Alternative Baits

Right chaps, another of my recycled threads for you to consider. We all use boilies where we need to, some guys use them exclusively, but lets look at your alternatives. You will have gathered that I am a great fan of nuts, but lets go elsewhere, sweetcorn if I was restricted to one bait but lets explore the possibilities.
Now I love trying alternative baits, raw pigs liver fished in combination with an open ended feeder on meat waters will slaughter them, method feeder with a mince steak incorporation in the groundbait mix and slivers of raw steak on the hook, terrific bait. Red jelly cubes, jelly babies, raw haddock, yellow smoked in fox armour mesh, catmeat, slugs. Never tried the frozen pond snails that some outlets sell, but saw a guy on a very hot day with nothing doing, destroy a venue with a fly rod and trout fly.
Right educate me , whats the strangest alternative or the most effective you have used or witnessed.

It won't be classed as strange but a pal of mine is using frankfurters,salami and rice as loose feed and catches very well with it. Total cost about £2 for a day max. Aldi or Lidl meat. He refuses to use boilies ,r3eckons they're over priced and over hyped.
He had a 33 common last week from a very hard water.

Back in the late sixties I was doing quite a bit of Carp fishing on three small lakes. That was where I was introduced to the use of prawns as bait.

Initially I was a little sceptical, but soon realised that here was a bait that exceeded my hopes. Can't comment on boilies I've never used them, other than prawns and bread in its various forms, these have served me well. A good runner up would be cockles.

Prawns, for sure; they work everywhere and attract a good stamp of fish. Best bait for carp this year has been a bbq and chilli flavoured Matteson's-style pork sausage. I've been using the garlic flavoured ones for years, but these others knock them into a cocked hat. 10mm cylinders an inch or so long, mounted lengthwise have generally been best. Incidentally, ways of mounting meat effectively have been discussed on here recently. Once upon a time, all my hair stops were pieces of grass stem. I've gone back to mounting meat baits this way - pulling an inch of stem (which folds in the middle) almost all the way into the bait holds it as well as anything you can buy.

The sausages themselves, once you've punched out the baits, look like cylindrical pieces of swiss cheese. I normally break these up and throw them in at the end of a session, but snapped into 2-inch sections and threaded on a long hair they make dynamite margin baits: presumably, fish have sussed they can eat these (normally) discarded baits in perfect safety. They can be a little tricky to mount - they're more holes than meat - but well worth the effort. At dusk, I fish these together with the "I'm going home" method. A big handful of spod mix, mixed with water in a 3 pint bait tub, is lobbed into the edge, followed by some "tub cleaning activity" and a couple more full tubs of water over the bait. Bites can be almost instant and it's worked almost everywhere so far. The rod itself is pulled back so that nothing's showing over the water - don't know whether it helps, but it makes sense if you're trying to give the fish the impression that you're leaving.

Forgot to mention seafood baits, well in Derek, tried crabsticks with some success and cockles, and Robs sausage sounds like my Barbell baits.

Been having success lately with luncheon meat soaked in black treacle both for carp on still waters and big dustbin lid bream on the river.

Also there's a small lake close by where it seems the only way to catch is to use 3 pieces of hair rigged sweetcorn. 1 or 2 never works, three gets them going. I'm beginning to think they can count.

robtherake said:

"I'm going home" method.

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Big fan of this myself. Rod back out of the way is only sensible way to make the most of this. It's a great way to snaffle a lump or two in commercials from 3.30 pm. If you're lucky the guy in the peg already might donate his leftovers for free too. Be polite and let him drive off before netting carp twice the size he's had himself tho.

just lately i find myself thinking much about the humble spud, cheese and sweetcorn.
IMO boilies have gone off the boil so to speak lol

I'm almost exclusively a boilie man but I'm toying with the idea of targeting Perch with Prawns this winter .
A commercial near me contains 4+lbers

newmarket said:

I'm almost exclusively a boilie man but I'm toying with the idea of targeting Perch with Prawns this winter .
A commercial near me contains 4+lbers

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4lb ers eh?? try dropshotting lob worms, deadly for the little stripeys.
i would be glad to teach you the technique if you need :wh

You'll have to mate , I've heard about this drops hotting lark but thought it was something Geoff Capes did

wow, didnt realise peeps darn sarf had such a sense of humour

Frozen shrimp, the type you get from aquarium shops, the one that comes in big blocks not the small individual servings. Great mixed in your spod mix and then present a ball of it wrapped in arma-mesh on the hair.