been a while since i fished for herring, but from memrory i used to find burley very helpful. once they were burleyed up they used to eat just about anything.  

i wuld usually burley up, and use and burley blob/float with a small long shank hook with prawn or squid or whitebait. o i would cats very small twistys. 

i also had good success with a samll set of gangs, and casting whole whitebait, and doing a slow retrieve for skippy/bream. 

 a packet of baitchaser rigs from BCF (dont buy the baitchaser rigs wwith the tiny little hooks) . Burley cage at bottom of rig, two baitchaser hooks above burley cage then swivel attached to main line. Make up pollard so its not to sloppy, throw a few handfulls out in front of you as far as you can. Fill burley cage with pollard, put prawn pieces on hooks throw out to where you threw the burley  and let it sink slowly. Once the burley ayttracts the herring, skippy you will often catch two at once  for tarwhine and whiting let it sink to the bottom but only on sandy bottom otherwise too may snags you lose too many rigs  cheers