Bait Confidence

[nottskev]

I agree baits work differently on different waters. I barely used corn when I lived in the north west - it never seemed the best option. Around here, it's a top winter roach bait on one lake and summer bream bait on another. On two other waters, tares are a great winter roach bait, despite their "summer bait" reputation.

Archie Braddock - now 80 years old, I believe - is still doing it. Out fishing into dark several evenings a week, he did a presentation in a pub for a couple of dozen of us recently where he displayed his rigs and mounted baits and talked through his barbel methods and tactics. I've still got bottles of bait flavours from his range. He's writing up his decades of diaries into a book with chapters on all the species he has fished for.

 

[carpinbob]

Sweetcorn and meat are the baits I use , especially the artificial ones with a bit of flavouring.

 

[flightliner]

Used silkweed on the canal near Worksop two seasons back, it grows on one of the lock overspills .
Never had a bite , a far cry from using it on the weir at Lincolnshires Tattershall reach of the river Bain back in the sixties when it was the only bait we used.

 

[Lark]

Same at the small weir at Sandford on Thames. There used to be a line of anglers fishing from the weir some days....all catching Roach on silkweed....have not tried it for over 50years now.

It definitely must have been my rubbish technique as my brother-in-law used to do the same in the 70's on the Windrush near Burford.
The old boys (probably about 50-ish!) in Jack Smith's around 1971 always told me that it was easy.....

 

[bracket]

During the 1960s, 70s and 80s while living in the Midlands I would regularly match fish the Trent, Severn, Welland, Witham, Nene, Soar, Derwent and on occasion the Yorkshire rivers. At all times the must take bait was caster and hemp. This combination would catch fish anywhere. I cannot put a figure on the the amount of money I have won, and lost, during those three decades, using "Bennys red caster". Pete.

If anyone's interested The "Bennys red caster" is a quote from Newark's Mac Willis, author of that obscure verse, "The tare, the tare the terrible tare." Pete

 

[Peter Jacobs]

There are several baits that I have full confidence in depending on target species . . . . typically I always have in my bait bag: maggots, casters, hemp, red worms, sweet corn and luncheon meat either plain and/or flavoured, and bread.

I only ever use pellet on commercial venues and those I fish very rarely these days except the occasional friendly match.

To my mind confidence in my bait (in its best possible condtion) is paramount and sets the mental boundaries for the day.

Over the years I have never really had much condifence in cheese or cheesepase, the exception being a day with Dave Slater on the Avon using his well known paste, some years ago now . . . . . .

 

[Keith M]

Over the years I have never really had much condifence in cheese or cheesepase, the exception being a day with Dave Slater on the Avon using his well known paste, some years ago now . . . . . .

Back in the mid 70s during the colder months my mate and I used to regularly travel down to the river Kennet to chase largish Chub and it was my job to constantly knead our bread/cheese paste around a scored raw onion while my mate drove us the 45 miles down to the Kennet.

By the time we got there the bread and cheese paste literally stunk of raw onion and the stronger the smell the more Chub we caught.

Plus whatever we had left we placed back into the freezer to mix with fresh paste if needed the next time we used it.
Once it had been in and out of the freezer a few times it used to feel cold to the touch even on a warm day and it seemed to improve with age.

Keith

 

[john step]

Back in the mid 70s during the colder months my mate and I used to regularly travel down to the river Kennet to chase largish Chub and it was my job to constantly knead our bread/cheese paste around a scored raw onion while my mate drove us the 45 miles down to the Kennet.

By the time we got there the bread and cheese paste literally stunk of raw onion and the stronger the smell the more Chub we caught.

Plus whatever we had left we placed back into the freezer to mix with fresh paste if needed the next time we used it.
Once it had been in and out of the freezer a few times it used to feel cold to the touch even on a warm day and it seemed to improve with age.

Keith

I never thought of onion paste. Obvious when you think of it as garlic a relative of onion works well.

 

[Jim Crosskey 2]

When I can get them, a really nice big fat juicy lobworm would be the bait I have the confidence in, it will get you a bite quickly and often from a large fish too.

I'm going to ask the purists to look away at this moment - the bait I have struggled with a bit is hemp! However, i'm trying to be more open minded about it. I have used it occasionally as both a loose feed and in g'bait mixes but i'd be very hard pushed to say it's made any difference. However, I will use it this weekend coming on a lake in Shropshire where I know there is a decent head of roach which come up in the water quite enthusiastically. So I will be hoping to use hemp as a loose feed to create proper feeding frenzy. Fingers crossed!

 

[Mark Wintle]

When I can get them, a really nice big fat juicy lobworm would be the bait I have the confidence in, it will get you a bite quickly and often from a large fish too.

I'm going to ask the purists to look away at this moment - the bait I have struggled with a bit is hemp! However, i'm trying to be more open minded about it. I have used it occasionally as both a loose feed and in g'bait mixes but i'd be very hard pushed to say it's made any difference. However, I will use it this weekend coming on a lake in Shropshire where I know there is a decent head of roach which come up in the water quite enthusiastically. So I will be hoping to use hemp as a loose feed to create proper feeding frenzy. Fingers crossed!

I first tried hemp and tares on Medley in a match in 1975; I did catch a nice roach but had no real feel for using them. By the end of the 70s, though, I was starting to get catches of roach on hemp from Medley but it was a frustrating process - one day I had 300 bites for 28 roach - and found the way to gain confidence was to just take hemp as bait. In the 80s tares were a good bait on a local Dorset stillwater and I had good catches on the Stour by the end of the 80s as well as on the Thames using both hemp and tares on the hook. In the last decade my hemp and tare fishing has progressed to the stage of taking just a pint of hemp and egg-cup of tares for a fishing session on the Stour between June and October. That's not always what I take but I try to avoid the full bait tray that I might have taken in my match days, and as a result I will persevere with these baits. Similarly, on my winter fishing I only take maggots OR bread.

There is the true story of Ivan Marks wanting to get the hang of using casters on the Trent in the early 60s when maggots were the recognised bait and Benny Ashurst whipping away all Ivan's maggots and giving him a load of casters instead (not in a match) so that Ivan HAD to use casters, and I think this is the way to gain confidence in a bait you're not sure of.

Tip for Jim; it's too early for hemp to work well, it's to do with the roach's metabolism and what they feed on at different times of the year. Actually given the roach are about to spawn probably best to leave the roach alone for a month!

 

[Molehill]

I have had many favourite baits but they tend to change over seasons as my fishing styles change. I 100% agree that bait confidence is a must but think we gain that confidence by unconsciously fishing that bait better, the more I use it, the more I catch, the more I refine how I use it and present it.

I also chop and change over seasons in a search for the Holly grail of bait, who hasn't read a good idea and thought "why didn't I think of that, it must be better than anything I ever used". Then I come back to never going anywhere without a loaf of bread .

Back in the 60s as a teenager I fished the Dorset stour with silkweed and in the right summer conditions caught roach, I would even site fish it sometimes on baking hot days and very light gear they loved it.

 

[hague01]

I only came back to fishing 9 years ago when I retired after a 50 year gap.
What I have learned is that not only every breed of fish is different but every water is too, on every day.I am sure there are lots of you out there who have brilliant days at a water/ river then go back, even next day and use same bait/tackle,with same weather and do nothing! It happens all the time for me.The only thing I do now is to remember which waters do best on sweet baits and which do not.Its a fact I think, that some fish in certain waters have a sweet tooth.I am convinced of it.
Having said that I like to experiment with ground baits. I am looking for a neutral one, ie which has not got any flavours added by the manufacturers.That way i can make g/b linked to the hook bait. Makes sense to me at least.Anyone got any recommendations?

 

[mikench]

The return to a venue and successful tactic of yesterday and finding utter disappointment is a regular occurrence that defies logic and belief!

I have often had a good day( by my relative standards) and being so impatient to return to the same water, the same peg and the same tactics, I have felt disheartened and bemused by the subsequent blank.

That's fishing I suppose and like golf, one day you think you've cracked it and next time out you find you haven't.

 

[108831]

Strangely I never want to go back to a peg after a good day,I usually want to go back when I think I've made a bad choice in either tactics or bait,part of the pleasure to me is sorting a different swim,with all the incumbent problems,the most changeable being how the wind is,I enjoy trying to get the shotting and depths right to get a decent presentation.

 

[mikench]

Each to their own Alan. The point I was making was why, everything clicked one day but not the next. Why would fish congregate in one spot, eating one bait and at a certain depth one day and not the next! After all if I like a pub one day I'm very likely to go back !

 

[silvers]

Tip for Jim; it's too early for hemp to work well, it's to do with the roach's metabolism and what they feed on at different times of the year. Actually given the roach are about to spawn probably best to leave the roach alone for a month!

You can catch on seed at any time of year, but it’s undoubtedly more effective in the summer months. But try telling the roach at March on the old Nene ... caught on the seed with snow on the ground and ice in the margins!

 

[silvers]

As a match angler on rivers and canals I have a deliberately narrow(ish) menu in my carryall, setting aside groundbait mixes ...
Casters
Maggot
Pinkie
Squatts (canal or drain only)
Hemp
Tares
Lob worms
Dendras
Bread punch
Bread flake
Halibut pellets (barbel venues only)

I’m happy fishing with any of those ... but have most confidence when fishing caster & hemp. I started match fishing towards the end of the caster domination in the 80s ... and have been somewhat of a loner in continuing to fish it and catch on it in the decades since.

 

[108831]

Question for you Alex,would you turn up for a river mat h with all those baits,seems to me you would never have given any one bait a chance to actually kick in,also imo to many match anglers feed too many lines,these end up effecting each other,surely a better knowledge of your chosen venue,this reducing the need for so much variation. By the way I've emailed James,no reply as yet...

 

[Philip]

Bread for me. I have allot of confidence in it and would feel almost undressed if I don't have a loaf in the car. I am also a sweetcorn fan like a few others although I have not used it so much of late. I have also been using fishy type pellets quite allot over the last couple of years.

I always have a selection of other baits in the car as well..boiles, meat, sinking dog biscuits but often they dont see the light of day.

 

[silvers]

Hi Alan,
Indeed ... it very much depends on the venue and time of year.
For example on the Ouse or Thames in the summer i’d Have a “throwaway” line down the inside for perch with dendras. Otherwise i’d be feeding two lines with hemp & caster and swapping between the two. I’d expect to catch Roach on seed later on so have some tares in the bag. I’d carry some big maggot as a change bait for the last two hours. I feed a lot less than most. A typical Ouse match for me is less than two pints of caster & hemp and 3 bait droppers of worms. Catches are usually ten to 25 pounds Roach, dace And perch.

Feeding multiple spots seems to work better on hard days where there are pockets of fish that aren’t moving.