may attract seagulls, a loaf of bread will catch a lot of fish, I use this rig to catch Mullet, but if Bream are around you will catch them,

I'm going give that a go!
Thanks for sharing

It's it worked!