Unusual baits?

[Guest Martin Salisbury]

Following the report of the capture of a carp on a deadbait, it got me thinking.

 

What is the most unusual baits you have used to catch fish with?

 

The most unusual baits that I have had success with are hair-rigged cod liver oil capsules and a piece of strawberry jelly!

 

What unusual baits have had success with you lot?

 

Martin

 

Ps I've caught fish on empty hooks before but I'm not sure whether that counts!

[Guest Gaffer]

A few years ago I got up early,following a night out on the town,to go to a local day ticket water.

Bleary eyed I pulled a tin of baked beans from the cupboard instead of sweetcorn!!

After scrounging a tin opener I had a very good day on the beans,6 small carp to about 8lb I think.

Gives a whole new meaning to 'bubblers'!

Gaffer.

[Guest davidP]

A good few years ago now I was fishing on a now dried-up water called Brown Moss near Whitchurch in Shropshire. This was a water with many small carp but fish over 5 or 6 pounds were very thin on the ground.

I was having a bit of a wander as the fishing was slow when a young lad asked me to look at the fish he'd caught and tell him what it was. He had a little 5 foot rod and tiny reel loaded with about 20 yards of hugely heavy line, the kind they sell as starter kits to those people who don't know anything about fishing, so I wasn't expecting much, maybe a gudgeon or a small rudd. He waded in and dragged out one of those 'starter' keepnets they used to sell (4 feet long, 9 inch diameter).

Jammed into it was the biggest mirror carp I'd ever seen from the water. I had a spring balance in my pocket so I weighed it at just short of 12lb. I asked him what he'd caught it on and he said 'a fag end'! Aparently he'd actually caught it in the no fishing zone that was reserved for people to feed the water birds (and fish). He'd seen someone throw a cigarette butt into the water whilst feeding the birds and noticed that a carp had taken it off the top (they were used to taking bread meant for ducks). He waited until all the people had gone then found a cigarette butt on the bank, stuck it on the hook and cast out. It took seconds for the carp to hit it and then he literally winched it in, got it's head into the keepnet and pushed! Quite an achievement really.

The fish was ok despite its ordeal and we released it safely.

[Guest davidP]

Probably the strangest thing I've caught a fish on is soap!

 

The vundu catfish is the largest species of catfish in Africa (I believe). The main difficulty in catching them is getting through all the hundred of other species that basically live off the same food sources. Any kind of fish or meat bait will either be chewed to bits by small fish (and the majority have teeth so make a good job of it) or swallowed whole by a fish that you'd swear could never ever get a bait that size into its mouth.

It has been discovered however that using a very coarse animal fat based soap will deter practically everything except the vundu. The soap is blue (or occasionally green), comes in foot long bars and is sold as a cheap general purpose soap usable to wash anything from children to clothes.

What you do is slice off a chunk then knead it until it becomes soft. Mould a large egg sized lump around a 6/0 hook then lob it off the back of the boat and set the reel onto freespool (on the clicker). Then the important part seems to be to let the boat drift. It also needs to be a slow drift (so a drogue is useful) but it does seem to make all the difference the slower you go. What seems to happen is that the soap slowly dissolves as it bumps along the bottom and leaves a trail. The fish finds the trail then swims up it to the bait and wallop!

I've used this method a couple of times on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe and it really does work. My best is 55lb so far but on my last trip John Wilson landed one of 95 and the national record is only 110! I would also say that a drifting bait outscore a static by at least 5 to 1, and a slow drift easily outscores a fast one.

 

It would be interesting to see if this approach would work over here although in a lot of case I would think that the water temperature would be too cool to dissolve the soap and leave the trail. Could be an interesting aproach for place like the Ebro or the Soane though.

 

ps you could also at one time on the Llangollen Canal catch ruffe on anythig red including small pieces of red cloth, but it's not quite as exotic as catching foreign catfish on imperial leather!

[Guest Graham E]

I don't know if this is so unusual as I have read of it before but....carp do love jellybabies!!!

 

Corned beef is liked by Barbus, especially when spam is the norm

 

And just to prove that some stories ARE true, I once caught a Pike that had taken a perch that had taken a gudgeon! A Fish Sandwich. The pike was not hooked but was only 3lb and could'nt release the 8oz perch.

[Guest dickspin]

well i cant top some of these stories but ive got a funny thing 2 tell u all.when i go carping i always use dairilea lunchables.u know the little kiddy packes with ham and cheese and biscuits.well what i do is i sandwich 2gether a buiscuit then a ham then a cheese and then another biscuit.i break it in half and stick it on a large hair rig,and hey presto it worx.the biggest ive had on this is 26lb which dosent sound big but it was the only one of its size in the pond.it got me in anglersmail.ive also had the odd catfish on it as well,and it all happened when iwas mess arsin around with some mates and i stuck it on and got a 14lb mirror of it.i think that carp love meat and cheese and the biscuits kinda pop it up off the bottom,but im not sure.try it yourself.

 

 

regards

 

richard

[Guest Steve Burke]

A 26lbs carp is big!

 

IMO many anglers have got a distorted view of what a big fish is through articles in the press. Angling writers don't catch specimen fish every week even if that's the impression they give, and the reports in the weeklies are the cream of the week's catches from throughout the country.

 

Roughly speaking I reckon that a fish of one third the record is a big fish by national standards, and one of half the record is a specimen. However if you've caught the biggest fish in the lake that surely counts as a specimen for the water!

 

What do others think?

 

------------------

Wingham Fisheries

www.anglersnet.co.uk/fisheries/wingham.htm

[Guest Simon Newbould]

I can't really say that I've caught carp on any unusual baits. If you think about it bait's like sweetcorn were revolutionary when first used at Redmire in the 50's - 60's.. How about Rod Hutchinson's experiments (and success) with Baked Beans in the 70's?

Let's face it, carp are curious by nature and they will investigate anything unusual especially if it "smells" like food...I've seen carp caught on bottom fished marshmallows and Pacers (remember them? sort of minty opal fruits?) but would doubt there long term effectiveness because of their low food value *s*

 

I think possibly the MOST unusual method I've heard of is fishing a totally bare hook over beds of hemp (Rod Hutchinson again I think) in the day's before the hair rig. The theory being that the carp would "hoover" through the beds picking up everything and that even a single grain of hemp might mask the hookpoint...Hutchinson, if I remember rightly used this to devastating effect in the early - mid seventies but would any of us have the guts to try it now? *g*

 

Richard? I'm interested in your popped up Dairylea sandwich... do you think you would have had the same success using a biscuit then cheese then ham then another biscuit? *S* Seriously though, ham and cheese are both proven fishcatchers so your results on the Dairylea's should come as no real surprise..

 

Simon

 

[This message has been edited by Simon Newbould (edited 22 May 2000).]

[Guest RobStubbs]

Steve,

Technically the term speciman is much better deffined for sea fishing where it is a percentage of that particular regions record. In coarse fishing it is very much more difficult to deffine and IMO has to be relative to the water. I would guess a specimen should be something like the top 5% of fish in a venue (probably only deffinable for carp/pike). For other species perhaps 80% of the weight of the lake record. So for example a 30lb carp would be classed as a specimen if the lake record is 40 (I can do the maths on that example ).

 

Really the question boils down to what people want from their fishing. Are we after 'specimens' - getting into a numbers game or just after a good days fishing ? I'd sure like to catch a lake record but I'm happy as long as I catch the odd 'decent' fish and enjoy my time on the bank. That doesn't include packing away in the pouring rain with a cold - Nuff said.

 

Rob.

[Guest Simon Newbould]

Rob,

Hmm, interesting idea but possibly full of flaws. Using the top 5% "rule" would probably have ruled out Richard Walkers Clarissa from Redmire! *S* I'd have a problem differentiating a 30lb lake record carp from a 30lber from somewhere like Wraysbury, surely they're both "specimens"? If you start throwing big imported fish into the equation it becomes even more of a problem. Is 20lb native fish any better or worse than a 20lb french import that's been in the lake for a week? Heavy stuff eh?

 

Simon..