Best pellets for general coarse fishing

[The Flying Tench]

Do you use pellets for general coarse fishing?  Which do you prefer and why? The only ones I've used are halibut pellets, originally for barbel but I've also had one or two roach, and 'carp pellets' on which I have had roach, bream and crucians. But in terms of working out a strategy for general coarse fishing I'm not sure which is best. An instinct says that it might be best to keep off the halibut ones in winter as they're so oily, but what about autumn? You'd think the strong smell of the halibut ones would be an advantage, but I've certainly had more bites on my 4mm carp ones than on the 6mm halibut ones. But maybe that's due to size?

Any views?

[Ken L]

I shall be watching this one.

I've just ordered a bunch of 6mm dumbbells in various flavours, so I'll mainly be using those on the general rod for the immediate future.

For targetting the barbel, I still prefer meat because crayfish are not a significant problem in the Midlands.

[S63]

Robin reds are the go to flavour on my local estate lake for the carp and tench but they are banned on one of my club cards.

[BoldBear]

I use Halibut or monster crab pellets on my Barbel streams and rivers but during the Autumn and winter I tend to coat my pellets with halibut or crab paste which dissolves in the current causing a flavour trail downstream.

When I can find some I also use some Lamprey flavoured pellets too.

NB: Ive found that the Dynamite Halibut Pellets are not as oily as some of the other Halibut Pellets are.

Keith

Edited September 8, 2021 by BoldBear

[Whitty]

In my opinion trout pellet are the most attractive pellets for course fish,mainly down to breakdown and oil levels,which are attractive to smaller fish,which in turn are attractive to larger ones,halibuts have a slow breakdown and therefore a slower digestion time,if you want to flavour trouts,get oil based flavours and put a bit in a bag full of pellet,this will slow breakdown a bit,but....

[BoldBear]

We used to use Trout Pellets back in the 80s and 90s for Carp, and by pouring boiling water over them we could mould them into larger baits too.

We used to catch lots of Carp from the WGC lake in Hertfordshire, and some other more local lakes to us using them, however there was a lot of talk in the Angling press back then with experts saying that they were far too rich for a carps digestion, and could do more harm than good, and not being deemed good for the Carp (and other coarse fish) we rightly or wrongly stopped using trout Pellets because of this; even though they would catch us plenty of Carp.

Whether or not this has since changed I don’t know, but I’m still a bit wary of using trout Pellets because of this.

 

Keith

Edited September 8, 2021 by BoldBear

[chesters1]

It was a great bait grind up a batch of trout pel!ets and add an egg or two and it was a wonderful bait ,moulded round a bit of crust on the hook you could hurl it to the horizon .

Boilies had an advantage they didnt break up after a few hours so carp could find them days later and get used to looking for them unlike trout pellet paste which declined in use compared to them.

I have gone back to it on occasion but never had much apart from bream carp seem to ignore it now

Edited August 27, 2021 by chesters1

[Whitty]

Hi Keith,THEY told us trout pellets couldn't be digested by cyprinid species,yet then created marine halibut pellets,more oily,harder etc,a halibut can be fished for two casts of forty minute duration no problem,a trout pellet is softening around its outer edges quite quickly,i've found cyprinids feed better on trout pellet feed,that does not however mean that I throw buckets in,it is a very rare day I throw a kilo as feed into any venue,but all feeding should be carefully thought out imo...