strange advice

What strange advice have you had that improved your fishing.
This year ,early April, I was fishing my local pond,getting bites the float when under but on striking I was missing. A guy watching me asked what hook size I was using, 20 I replied , he then told me to change to a 18 and hook the maggots I was using thro' the middle and not the end.
I was doubtfull thinking I should change to a 22 hook and hook the maggots has I'd always done thro' the end.But I tried his tips and the bites got converted into hooked fish.
I've never heard of this before but I've only been back to fishing for 3 years but having read the mags and papers I've never seen anyone else come up with this method .

Mine was to go fishing with Stu D, WoL and Rik.

Very strange advice, and very bad for the liver!

and the arse ....(allegedly)

I can't understand the hooksize, but sidehooking the maggot can be very effective, especially with roach that tweak the end of maggot to test them. If you seem to be striking at nothing, but the end of your maggot is sucked then roach are a good suspect. Sidehooking them "fools" the fish and they are more likely to take the bait.
I think I saw it in AT last winter in an article about 100 hot roach tips, or something like that.

Throw a handful of maggots into the water - how do they sink?

Fat end or thin end facing down?

Nope, they fall through the water on a level plane.

Food for thought.

:-0

Yes I would have gone down a hook size if anything but the bloke said that by going to a larger hook you could put 2 maggots on side hooked and this made the fish ( roach and small skimmers) not suck the maggot but give a definate take.

I still not sure a bigger hook was needed but it's worth following advice, if it works you've learnt something if not you can prove that it's not good advice.

if youre missing loads of bites it can frequently pay to go up a size, whats easier to get back out of the mouth,

conventional thinking does say go down a size but i first tried it after reading the suggestion in an article by dennis white in the 80's, then sat on a pond missing loads of small roach 2 people went down a size and kept missing the bites i went up one size and started hitting every one.