Big bream

[Dick Dastardly]

Played around with "liquid" baits in my carp days.These were mainly in the form of Gelatine or sausage skin injected with flavour.

 

Not sure if this would be the way to go though. Chris exactly why is it your wanting to use fake baits?

[Steve Walker]

Must admit, I've bought some fake maggots and corn with the intention of using them for tench, but I was thinking of them as more of a visual/tactile stimulus than needing to taste good. I thought that if surrounded by real food it wouldn't matter. After all, I don't sniff each grain of rice in a pilau, and I wouldn't notice a few tasteless ones in a mouthful! On the other hand, maybe it would make a difference.

[Angly]

What colour is the bottom of the coarse lake?

[Anderoo]

What colour is the bottom of the coarse lake?

 

It's either gravel or silt, maybe some weed in places Angly. I believe the water is currently still clear.

[Steve Walker]

Well, these fake maggots are earning a bit of confidence from me - no fish yet, but two missed runs.

[Vagabond]

Well, these fake maggots are earning a bit of confidence from me - no fish yet, but two missed runs.

 

 

Fake baits for "taste and smell" fish go against all my instincts of the last 68 years....and yet... I think of all those false bites on split shot that you get from roach, especially when using hemp or pellet.

 

I've got some fake sweet corn someone gave me and I've never used....dangit !, I'll dig it out and give it a try.

 

Has anyone tried a No 1 shot squeezed on the shank of a #16 hook for roach ? You read it here first !

Edited May 8, 2009 by Vagabond

[Vagabond]

I vaguely remember a short practical course in histology at university - the science of fixing and staining tissues for microscopic examination. It mostly sticks in my mind because it was very, very, very dull,

 

Ah yes, awoke a distant echo with me also.

 

The word "mordant" unearths itself from my memory banks - not to describe the dullness, but as a permanent fixer for dyes in tissues.

 

Here ya go

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordant

 

a common mordant is urine ! (that doesn't mean you should go and water Budgies baitbox)

 

but just as you don't want the flavour leaking (ouch) out too quickly, neither do you want it made insoluble.

 

What is needed is a slow-release mechanism, like those used for the once-a-week/once-a-month medicines.

 

Its not my field, but I understand a large meshed molecule of about 50+ carbon atoms is used

 

The term Buckminster Fullerene comes to mind. (I'll Google it in a minute)

 

There ya go again

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerene

 

Probably too expensive to be practical

Edited May 8, 2009 by Vagabond

[Chris 1]

Budgie,

 

I think like a lot of people I never had any confidence in fake baits at one time.

 

I got talking to another bream angler one day who said he nearly always catches on them, plus I had heard more and more reports of double figure bream being caught on them especially in the winter months. So I decided to give it a go.

 

5.a.m on a very foggy and cold morning I had just given up hope, when I got a series of single beeps. I prayed and prayed that it was a bream, and so it was at 10 lb 4 oz.

 

However, "big" bream angling as you know must be one of the hardest and frustrating species to catch by design, I have seen hardened anglers drawn near to tears.

 

I am struggling again now, and I am at the stage where I am thinking do big bream favour fake corn mostly in the colder months and if so why? and is it more of a sight thing? and is it time I tried something else? I have caught lots of Tench on it near to double figures throughout the season. I suppose the difficulty of big bream fishing is what starts to make us doubt ourselves. One day we think we have cracked it, and the next the gremlins appear.

 

I am certain it is more down to location than anything else. The one thing in common that we all seem to expierience is that big bream do not show themselves that often, and that there does not seem to be any pattern in their movements.

[Steve Walker]

Fake baits for "taste and smell" fish go against all my instincts of the last 68 years....and yet... I think of all those false bites on split shot that you get from roach, especially when using hemp or pellet.

 

I know exactly what you mean. I wonder, though, to what extent they become vision and touch fish having located food by taste & smell. The fake maggots I've got do feel like real ones. I have a feeling that with bottom grubbing fish like tench and bream, any object which is amongst food particles and has a similar enough density to behave like a food particle when sucked at will get taken. Now, is the trigger for immediately spitting it out what it tastes like, or what it feels like? Or something else entirely? I'm not sure that rubber maggots could be rejected by taste in a mouthfull of maggots and mud. We need a big aquarium and some tench and bream!

 

Just to add, on the density issue, they float. You can use them to pop baits up, or to balance the weight of the hook.

Edited May 8, 2009 by Steve Walker

[Steve Walker]

Probably too expensive to be practical

 

Sigma sell it in various purities - soot with a 7% mixed fullerene content is about £7/g, 98% C60 is about £80/g. Possibly a bit on the pricey side for feeding to fish