Stewed wheat, the cinderella bait.

Once the go to bait for Roach, now it seems to have taken a back seat. Could that be due to the fact that some preparation is required in these days of everything off the shelf and ready to go. And yet wheat has an impeccable track record over the years, in particular for Roach, I rate it in the top three.The others being, bread and husk(not casters). Opinions welcome.

Is there a difference between husk and casters and if so what? I thought they were one and the same.

mikench said:

Is there a difference between husk and casters and if so what? I thought they were one and the same.

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The simplest explanation would be that when the maggot reaches the chrysalis stage they float, those are at least in my area refered to as husk. The caster is no more than a husk, but prepared by soaking for some time in water untill they sink.

Whenever I have used casters i have never soaked them just put them on the hook. I am sure they sank! I have only ever caught small fish with casters and so I do not use them much. Still have a lot to learn

I've posted on here several times about wheat. It is a great bait for roach and it works well as an attractor for big carp using tigers nuts over wheat instead of hemp, plus it is a lot cheaper and it can be frozen.

I have had some really good roach catches on wheat from lakes, rivers and canals. However; sometimes it can be slow to get going and sometimes just will not work. On its day it will out fish anything including maggots or hemp for roach.

Derek Gibson said:

The caster is no more than a husk, but prepared by soaking for some time in water untill they sink.

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Are you sure? As far as I'm concerned (and all my local tackle dealers are concerned), casters are the initial phase that follows immediately after maggots turn. They need no preparation at all to sink, they do so naturally. In the latter stages of the chrysalis development, once the caster goes dark and crisp, they then float. At this point they are no longer saleable as casters, they are a short period away from being flies. Is it this stage of development that you are calling husk?

Back in the 50's and early 60's you could only buy Stewed Wheat in little jars and compared to the usual '6d worth of gentles' it was a rather expensive alternative bait.

By the mid to late 60's you could source wheat for home stewing much more cheaply and it boosted many a Roach catch here on the Hampshire Avon.

I've caught well on wheat at Britford and on the Hale Syndicate stretches.

I must admit wheat has gone as a bait as far as I'm concerned. When I fished rivers it was always frequently used, these days commercial fish feed easily enough on usual baits.
I now use loads of caster with worm or meat with hemp. One bait that other folk use a lot is corn, that's a bait I rarely use.
The amount of roach that I get with pellet is crazy, but caster is my go to roach bait now.

---------- Post added at 03:51 ---------- Previous post was at 03:45 ----------

If left too long casters that have gone too far and float can be made to sink.
just leave them over night in water and the floaters suck in water then turn to sinkers.

I think I have enough baits and ideas on baits but in for a penny........! In what form do you buy your wheat and where from? How do you attach it to the hook?

I assume we are not talking shredded wheat floaters here

mikench said:

I think I have enough baits and ideas on baits but in for a penny........! In what form do you buy your wheat and where from? How do you attach it to the hook?

I assume we are not talking shredded wheat floaters here

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Its a very economical bait.
You buy it from the pet shop or seed merchant in bulk or if you are lucky like me they spill the stuff all over the place at harvest time.
Best free bait available.

Soak it overnight then boil. I like to do baulk batches and freeze it. I also like to cook it longer than is traditional so it really swells up and some grains break open.

Roach love it but its a great bait for pre baiting. Barbel, carp, tench and sorry about this...bream.
In Ireland I used to catapult half a bucket out the night before for some bumper bream catches. I often put a load down on the Tidal Trent when waiting for the barbel to come and rummage in the gravel.

Its an easy to hook bait to fish for roach with hemp as one would with tares.

You can hook several pieces threaded along a bigger hook such as a 12.

It avoids eels when pre baiting!!

As the thread says, the cinderella bait..ignore it at your cost

I will look out for some and give it a try

mikench said:

...In what form do you buy your wheat and where from?....

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For a trial ... see the Aldi baits - they do a Prepared Particles bait - resealable pack - of mixed corn, hemp and wheat. Bang in a handful then try fishing over the top with the individual particles as hookbait.
I tried this to see if the Roach and Cru's would target the wheat and if it was ignored by the Carp - looked like a winner to start with - but the carp found it to their taste eventually and wouldn't leave it alone!

john step said:

Its a very economical bait.

It avoids eels when pre baiting!!

As the thread says, the cinderella bait..ignore it at your cost

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Ah, music to my ears, "it avoids eels". I must try it sometime.
Thanks for that tip John.

I agree with John Step re the cooking of it...

Can remain a little hard for the hook even when it looks okay in the pot so I always split the amount at this stage and continue cooking it to a timer until it is, as John says, ' it swells up and breaks open ' ( which is dead right IMO ) and then cook rest until it breaks into bits for feed...

Still stays on the hook......

As other have said, patience and staying with it is the key - eventually it works !!

Derek Gibson said:

The simplest explanation would be that when the maggot reaches the chrysalis stage they float, those are at least in my area refered to as husk. The caster is no more than a husk, but prepared by soaking for some time in water untill they sink.

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When maggots pupate the outer skin hardened and, for want of a better description, the innards become liquefied. At this point in the metamorphosis the larvae will sink. This is the caster. No soaking is involved to produce casters, just what we called "ducking" to identify the sinkers, anything that floated was skimmed off. As the process continues the fluids solidify into the adult fly and air enters the pupae. At this point, just prior to hatching, the pupae is buoyant. In my neck of the woods these were called, surprisingly, floaters. I have now learn that elsewhere they are know as husks. My account of the transformation may not be technically one hundred percent accurate but it's close enough for me. That said, creed wheat has always been an excelent bait, for primarily roach, but attractive to most fish. Pete

Creed wheat is a superb roach bait. I had my very first 2lb roach on it from the Witham as a teenager. Prior to that fish I used to travel to the tidal Trent on a coach from Sheffield with my dad. Getting off at laneham ferry he used to leg me right down to Rampton island where we both fished from hi'ish banks with quill floats fished well overdepth with creed on the hook held back. We took some superb bags of redfins in those times and the memory will never leave me.
many years later When carping on the middle river I used to use it as an attractive bed of feed with boillies as hookbait with plenty of success.
It's true what Derek says inasmuch as it's not used as much as yesteryear but if ever I was on a low land narrow river with roach as the target species and there was enough flow to allow me to stret peg it on the day It would be definately in my bag.
Regarding "husk" , again in my early teenage years I used to fish a pond on the Barnsley side of Sheffield which even now is still a cracking roach water. In the summer months I used to go into my local tackle dealer and he would give me all the old "husk" I wanted for free as he couldnt sell them. We then used to lace the water with em and it would boil with roach that were easy to catch from then onwatds tho many of the bites were like lightening but we still did good.
around 1960? Along came the lads from lancashire Ken Booth/Benny Ashhurst etx to the Trent with casters and revolutionised roach fishing by taking many of the honours for a long time untill the Notts and south yorkshire lads caught up with the changes.
That was the end of my free "husk" as my tackle dealer suddenly found he could turn "casters" and make a bob or two.