A Simple bait question....

[dizidave]

I very rarely stray from my usual baits, mainly because i dont eally know which others to use and how to use them....

 

I usually use, maggots, bread, sweetcorn and luncheon meat.

 

What im wondering is, am i missing out by not using all these other fancy baits that i can get at my tackle shop? i.e. Boilies, pellets and any other manner of flavour injected goodies.

 

Any comments?

[OP-JB]

I'm not really sure this is entirely relavent but reading from Terry Hearns book he asked a carper who was around when bolies first started to be used. His friend said that instead of catching 1 fish in a day/night they caught ten. Bolies were that instant and that effective.

[Chris Shaw]

I have fished for carp since 1976.

 

When boilies as we now know them came about, I went down to my local club water that was fairly easy for carp.

 

Cast my two boilies out and sat back, come dinner time I had caught nothing, I reeled in one rod and replaced the boilie with the same bait in paste form, and cast it out, sat back and within 20 mins had a carp. Changed the other rod, and the rest of the day I caught carp.

 

This could have been down to the fact that the fish did not know what a boilie was, this did use to happen. I have used loads of boilies and done my share of paste bait and particle fishing.

 

The best catches that I have had in a single sessions IE:- More than one fish in a morning/afternoon/day have been whilst fishing either paste baits or particles.

 

I once had 5 fish in a morning from a fairly hard London rese, the fish went between 12lb and just under 20, not bad for a morning. This I done several times. On one session I had another carp angler next to me, we were both fishing the same area by mutual agreement. I was using chic peas, he was using boilies, I caught several carp, he caught none, best he did was to loose one. He refused to change onto chic peas, which I had offered him. Beats me why, boilies are not the be all and end all of carp fishing. They have a place but are not the ultimate carp bait.

 

Yes they did go mad on boilies on some waters and some they did not.

[Paulg]

Dizidave,

 

Depend what species you are fishing for !

 

I've had more success using baits easily obtained from any supermarket than anything else when fishing for Tench.

 

Fishing for Carp, Barbel and Chub seems to be where boilies etc can make a difference, having said that, my best Barbel, 12.2, fell to simple luncheon meat that had been dusted with curry powder.

 

Paul

[Steve Burke]

I agree with Chris, boilies are excellent baits but IMO are sometimes overused. One of the main reason why so many carp are caught on them is simply because they're used so much.

 

They were developed for carp fishing, primarily to avoid catching smaller unwanted species that couldn't manage them. Yet just about all the members of my Carp Lake syndicate use just boilies. This is despite the fact that the water contains nothing but carp plus the odd pike and eel!

 

This may be the reason that I've done just as well per rod hour on other baits, notably sweetcorn and maggots. I've not just talking about small fish either, but 20lb+ carp. In fact maggots have actually been selective in getting me the bigger fish, whilst sweetcorn has produced many more smaller ones.

 

Flavouring the maggots may have made the big difference here, but I think that just as important is the fact that maggots are different to what the carp are being caught on and thus wary of.

 

Dave, one bait you didn't mentiom was worm. If I were forced to use just one bait for the rest of my life it would be lobworm, which whole or in part every fish above a few ounces will eat. What's more, if you collect them yourself, they're free!

[Hereford_angler]

Sweetcorn all the way!!! It will catch you enything if you feed enough of it. But pellets are a pretty good all round bait also. Im going specimen tench fishng tomorro. Im taking red maggots (similar to tenchs natural food) and sweetcorn (not natural but catches).

Hope this helps.

[chesters1]

on our local lake there are no carp (officialy) except crucians ,i tried mini boilies for the tench and they went berserk for them ,to my knowledge and the bailiffs they had never been used before ,who knows what bait WILL work till its tried

[Nugg]

No one seems to have mentioned cereal baits like hemp,wheat,peas beans etc. some times the old ones can be the best. and yes Chesters, if you can get a wheatabix or a corn flake on a hook why not use that aswell.

[Apache]

I fish a small private lake that contains a head of about 30 carp up to about 30lb in weight. I have only used boilies on rare occasions when nothing is biting just to try and get a bite. I have never caught on boilies except one brand flavoured with strawberrys. However when using Spam or sweetcorn I have had on good days up to five fish in as many hours. I have only fished since I was 8 (i am 15 now) but I allways think the older baits are still very good compared to those used on commercial waters...

[kevthefish]

I think that it is pretty well accepted that particles will produce more carp from a water than boilies, though I have found that I catch a far greater mix of smaller fish (though this could be simply due to the smaller sized baits) and a larger percentage of commons using particles. I am having a very good run of fish at the moment with small - sweetcorn size - pieces of brazil nuts on a hair.