Where on earth would WA anglers be without our fantastic herring? We’re so lucky to have a fish so abundant, so feisty and dare I say so … stupid?

Yes, they aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed the old herring. They school in huge numbers, eating everything in sight and charging after baits, lures and even drinking straws. Just like an old faithful dog that’ll greet you, tail wagging at the door after you’ve been away, the herring will also be there waiting for the day you head out for your first fish in ages.

Luckily they taste a lot better though.

Depending upon where you live in Australia, these fish are either known to you as a tommy ruff or Australian herring. What’s the story behind the name tommy ruff? It’s a pretty weird moniker given to this fish on the east coast and, for some reason, West Australians started calling them herring. It’s suggested, like salmon, that they were named herring by Europeans after the fish they most closely resembled at home.

It’s also not hard to suggest that they were possibly either blind or deranged. Get a pic of our herring and a Euro herring together and see what you think! Anyway, herring it has always been and I’ll stick with that.

Herring are very easy to catch from almost any beach or rockwall in southern WA, provided you attract them and keep them feeding near where you’re fishing. Any type of bait fishing rig is going to work, but here’s a method to try that’s fun, cheap, simple and requires no bait at all.

For this rig, I like the longshank hooks because herring are very adept at jumping and shaking standard hooks free. They seem to have less success getting rid of the longshanks and even less success throwing wide gaps, but they aren’t ideal for our rig on this occasion.

It goes like this. Thread a running float onto your mainline. I like the Glitterbugs because they attract attention. Make it a hefty one, with a bit of weight for casting and tie a swivel to the end of your mainline to stop the float running up to the #8 longshank hook. But, here’s the key; just before the swivel, let your float bump up against a running berley cage to create a party in the water. Herring LOVE berley and it not only attracts them, it keeps them in your area.

Then tie your leader, 4 kilo is perfect, to the swivel and to your hook, with a small green piece of straw or green tube threaded onto the shank. Green tube is common in tackle stores these days and the fluoro stuff even works at night. The leader must be long enough to stay clear of the float and this is why I recommend a 120cm leader and a 10 foot surf rod to make this work properly. The final piece to the puzzle is the retrieve, which must be very fast, and you need to make a short sweeping action with your rod to impart a little action as it skips back to shore.

If you don’t want to use tube, or they aren’t biting, try using Gulp! Maggots. They’re nowhere near as disgusting as regular maggots but the herring love them almost as much.

Remember with all herring fishing, however, that they don’t know when to say no so you should. Take only what you need for a feed and put the rest back.