Your swim or theirs ?

[Dales]

Obviously all the other posts on this thread are correct but I do have my own take on the situation

 

I think the etiquette faux pas lies with the pre-baiter in telling the other angler that they had been pre-baiting the swim and expecting them to give up their swim.

 

If other anglers know you are pre-baiting other then your inner circle then you are doing it wrong, that includes seeing you do it and telling them you are doing it.

 

As stated the best thing to do is bait a number of swims and so you have multiple options of swims when you turn up. Reserving swims and laying claim to them is never going to go down to well on premier day ticket waters/syndicates or indeed club waters. If you want a swim drop your gear in it and most anglers take that as acceptance that a swim is occupied.

 

Most waters have rules on pre-baiting and occupancy of swims and you are often deemed to be fishing from when you drop some gear in a swim and your 24 hour ticket starts that's a good enough pointer to go on whether a swim is occupied or vacant, otherwise you are just walking around. Each water will have it's own take on what is deemed a vacant or occupied swim and clubs/syndicates often have rules on not occupying more then one swim at a time and limits to how long you can stay on a water.

 

When some one has paid a lot for the privilege to fish I don't think it is right to try to make them feel awkward about taking a free swim. Obviously it's best to pre-bait on waters that are not always busy and its not much point in baiting "thirties bay" and expecting it to be free when you choose to fish if it's called thirties because it regularly produces 30lb Carp and not because the peg numbers are in the thirties.

 

Get your pre-baiting right and no one needs to know you are doing it and no one gets to feel awkward.

 

First rule of pre-bait club, you don't talk about pre-bait club.

 

And if there was a second rule it might be Secret Squirrels do it better

[Dales]

Sorry Dave, i am rubbish at not posting

 

I am rather enjoying our little exchanges, your return to posting has livened things up a little. Good to see John W about and notice Emma and a few others who have not been around recently have added the odd post. Hopefully a few more might pop up.

 

See you on the bank in the coming weeks.

[Dave H]

 

 

Dale...I try too. Some I know are a bit brash and some I know can be interpreted in different ways (I am not to good at that at times) but I hope I put a bit of mix in there with seriousness and a bit of side swiping to hot things up. I had a break for 6 months as I fell very ill and had no interest in anything so some is a bit of lack of fishing and some excitement. Some are a bit daft like zander not getting to see in the dark which some will find quite a pathetic post but others a joke and others latch on to it and what's amusing is just a silly thread starter like that turns into a great debate.

There are some very good anglers on here but then can an angler judge another just by a different view i don't really think so.

Dale, Don't be daft offcoarse nothing changes . I have not tasted your tea yet . That can tell you much about an angler

[RUDD]

Dales - secret squirral pre baiting is harder to do than it sounds!

Trying to put a bit of feed into/onto your choose spots with other anglers present can be a challenge.

Most of my spots are within throwing distance by hand but not all.

The ones within throwing distance can be feed in one hit, I put the required bait in a small bait tub and wet if needed, I wait for a moment when the other anglers are distracted (phone call, having a pee, casting, making tea (ok on one occasion I have rang a fellow members mobile with bait tub ready in the other hand )) and in it goes in one hit.

For spots further out on occasion I have made up big balls of sticky pellet, groundbait or BIG pva bags.

Again timing is the key so you only make the one big splash (did you see that carp crash?) when the others are distracted.

If others are very close to my spots I will leave the prebaiting alone for them spots. One so spots are not revealed and two because I dont want to ruin other anglers chances whilst they are fishing.

I have also found the blatent being seen to be walking around having a look approach is sometimes better than sneaking about looking suspicious. Once last year I was spotted walking towards one angler who gave the old arm in the air greeting, in the time between being spotted and reaching his peg a handful of bait went into three spots without me missing a pace.

 

Some may be thinking WTF is it worth it at this point.

I only prebait at one water which is a hard water at the best of times. I dont put much bait in, my approach is a little at a time but put it in two or three times a week. Is it worth it? Yes, compared to most last year I had some good sessions with only a few blanks.

Most of the time I prebait and no one is about but sometimes they are.

Edited March 16, 2013 by RUDD

[Anderoo]

On the rivers, I've often had people fish a swim that I'd carefully baited and rested. It's the risk you take, and can't blame them for fishing there. I never make a fuss or even tell them I'd baited it, just the usual 'hello, how's it going'.

 

However, if I'd been baiting a quiet swim somewhere that never got fished and someone who knew about it sneaked in and fished it ahead of me to capitalise on my effort, I'd be very annoyed. It's never actually happened and as Dales said, that's why you do it secretly.

[kirisute]

Tell the bloke tough!

On all the lakes I fish pre baiting is banned! Lol,

 

To be honest it would greatly depend on how the bloke asked me....if he was polite and well mannered then chances are I would move off and wish him good luck....if he was arsey and in my face then I'd be setting up my chair and rods whilst happily telling him "tough ****"!!

[Andy Macfarlane]

Let's just hope our Andy_1984's prebaiting exploits pay off this year. He's been feeding a swim near his house where we saw some nice BIG rudd, roach, the odd carp and the usual tench last year. He lives on top of the canal so he's got no excuse not to feed a swim or two.

[lutra]

Takes me back to my Ireland days when everyone prebaited pegs. There was battles every day. The well know bream pegs allways seemed to have a prebaited sign in them and nobody fishing them. Nowonder there was battles.

 

 

[Guest 1lastcast]

I would bite the bullet and probably not even mention it to the imposter, why make the guy feel bad about it? After all you would know that nothing guarantees the peg will be empty.

 

But I admit once to pulling this pre baiting trick on a young angler, I had walked about a mile and a half to a swim on a river I wanted to fish, as I was approaching the area a young lad and his Dad got there just before I did, I was so pi$$ed off I said I had been baiting up for days and would he mind? And he politely agreed, but I blanked and he caught the next peg down. His reasoning was that all the loose feed I had put in ended up in his swim.

 

Cough!!

[Dales]

Seems like Rudd is the man to see about pre-baiting tactics