This is a great question mate. This has also changed my proception on fishing as well. I have not dropped a standard bottom bouncing rig down for over 12 months becase i found that drift baiting presents the offering far better IMO. I mean what fish is going to resist a natural FRESH looking bait wofting down to the ocean floor????? Chuck a couple of twiches and rod movements in and it looks even better, they think its slowly dieing and they nail it straight away! In the past 12 months i have had more pb's come up from drift baiting that any other technique but i hardley fish over the 50m mark so if i did things would be different oberously.

Lures are another way i have found to produce the best natural offering that can be used. I have been fishing hard with soft and hard plastics for a while now and have noticed my catch rate to be equal or even higher than others around me at the same time. For instance pinkies love 5" snapbacks etc As long as your lure swims correctly and plenty of action by rod or other means have be implied they do look irrisistable! I could go on and on about things i do but here are my best 10 things i can adise:

1. If useing bait it must be as fresh as possible
2. Hide as much of the hooks and terminal gear as possible ie, snelled squid etc
3. Match your rig to your bait, no point using mulies on 12/0s!
4. Fish as light as possible, you might be surprised. I drift bait with 14lb! But use heavier leader
5. Look at your offering and ask yourself would you eat it! Can it look better?
6. Lures such as softplastics if used right ARE better than bait in some situations but not all.
7. Adapt your rig to the TYPE of fishing and to the FISH you are chasing.
8. Know your species and learn where the live and what they eat, are they bottom or mid water
9. Add lumo beads, pheromone sprays etc to your rigs, make them stand out and hide your smell!
10. DONT BE AFFRAID TO TRY NEW THINGS AND ASK QUESTIONS! You may get the results.

Oh and one more thing before i forget dont forget to ...... Keep it tight, reeeeeeel tight!

Spess pretty much said it all.

One nice technique i have found is stick half a mulie up the tube of a squid (use when paternostering) and this works well as mulies can't get picked off easy, and attracts the fish.

Well said there Chris
 
Tackle junkie
 Andrew

XOS live baits
I've been targeting Kingfish now for awhile and through trial and error have worked out a few things
When they are on the chew...they will eat pretty much anything, but that is not the case most of the time. I've found the bigger fish are definately attracted to huge live baits. I've had a 15kg kingy wolf down a 2kg kahawai(Salmon), and would not hesitate to use bigger fish as livies. It seems they are attracted to the increased activity of the larger bait and drawn to it from further a field. Kingfish can be very cautious and having a live bait going beserk can mean the difference between an enquiry, and a full blown take.
Type of hook plays a big part when using big baits, although 1 kingfish specialist i have been fishing with uses mainly yakkas for bait and tiny circle hooks.....all fish caught were lip hooked. For really big baits I will almost always position the hook in the nose, just in front of the eyes horizontally. This allows the bait to position itself in the current and breathe relatively normally(as normal as you can with an 11/0 hanging off your face).  I'm using Black Magic live bait hooks - 1kg bait 8/0 hook - 2kg bait 11/0.
I always have the reel(Tiburon or TLD50) out of gear with the rachet on, and let the kingfish have penty of time to get the bait down. Put the lever up to strike,then hang on!

 

Black magic and mustard hoodlams are IMO the best live bait hooks around and i do agree with the bigger they are the bigger the fish! When i lived in broome we used nothing other than spanish flag for mackie live baits under a balloon will bottom bouncing for red emporer! The bait never lasted more than 5 mins before getting smashed up but because it was just floating around i put a 10/0 hoodlum conected to 150lb single strand just at the back of the neck for a sure hook up.

Keep it tight, reeeeeeel tight!