Casters

I have tried all manner of baits but never casters except for the odd one when the maggots have turned or fake ones when desperation has set in! I have met with failure on every occasion!

My tackle shop never has them unless pre ordered! Are they worth trying on the float for roach and rudd and is a pint enough? I will have to order them and do not want gallons!

PS Just ordered a pint for thursday and some worms! Time for a new approach i feel!

Casters can be an excellent bait, for most species, at times. You generally get less bites than you might on maggots, but the average size of the fish is often larger. Whether you need to bother with them or not rather depends on the venue concerned. On some venues I'd not bother at all, on others, I'd use caster in preference to maggot.

I'd just get half a pint and see how it goes. They don't keep well so best to use them all in one session ....

I will see how i get on with a pint! I always harboured a fear that they would turn into flies whilst in the garage or car! I will keep them well chilled in an old fridge in the garage which they will share with beer and wine!

How long should i keep them for or should I take half one day and half the next? Are they best hair rigged or on the hook?

On the right venue or the right day then caster can be an excellent bait, particularly for roach.

When you get them home wash them off in clean cold water and any that float I ether discard or only use to balance the hook with. Definitely don't use floating casters as loose feed or your shoal will float off downstream with the casters.

If there are a lot that float then you can crush them in your ground bait rather than waste them.

Used in conjunction with hemp as loose feed then the two can be unbeatable on a given day.

Any that are left over I keep in a bait box but cut a piece of old plastic shopping bag an inch or two larger than the lid size and use this before closing the lid.
They should keep a good few days in the 'fridge

Thanks Peter. I have some hemp so hemp and caster it shall be as loosefeed and casters on the hook or superglued( if i can be bothered) on a hair.

mikench said:

and casters on the hook or superglued( if i can be bothered) on a hair

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For roach fishing there is really no need at all to hair rig casters, simply mount on the hook direct.

When you use them keep them covered in water otherwise they will all end up floating and will be virtually useless as loose feed.
It's also worth keeping a few to the side, out of the water, to turn into floaters for the hook occasionally as the weight of the hook can get it sinking very slowly.

Over the years I've won quite a few matches using them to sort out the better specimens from roach and Rudd shoals, by starting off using maggot until the shoal is feeding really well, and then switching over to caster on the hook to start picking off the larger specimens from the shoal while continuing to feed maggots with a tiny sprinkling of caster.

You may get slightly fewer bites but they are usually very good at picking up the larger specimens from a shoal.

I have also done well using them as floaters for Rudd off the surface and had some really good Tench and Bream catches in club matches fishing on the bottom when others had stuck to maggots and corn and other standard baits and failed to connect with many of the Tench and Bream or didn't catch any.

But as others have said they have to be fairly fresh because I've found that dead or frozen ones are virtually useless other than when used in groundbait. You will still catch a few fish on them when they are stale and dead but you might as well carry on using maggots because the dead and stale casters won't be anywhere near as good as fresh ones.

Keith

Keith do you mean keep them covered in water whilst on the bank and whilst keeping them in the fridge? In other words at all times!

Mike, because I always mix my old maggots with my new ones I nearly always have a selection of casters that have turned at different times and I have all the various colour shades they go through before going black/really dark. I use them directly on the hook on their own, in ones twos or more, combined with maggot and/or corn as cocktails and they catch me all kinds of fish....especially barbel, they out fish pellets n'all .
I find I can hide a hook up to a size 14's animal or superspade inside a caster easy enough and just use single caster as bait, or I can also side hook a maggot or three on with it if I want to. People will laugh about hiding the hook but believe me hiding the hook can and does make a massive difference some days, especially when roach fishing or fishing for educated dace....even barbel.

Oh, forgot to say, I never buy casters, I can't see the point when you've got the maggots already!

Keith M said:

When you use them keep them covered in water otherwise they will all end up floating and will be virtually useless as loose feed.

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I know you're talking about the warmer months Keith - but for those not used to using them, during the very cold weather, they'll keep OK for a session without the water - all you'll get is frozen fingers every time you bait up........

I fish far more caster than any other bait.
Its a great bait probably the most used bait by uk river match anglers ,had been for a long time.

mikench said:

Keith do you mean keep them covered in water whilst on the bank and whilst keeping them in the fridge? In other words at all times!

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I only cover them in water once I'm on the bank and I just keep them damp and cold in a fridge overnight in a bait box placing a damp cloth or sheet of cling film over them inside the box to minimise the amount of air that gets to them.

Most good tackleshops will sell good quality caster but some lesser shops may sell you sub-quality caster which is often dead and stale to begin with, and some add preservative to them so be careful where you buy them from, dead and stale caster usually have a distinctive dull appearance and a smell of their own once opened and will tend to crush a lot easier than nice fresh and slightly crispier caster; and a dead and stale caster will definately be inferior to a really fresh caster.

Keith

I can see I have a fun day in store!

Hi Mike, yes, keep them in the fridge, in an airtight bag. Use them within 3 or 4 days. Put them in water while you fish. Leave a few out to darken and turn to floaters, and you can try these as hookbait as an alternative to the sinkers.

Btw – the sinking/floating business: Casters are the stage between maggot and fly. When they first turn, they are full of liquid and sink. As they develop, the fly embryo takes shape and they float as the air around the fly in the shell changes the balance.. You're aiming to arrest their development and keep them at the sinking stage, hence the airtight bags and keeping them under water, but you can't hold them back indefinitely and they'll die and begin to decompose if you store them too long. Thus the relatively short shelf life.

A few random caster points. Tackle shop casters can vary in quality. The best casters come from white maggots. You can tell a) by the goo inside when you crush one b) by the colour of the paler, newly turned ones. Dying maggots tends to shrink them, giving you smaller casters. Understandably, some shops caster all their left-overs, but the best ones use only whites. You can keep them in the plastic bag you buy them in, but often the casters touching the bag suffer “fridge burn” and get darkened patches. To keep your casters in the kind of luxury you yourself would enjoy, decant them so they almost fill an airtight container, like a baitbox with no holes in the lid.
On top of them place some dampened newspaper, cut to fit the box. When it's full to the brim, or a bit over, put the lid on tightly. These casters will thank you for it by outshining and outlasting their cousins, degrading in a poly bag.

When to use them? Well, they're very good, in groundbait or loose fed, for attracting and holding bream, but since your local bream hurl themselves on your pellet and corn feed, you would be catching the same fish with a dearer and more temperamental bait. They're a great river bait for pretty well all species, used in various ways, but I know you're mainly on stillwaters just now. So I'd suggest you choose a stillwater with plenty of roach and target them.

A good feed for roach is a mix of hemp and casters, 50/50 is as good a ratio as any to start with, in a bait tub, just covered in water, and once you've got your rig set up – a 3 or 4 bb waggler, set just off bottom, with the shot mainly round the float and just a couple of small shot down the line, fished a couple of rodlengths out – you can feed a dozen bits of this mix every couple of minutes, or every cast when you start to get bites. On the hook you can use a caster, two casters or even a maggot or two. And be prepared for the fish to start intercepting the falling feed – the sign is that you get bites as your bait drops – whereupon you can shallow up to meet them halfway.

This post has gone on a bit, but I wasn't sure how much you already know. Casters are a bit dearer and more trouble to care for than maggots, but they will catch a better class of fish – the immature fish that dive on maggots don't seem so interested - and it's well worth getting to know the in's and out's. Some of my most enjoyable fishing has involved nothing more than a cupful of casters and a winter canal.

Cheers Kev, I know(knew) nothing about casters so will try them this week with hemp and maggot. I will target roach and hope my friends will stay away!

I might set up where we sat and see how I go! I may even catch a tench!

Very useful and informative response by the way! Thanks Kev!

Ps I might try one of those "expensive" floats we bought of the net! I used one a couple of weeks ago and found it to be very sensitive for rudd and roach!

If I was limited to one bait then it would be caster. It will take any fish that swims. There was a six year period in the 1960's on the Trent when I only used the caster, plus seed baits. For a five hour river match on the float I would use 3 pint of caster and 3 of hemp and at least half as much again if it was a Feeder job. I would fish them single or double on a 16 hook. As has already been said, when using a single caster completely bury the hook. Fresh casters are essential for roach, they will not touch a rancid caster, where as chub will lap them up. In the past I have spent hours riddling and taking off casters, ducking them and bagging them up (at the expense of valuable drinking time) to ensure I had the best bait on the bank. Pete.

I know my limitations Pete; I am just not fastidious enough!

I will experiment with the pint I ordered and my hemp and hopefully will have something interesting to post about on the hdygo thread!

Mostly already said, and more, by OP's, but cheers, Mike. Yes, there seemed to be plenty of roach about at GG, even though we weren't equipped for them, baitwise. That would be a good place to give the casters a try. Feeding is the thing that makes the big difference. When you're doing your bream feedering, the more you catch, the more you feed, as you fill up your feeder each time you land one and cast out again. When you're after the roach, it helps to keep keep the hemp and casters dropping down to the fish through the water, so it's a good idea to choose a spot you can comfortably cast to and control your float, then feed small amounts regularly to exactly that spot. Casters are less of an instant bait than maggots, so don't be put off if you have a slow start until the fish home in on the feed and start to look for it. Fishing the Trent here the other day, I fished for about 3 hours. In the first hour, I had a few roach; in the last hour, dozens.

Got my casters and some pinkies so all set for tomorrow if the weather plays ball!