Slugs

This is a dedicated thread for discussing article: SLUGS

http://www.fishingmagic.com/fm-features/18290-slugs.html



SLUGS. We all know they make a good bait but how many use them?

You omitted the benefit of getting the little beggars out of your garden!
The horrid things are just starting to make their presence felt - does anyone know how to kidnap them and hold them hostage until June 16th? (Sorry, MI6 if that last sentence tripped your sensors!)
Any friends or pupils of Charles Landells out there?

I knew Charlie Landells well. Slug breeder par excellence. 2nd in charge gruppenfuhrer at the LAA once I believe. He died a year or two or three ago.

As to slug fishing....I was freelining with them on the Veralum on the Gt. Ouse.
I could see the chub in shallow clear water. I fluffed a cast by casting too high and the slug started to descent pulling the line in a graceful arc.

What happened next really surprised me. A chub turned and took up position to intercept the falling slug about a foot above the surface.
How it could see the slug and compensate for the refraction I will never know but it was certainly able to do so.

It's likely just the way I've fished them but I've never had any real success with slugs, I will have to try plopping 'em this summer.

I did once make a slug jelly when we had a plague of huge orange slugs one summer a few years back, I kept a bucket half filled with water behind the shed and every time I picked up a slug I popped it in and put the lid on.

Low and behold a few weeks later and after some hot weather I found the forgotten bucket and removed the lid to find what looked like an orange liquid but when I tried to pour it out I realised it was set like a jelly and I had to slice around the edge and tap it out instead, still in the shape of the bucket.

It actually looked quite nice

When I was about 18 years old instead of stones I was on my yearly visit to the Hampshire Avon for a week on the royalty, I shared the boarding house room with a mate who had brought with him a baitbox (the old aluminium kind) full of slugs, for some reason he kept them in our room, one morning on waking there were silver trails all over the floor and walls with slugs in different places of the room needless to say the landlady wasn't happy but allowed us to stay even though we couldn't get the trails off the walls.

Alan Tyler said:

You omitted the benefit of getting the little beggars out of your garden!
The horrid things are just starting to make their presence felt - does anyone know how to kidnap them and hold them hostage until June 16th? (Sorry, MI6 if that last sentence tripped your sensors!)
Any friends or pupils of Charles Landells out there?

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I have free lined slugs for chub, found it works well, the big black ones but I have never caught anything else on them.

A tip for gardeners, my home made invention-half fill a bucket with water, tip in a packet of wall paper paste and a whole bag of table salt. Give it a good stir until it thickens. Brush this around the outside of your pots. Its fairly invisible so it does not look horrible; you can just brush it under the lip about 2ins thick.
When it rains and the slugs and snails come out it softens and the slugs will not crawl over it because of the salt so the plants stay safe. I find this lasts fairly well through the whole summer as it does not run off because its sticky but you may want to re do it occasionally if theres a lot of rain.
I have also done this on old skirting/floor boards or any boards placed around the veg/strawberry plot leaving no gaps just pegged in. It works pretty well for me and is better than slug pellets in my experience which are pretty useless and can be harmful to wildlife, this concoction is safe as far as I can see and it costs about £2 from the pound shop and a bucket will last all summer; just cover it to stop evaporation...

Binka wrote: "I did once make a slug jelly when we had a plague of huge orange slugs one summer a few years back, I kept a bucket half filled with water behind the shed and every time I picked up a slug I popped it in and put the lid on.

Low and behold a few weeks later and after some hot weather I found the forgotten bucket and removed the lid to find what looked like an orange liquid but when I tried to pour it out I realised it was set like a jelly and I had to slice around the edge and tap it out instead, still in the shape of the bucket.

It actually looked quite nice"

You're really living the dream, Binka!!

Cliff Hatton said:

Binka wrote: "I did once make a slug jelly when we had a plague of huge orange slugs one summer a few years back, I kept a bucket half filled with water behind the shed and every time I picked up a slug I popped it in and put the lid on.

Low and behold a few weeks later and after some hot weather I found the forgotten bucket and removed the lid to find what looked like an orange liquid but when I tried to pour it out I realised it was set like a jelly and I had to slice around the edge and tap it out instead, still in the shape of the bucket.

It actually looked quite nice"

You're really living the dream, Binka!!

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We should stick him on "Britains got Talent" as the FM entry

Binka, I have this mental picture of you trying to pour out the slug jelly and eventually slicing it out of the bucket and I can't stop laughing. I think you should make another one and present it to Tate Modern, it's got to beat some of the stuff they have there I reckon.

Crow and the escaped slugs with slime trails up the walls was also very funny.

I remember a story I was told by a friend some years ago. He was carping on our local lake, and darkness had fallen and he decided to heat up some soup. At the time others on the lake would shout out at you if you used a torch, so he just carried on in the dark. When the soup was hot enough he started to eat it, only to come across a large piece of meat which he thought was a bit too chewy. Yes, you've guessed it - a big orange slug had fallen into his soup and he was trying to eat it..............Uuuuuurrrrggghhh.

Thanks markg for the wallpaper paste and salt idea. Definately going to put that to the test.

Disgusting things. Gave them a go a few times for chub. Freelined luncheon meat beat slug hands down.

One of the few creatures which I can stamp out of existence entirely untroubled by conscience. Slugs are proof that the Devil exists.

eddiebenham said:

Thanks markg for the wallpaper paste and salt idea. Definately going to put that to the test.

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Hi Eddie, how your doing, tench time coming up.
Yes, give it a go, I fill half the bucket with water, add the paste till its just thickening up and then keep adding the salt till its thick, a half to the whole packet if need be; as much salt as you can put in really..
With the boards which I purloined of a skip, I coat them all over first and then leave them to dry in the sun. Then I push them in the soil and peg them to hold them up.
The slugs/snail slime moistens it if they try and crawl over it and gives them a salt sting or when it rains which is when they come out , it softens it, so its even more effective. On pots, I brush it all round but a 2 or 3 inch band should be enough. Stops them crawling up the pot.
When , I first put some runner beans in, they all disappeared overnight once and I came up with this and not had a problem much ever since. The occasional beast gets through, specially latter on but by then the plants are big and healthy.
I also coat the legs of some little greenhouses I use for young tender plants, stops them crawling up although it does tend to rust the metal legs after a few years of use and also some wall containers, I brush this round them on the wall and the slugs keep off . Oh, and a grape vine trellis, brushed round the bottom of it keeps them off.
I did think the salt might wash off into the soil and could harm the plants, not a problem on pots as they are on a concrete yard but, the veg plot. However, I don't seem to have encountered a problem, the plants are planted at least 6 inches away and I don't think it washes off anyway, the paste makes it stay stick which was the idea..
If you dont use all the concoction, save it by covering the bucket with a plastic bag or lid to stop it drying out and then you can use it again later on if need be.
There were some likes, so I thought a bit more explanation in order and if anyone trys it, let us know how it goes later on.

Work a treat, as for the garden aspect, a bowl of beer sunk in the ground is usually half full of the blighters by morning.

wanderer said:

Work a treat, as for the garden aspect, a bowl of beer sunk in the ground is usually half full of the blighters by morning.

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Trouble is Wand you never kill all of them, same with pellets and those that don't get killed can still do a lot of damage, better to keep them off the plants if you can.

I don't like slugs at all! I used them occasionally as bait for chub years ago and they worked well on free-lined tackle and also cast well but I still hated them.

A friend of ours had a cat which ate them. It used to come in from the garden at night with its mouth so gummed up with slugs it could hardly move its jaws. She then had the unenviable task of prizing the gooey remains from its mouth!

Thanks markg for that detailed version of the paste and salt treatment, I'm sure those of us that can find time for gardening as well as fishing will find it very useful.

Don't think I will be doing much Tench fishing as I am suffering with a bad shoulder (since August) and it's restricting what I can do. I'm just getting old and wearing out I guess.
Some people say, 'don't get old', but the alternative is not much of a choice.

Good for nothin!

You've got my day off to a good start, Laguna - thanks!

By the way...you can dangle a slug 12" from the water's surface and the chavs will launch themselves at it like Polaris missiles!