Is there any tips or tricks to help reduce the number of Snags when Stray-lining over foul ground? 

Recently started rock fishing and have a couple of productive points but they have a large appetite for terminal tackle.   I basically snell a circle hooks (6/0 to 8/0) onto 1.5m of either 40 or 80lb trace material which I tie onto my mainline with a 1/4 or 1/2oz  ball sinker above the hook. I pre-tie all of my traces to save time. 

I cast out, lower the drag and wait. When no fish take the bait, I tighten the drag, lift the rod high as possible and wind in fast to try and keep the hook above the reef. Still lose plenty of gear. 

Yeah no sinkers is the way to go - let the weight of the bait control the sink rate and with a well balanced rod and reel combo you'll be suprised at the distance you can still cast.

Use no sinkers and keep your bait alive off the bottom. If fishing with casting braid your casts will go twice as far and will not be effected by the wind when unweighted straylining. This is an issue I have found when stray lining as any little bit of breeze and it blows a bow in your mainline causing the bait to  end up back in the wash. Braid will sit on top of the water and be unaffected. A lot of guys on here hate braid for LB. You just need to use long traces of windon fluoro for abrasion resistance plus a bit of invisibility factor.

Another option is to hook up your pilly from the mid section with trace running out to tail. Have a sliding small ball sinker run down to your pilly on the opposite side that the hook is on. This way the hook stays on the upside of the bait. Finish off with a couple of half hitch loops aroud the tail of pilly and you have a good casting outfit.   

part of your problem is you  when fishing a bad rocky or kelpy area keep in touch with the line and bait by just leaving it unatended it will sink in to kelp or rocks and be lost ,a quick wind now and then will lift it off the bottom (walking the  bait),may have to throw out a few times more often but lose rate should be down ,most fishers would lose 3-4 hooks over a day .ALSO add more anchoveys and tie on too give more weight to help cast .

I like to use No sinkers as well..  I use large baits with the big rod (distance) and the 10 footer for fishing my feet...   I use small spoon sinkers if I have to use a sinker... A big heave and wind like hell..the spoon sinker "planes" up to the surface... tend to loose less weights by using   tea"spoon" sinkers... 

Loosing tackle is part of the fun mate Usually such areas are very productive in terms of fishing. If it is a complete sh##t bottom, i use circle hooks. They tend to reduce the rate of loosing hooks.

Definitely NO SINKER. 

you may laugh , but i was watching these Korean dudes , they were on  a landbased safari over on the barrier , they were doing really well off the bricks ... noticed that they put those little red and white floats down on their leaders to keep their bait off the bottom and give them the split second of reaction time to hook up , never tried it myself but watched them catch a hell of a lot of snapper this way , they were certainly no slouches and hauled some great snapper in.

Big H wrote: You can get big wet flys for trout which have a 'weed gaurd' which is usually some stiff light mono which run from the eye of the hook to the point. Seems to work well I dont see why it couldn't be applied to salt water?

Was thinking about that and I guess you could use the tag end of the snell.

I use pulley rigs all the time while Surfcasting or fishing off beaches, Just tied 7 new ones before dinner tonight. Thought that the big old wary Snappers would be a bit reluctant to take one, might give it a go on my second bait rod.  

Going to do a three way trial next time I am rock fishing in the sounds.

1) Strayline with no sinker.

2) Strayline with no sinker, Plus float.

3) Pulley Rig  with BOS (Maybe with float)

See if it reduces the number of Snags while maintaining my catch rate.