Winter baits

What are your go to winter baits for general fishing? (ie chub, roach, bream ect)

For a general fishing session I'll take maggot, bread and caster as my main baits and if I'm after chub then cheese paste (I've yet to just try cheese cubed)
Sometimes I'll take worms

What are your winter baits

Mine are the same ones I use any other time of year..

I use meat a lot in summer for carp

Lord Paul of Sheffield said:

I use meat a lot in summer for carp

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Meat is a good all year round bait Paul. When it gets cold pellets lose some of their effectiveness but soft meat such as luncheon meat will continue to catch barbel and carp. It is also one of the recommended baits for catfish early season when the water hasn't had chance to warm up fully.

I agree that maggots are a good winter bait. I can't get them in the quantities I would need over here so I use small particles such as wheat and hemp.

et cetera-therefore etc NOT ect Regards Mick

Very much my all year selection of baits too just less in terms of quantity and groundbait will often be sieved.

I used to be able to get hold of bloodworm and joker locally some years ago when I fished the pole a lot which was the all time blank avoider, great fun too in the coldest of weather getting a bite a chuck when you'd struggle on almost anything else.

Funnily enough I looked at what baits I could contemplate using, at this time, just yesterday. I'd had enough of catching carp, albeit the 'fun' type rather than the 'serious', and I just fancied catching a few roach...
Good quality casters/mags not always available in my area so I had a look in the store cupboard and found tares, hemp which, with the wheat (already frozen) and some soft bread for flake, punch etc I could offer a good variety. I also took expander pellets...

I'm NOT saying these baits would be good on all waters or when it gets REALLY cold, but today I caught a dozen average roach on a Stillwater, and this is the amazing bit, I had a fish or two on EACH of the aforementioned baits apart from pellet !
Flake and punch failed first thing, (7am) but came good later, tares caught a single roach almost immediately, as did wheat but did nothing after that, and hemp was the best....In fact I should have caught double the number but my strike was 'off it's best' - big time!

For the record the water is cooling now, but not cold, and although I had 7' of water in front of me all the fish were caught in less than 3'. Ambient temp around 8/10 degrees all day with heavy cold mist.

So, make of it what you will, but IMHO the above baits, along with caster and mags, could serve you well over the coming months if fishing for roach.....In fact a friend caught some decent roach on red maggot as well.

In addition,and I'm talking Stillwater carp here, I suggest meat in it's various forms can be good and sometimes even better if smothered with 'flavour' of one sort or another. Bovril usually good for my fishing.....

The key for me is patience and to give the baits every chance to work....I work on roughly an hour before changing and tend to bait various 'lines/areas' as Matchmen might do....Little and often though !!!

ps Going back tomorrow with a different float setup to suit shallow water fishing - that's the plan anyway !

In the winter I tend to fish small flowing rivers and streams more than stillwaters and I don't use Oily or Fatty baits. Instead I use more smelly and/or spicey flavours, plus I use a lot less feed and instead rely more on baits wrapped in soft paste leaving a flavour trail to attract fish upstream to my bait as it slowly disolves in the flow.

I also tend to use lively natural baits more often (usually when trotting); like fresh clean maggots (which I often lace with a flavour) or redworms.

Breadflake also catches me some quality Roach in the winter especially when I am fishing streams and small rivers on the float.

Except for Chub (which seem to like large baits all year round) I use smaller baits and much finer line in the colder months.

Keith

Depends where i,m fishing and what species...For f1,s maggot,2mm and 4mm expander......for carp bread,pellet,corn,maggots(live and dead),Worm....for mixed silvers maggot,caster/worm,pellet......on feeder pellet/pop-ups/bread/deads....Gaz

No different to what I use in the summer.
Although I stop using pellet as in the cold water, they dont release their oils, rendering them pointless.

law said:

No different to what I use in the summer.
Although I stop using pellet as in the cold water, they dont release their oils, rendering them pointless.

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Pellet is one of the best cold weather baits going,coarse pellets are low oil anyway...Gaz

Does sweet corn work for roach in the winter months - I stop using it and use mainly bread?

peterjg said:

Does sweet corn work for roach in the winter months - I stop using it and use mainly bread?

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On stillwaters,Squeeze the inside out and fish corn skins ,they sink a lot slower,and can pick out bigger fish...Gazza

chefster said:

Pellet is one of the best cold weather baits going,coarse pellets are low oil anyway...Gaz

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How does that work? They still dont break down in cold water.

law said:

How does that work? They still dont break down in cold water.

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Of course they do,a lot of matches i fish,and matches all over the country are won on pellet all through winter,fishing expanders or banded pellet on the hook,feeding micro,s or 4mm feed pellets,or using pellet feeder,pellet cone,pellet method, etc,etc...Gazza

I've found that meat with a spicy flavour works well in spring just as the water starts to warm up

In winter I use smaller pieces of sweetcorn. Normally in summer I will either chuck any unused sweetcorn away or put in a groundbait mix as once frozen it doesn't make a good hookbait. But in colder weather the scraps of sweetcorn skins often work well for roach and b***m. In fact some days the smallest scraggiest pieces work best.

Similarly with worms I often use two on a hook in warmer weather, but now it has dropped cooler I'll break a red worm in two and use half.

I don't find that pellets work once the water has dropped below around 10C but I don't fish commercials, only lightly fished waters so that might be the reason they don't work for me.

chefster said:

Of course they do,a lot of matches i fish,and matches all over the country are won on pellet all through winter,fishing expanders or banded pellet on the hook,feeding micro,s or 4mm feed pellets,or using pellet feeder,pellet cone,pellet method, etc,etc...Gazza

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What pellets do you use?
Ive tested hallibut and skrettins in tubs of cold water and they dont break down.

My main bait winter or summer is bread. A couple of small balls of mashed up bread thrown in to start. If fish are going to feed they will pick up the scent. I find a good way in autumn or winter is just fish a small piece of crust about 1/4 inch weighted down with a split shot a couple of inches from the hook. Push a 14 hook through the crust from the soft side and pull it through and pull it back into the crust. Let this bump along the bottom. Good for plump roach, a bigger piece for bream and a bigger piece for chub. I stick with the 14 hook usually. A bigger hook sometimes if I am expecting anything a bit hefty.
I find sweetcorn a hit or miss bait summer or winter, it can work some days and not others whatever the season. Cheese is always good for chub.
Occasionally I use other baits but, bread is always in my bag. I like the cheap Morrison brown bread at the moment.

law said:

What pellets do you use?
Ive tested hallibut and skrettins in tubs of cold water and they dont break down.

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Halibut pellets are oily, personally i only use them as hookers,but skrettings,coppens,etc all break down otherwise by the end of the season the lakes would be 2ft shallower.Fishery own pellets are usually one of the two,and one complex i fish closes from oct to march for shooting season,and the owners actually continue to feed the fish,through this period,now if these pellets werent breaking down or being eaten,i,m sure the water quality would suffer and in turn the fish stock...when i,ve soaked micros etc in cold water,if you leave them to long,they go mushy and break-up-what does that tell you??