A bait combination for every species with bait expert Dr Paul Garner
The bait you load on to your feeder can make a massive difference to the fish you catch. Here are some of my favourite combinations...
The Method is super-effective for big greedy carp. Recast regularly at the start of a session to lay down a bed of feed, and use a groundbait containing flaked maize, small pellets and other morsels to keep carp grubbing around. Top this off with a shaved 15mm wafter boilie on the hair.
Commercial carp respond well to feed pellets. The bulk of my feed will be 4mm pellets, but to stop the carp getting fixated on these I’ll add a handful of 6mm pellets to the mix. Start with an 8mm banded pellet but be prepared to switch to a larger or smaller bait
Fishmeal pellets with a Method feeder are deadly for bream. I combine sweet and fishmeal elements in all my bream mixes. Sticky pellets, softened with molasses-flavoured water, are a great starting point for bream at range, with pellet, mini-boilie and hair-rigged worm hookbaits.
My light, high-attract groundbait is low in food value – Dynamite Swim Stim Green with added Krill or crayfish powder as a stimulant. On the hook use corn for tench, while for crucians give a 6mm soft pellet, a rubber caster or a bunch of dead maggots a try.
On lakes that get lots of carp bait the roach and rudd will see a Method load as an easy meal. With a 10mm boilie on the hair, load the feeder with a 50-50 mix of dark fishmeal goundbait and brown crumb. For rudd I swap a boilie hookbait for a pop-up fished 4ins-6ins off the deck.
Dr Paul Garner's 10-minute make | The chopped worm method
The Method feeder is a great way of catching tench – the combination of groundbait and chopped worm is hard to beat, especially with my secret ingredient, Krill powder.
Into a bait bowl add three parts of Dynamite Baits’ Swim Stim Green groundbait to one part Krill powder. Mix it up dry to start with.
Wet the groundbait slowly until it will stick well to a flat Method feeder. Leave to stand for a while until the water is fully absorbed.
Finely chop a handful of dendrobaena worms so that they are reduced to a fine mush, then mix the worms into the groundbait.
Use a Quick Stop on a size 12 hair rig to hold a worm in place. The stop can be pushed through the worm, but will then hold it securely.
Alternatively, try swapping the worm for an artificial caster on the hair. This will often produce extra bonus tench.
Dr Paul Garner's 10-minute make | Preparing chickpeas
Chickpeas make a great pre-baiting ingredient and they’re not expensive. You need to prepare them properly though. Here’s how I do mine…
Cover a pint of dry chickpeas with two pints of water in a bait tub.
Add about a teaspoonful of red dye. This will darken the bait down and make it blend in better.
Add a teaspoonful of Scopex No.1 flavour and half a teaspoonful of intense sweetener or Betalin sweetener.
Leave in the fridge overnight so that the chickpeas will be completely rehydrated. The flavour and colour will be drawn right into the bait.
Bargain basement baits
The bait we use can be a big outlay for all of us, especially when faced with venues full of hungry carp, but do you really have to spend a fortune on expensive offerings, or are cheaper alternatives just as good? This week I take a look at some of the bargain basement baits that are out there.
Cut the waste
I am just as guilty as the next man of taking far too much bait with me, especially when faced with a venue that I am unfamiliar with. I just don’t want to turn up and find that people are bagging-up on a bait that I haven’t got in my bag.
To combat this problem, check out the venue’s website or maybe give them a ring before your trip. Most of the time you can get some useful and up-to-date information on what is working.
Even if you have sparse information about the venue, other than the species you’re after and the tactics you’re going to use, you can still use this to cut down on bait expenses. I find it better to put ‘all my eggs in one basket’ and go with a clear plan of how I am going to fish with just one or two baits, than take too many.
Rarely do I find that I have too little of a certain bait with me, so think carefully about how much you need, or use baits that can be saved until your next trip if they go unused. This can save a lot of waste and cut your costs too.
Here are some of the cheapest baits around, but ones that will still catch an awful lot of fish...
Often overlooked, bread is a fantastic commercial bait, and one that will catch a range of different species. At this time of the year try punching a slice of bread and pinching the 8mm disk around the shank of the hook. Bread has the obvious advantage of being highly visible, and also very light and fluffy, making it ideal on days when the fish are not feeding confidently.
Also, try fishing bread over groundbait, as the light texture of the hookbait resembles the fine particles of feed. To bulk out your groundbait, mix it as normal and then add an equal amount of finely-liquidised bread to achieve a rich feed that will break down quickly and form a carpet of bait.
We really overlook cheese baits in the UK, but go over to the continent and cheese-flavoured baits are among the best-sellers. Some of the pre-packaged ‘snack’ cheeses have a great consistency and strong flavour that singles them out as top hookbait choices. Best of all, they are cheap.
If you have a meat cutter then this will make short work of rubbery blocks of cheese, turning them into the perfect size for both the hook and for feed. Cheese really is a brilliant carp bait, and if you punch smaller pieces you will be surprised at what other fish species you will catch too!
Meat can be quite an expensive bait, but by shopping around you can find some real bargains, and because it is rather filling, most of the time you will only need a relatively small amount.
Garlic sausage is one of my favourite meat baits, as it has the perfect soft texture, but stays on the hair well. You can find it on the deli counter of your local supermarket. The strong aroma is also a noted carp and bream attractor, and in recent seasons small pieces of meat have caught me a wide range of different species.
Cut the sausage into 10mm thick slices and then use an 8mm meat punch to produce hookbaits that can easily be hair-rigged. Once I have punched out as many baits as possible I break up the remnants and use this as my loosefeed.
I like to use a soft paste, which is ideal for fishing either on the pole or on a long float rod down the edge. A more selective bait than my other choices, paste often sorts out the bigger carp and will also pick up bream and tench. Buy bulk bags of paste, as you only need to mix up as much as you need and the rest will keep for future trips. Go for a fishmeal-based bait at this time of the year.
You can make paste out of your favourite groundbait too. Just mix it quite wet and it will bind together well enough to be carefully swung out for margin fishing. If you want a tougher paste then instead of using water, mix the dry powder with an egg as this will bind it together much more firmly.
Dr Paul Garner's potato hookbaits
I suppose you could say that potato hookbaits really are as cheap as chips! While not suitable as feed, potato can easily be cut into slices and punched to make a tough hookbait. Better still, it takes on colours and flavourings readily, making it a very low-cost, easy-to-use alternative to other hookbaits.
Cut a potato into 10mm thick slices using a sharp knife. There is no need to remove the skin.
Use a bait punch to produce your plain hookbaits. Punches of 10mm and above work best with this quite tough bait.
Add a teaspoonful of Strawberry flavouring and half a teaspoonful of red dye, and shake well so that the baits are evenly covered.
After a few minutes the potato will have absorbed the colour and flavour. For best results, leave overnight in the fridge.
Potato baits are easy to hair-rig and are long-lasting, making them ideal for use with the Method feeder.
Prepare your pellets with Tommy Pickering
Pellets are without doubt the most effective bait on commercials at this time of the year, but a lot of them float initially when they come out of the bag. They may only stay on the surface for 10 seconds before dropping to the deck, but in even the slightest breeze this will lead to your bait drifting out of the swim, and sending fish with it. Take a look at this simple trick to make every single pellet sink the second it hits the water.
Take a handful of 4mm or 6mm pellets and place them in a bait box full of water. You will instantly notice that a proportion of them float. Once you have done this, pour the water and wet pellets away, wipe the box dry and add the rest of the bag of pellets to the tub.
I used to add sunflower oil to my pellets but now use a product that’s even more effective. To every pint of bait I use I add a capful of Sonubaits Clear Pellet Oil. It comes in three flavours – F1, Krill and Scopex – and all three release plenty of attractive scent into the water.
Place the lid back on the bait tub containing the pellets and shake the contents around vigorously for approximately 10 seconds. This will make sure that the oil spreads evenly, and that every single pellet gets a good coating.
Take the lid off and the pellets are ready for use straight away. The key difference to adding water is that the oil will not make your pellets swell and if you don’t use them all that session, you can take them home and they won’t go mouldy.
Six easy steps for using corn
There are few cheaper and more effective baits for commercial fishery carp at this time of year than sweetcorn. A large tin from the supermarket will set you back less than a pound, but it can provide enough bait to last the best part of a session. Corn is highly effective for a number of reasons, and high on that list is its bright colour and softness, especially when compared to a 6mm pellet or a cube of meat.
The colour makes corn stand out when fished on its own or over a bed of another feed, while its softness is much loved by all fish. It’s also not particularly filling, as a grain of corn boasts a high water content so carp can trough away for hours without getting full. It’s also brilliant for other species, with bream, tench and even quality roach all loving the yellow stuff!
Try sweetcorn on different colours
In its natural form, corn is bright yellow, and that’s perhaps the main reason for its effectiveness. Even in coloured water, fish can easily pick out a grain, and if the lake is slightly clear, this ‘high-viz’ quality comes even more to the fore. However, you can buy corn in different colours and flavours, and on some waters red corn will outfish yellow. If you’re not sure which colour to use, arm yourself with a variety and keep changing on every cast until you catch – even green corn can have its day!
Big hooks
Compared to a maggot or a pellet, corn is a big bait, so you need to match the size of the hook accordingly. On the strike, the hook will pull through a soft piece of corn but you’ll need to be able to mount the bait properly so it stays on during the cast. Pick a hook with a wide gape as this will allow the bait to sit comfortably on the bend, while leaving a decent amount of the hookpoint on show. This will aid hooking when the float goes under. In terms of hook size, a 14 or 16 will be just about perfect.
Choose the right floats
Corn is quite a heavy bait, so this means you have to think big when it comes to floats, especially when fishing in open water. If your float is too light then the presentation will be unbalanced, and the fish will sense this. On the pole, pick a float with quite a big body, such as a rugby ball or diamond shaped one of 0.5g to 0.7g, dependent on the depth. When fishing the margins this can be smaller, but certainly no finer than a 4x12 pattern. Shot this with a bulk and one dropper shot and set the rig so that the corn is just resting on the bottom.
Combine it with other baits
Fished on its own, corn is deadly, but it can be improved by feeding it with other baits. Hemp is brilliant when fed to create a bed on the bottom, over which corn hookbaits are fished to really stand out. Cubed 6mm meat is another winner at this time of year, mixed 50/50 with corn as feed. You can also pop a few grains into chopped worm and caster feed and this will give you the option of changing from a worm hookbait to a piece of corn if small fish are a problem.
Hooking Corn
There is a right way to hook corn, and although you can simply nick the hook through the side, it will eventually work loose and be hanging on by a thread. The best way to mount a grain of corn is to pierce it through the rounded end and work the hook down the grain so it comes out of the flattened bottom end. This ensures that all of the shank and most of the bend is inside the grain, leaving just the hookpoint on show. Using double corn also adopts the same principle.
Give it a go in shallow water
Should you be faced with fishing the far side of a snake lake or a shallow margin, corn can be transformed into a superb shallow-water feed. All it needs is a food blender to whizz the corn about for a few seconds to chop it into smaller pieces. When fed, it’ll create a lingering cloud, while the larger pieces will sink that bit slower. You can even go the whole hog and blend the corn into a sloppy soup that’ll put a bigger cloud into the swim. This works particularly well if the fish are feeding off the bottom.
Dr Paul Garner's 10 minute make | Preparing micro pellets
Micro pellets cannot be prepared in the same way as pellets of a larger diameter, simply by soaking or pumping – try to do that and they will quickly turn to a mush.
Instead, you have to add water a little at a time, allowing time for the micros to absorb moisture but never become saturated. You can add liquid flavouring to the mixing water (right) and for an extra ‘kick’ try a teaspoonful of rock salt sprinkled over the prepared pellets.
Add a teaspoonful of Cappuccino flavouring to a pint of lake water and mix well.
Slowly add some of the water to the micro pellets in a shallow mixing bowl. The pellets should soak up the water immediately.
When the pellets start to become tacky, leave them for five minutes so they are able to start absorbing the water.
Carefully add a little more water until the pellets are quite tacky but are still absorbing water.
Sprinkle a teaspoonful of rock salt over the pellets to give them an extra boost.
This is what the finished setup looks like!
10 Early season secrets to help you catch more F1's
There’s no doubt that our stillwater venues are starting to wake up from their winter dormancy, and the fish are already beginning to respond to a bit of feed. Thankfully, tactics such as dobbing bread are now firmly on the back burner, and one bait is coming to the fore – pellets.
Just lately it seems the F1s can’t get enough of them! It’s strange, All winter it’s been maggots and bread, but I guess now the water has warmed up a degree or two the fish simply want to feed. Pellets are far more nutritious than other baits, so try these early-season tips to get the best out of your pellet fishing now…
1) Soaked micros attract fish faster
I am a massive believer in pre-soaking my micro pellets when I’m fishing and feeding this bait. This starts the breakdown process within the pellet and, perhaps just as importantly, soaking a 2mm pellet makes it sink that little bit quicker. This is vital when fishing for F1s because if the feed pellets sink too slowly you tend to get lots of false indications on the float.
A soaked 2mm pellet increases vastly in size once it takes on water. This means I can match my feed to my hookbaits, as I tend to use expanders on the hook.
2) Expander size does matter
I’m a big believer in keeping my options open when it comes to hookbait choice, so I carry a tub full of different sized – and coloured – expanders for the hook. I use expanders in 2.5mm through to 4mm diameters and normally start on a 4mm pellet.
Once bites start to slow down I will just drop down to a smaller expander to keep the bites coming. On the subject of colour, when the water is clear I like a light coloured pellet. This is purely down to visibility as a light hookbait stands out better.
3) Sprinkling feed pulls in more fish
The secret to pulling fish into the peg is to keep bait falling through the water, and so you need to choose a pole pot which has a sprinkle-type lid to help you feed the peg easily and effectively.
What I like to do is fill the pot up with pellets and then ship out to the required spot. Rather than feeding the whole lot in one go, as with normal pots, using a sprinkle lid allows me to get three or four feeds out of each potful of bait.
4) Pot position is crucial
Loads of anglers get this wrong. For accurate feeding your pole pot should be right at the tip of your pole – no more than an inch back. This way, when you tap your bait out, you know you are doing so right on top of the float. It also means your hookbait is in among the loose offerings rather than being 6ins past them.
This may seem like really a obvious tip, and maybe it is, yet it never ceases to amaze me how many anglers I watch feeding for F1s with pots positioned well back from the pole-tip.
5) Light floats will get you more bites
At the moment, with the water still being relatively clear, I’m totally convinced that light floats produce more bites than more robust patterns. They allow the hookbait to behave in a more natural manner. As a guide I use a 10x11 float in 5ft of water and drop to a 6x11 in 3ft.
There’s no better float than the MW F1 Slim (right). This is a slim-bodied float which has a short tip, offering little resistance on the strike as well as sitting quickly in the water.
6) F1's come shallow, even in the cold
When F1 fishing perhaps the hardest part is working out what depth the fish want to be at on the day. At the moment, with the water still cold, it seems the F1s are at their happiest either across or down the edge. This, I believe, is because the water is shallower here and consequently when the sun is out it warms up that bit quicker.
Once the weather and the water temperature start to settle down, though, you will find the F1s will venture back into the deep water once again.
7) Good anglers move swims regularly
Moving swims is very much part of pellet fishing. What you’ll find is you will get a quick run of fish before bites fade. When they do, the best thing is to start a new line. Take today, for example. I was catching on six pole joints straight out in front for 45 minutes before it died.
I then simply added a short half-butt section and fished half-a-metre past my original line and caught again instantly. If you move and get no response, be prepared to move again until you locate the fish.
8) F1's respond to the 10-second rule
When it comes to pellet fishing I’m a massive believer in making the fish ‘have it’ as opposed to waiting for them to do so – and the best way of doing this is through lifting and lowering the rig. This causes the hookbait to rise and fall in the water, a motion that F1s often find irresistible. Bites tend to come just as the float settles back down again.
The best way is to lift the float 6ins-8ins clear of the water and then slowly lower it back in. I then let the float sit for 10 seconds before repeating the process.
9) You'll catch more by dotting the float down
Where pellets are concerned F1s are very delicate feeders, so I fish with my float dotted right down so that you can only see the tip, and I lift at every indication. When I say ‘lift ’I mean exactly that – there’s no need for a hard strike. It’s just a lift of the pole. If a fish is on then I’ll ship it back and if it isn’t then I’ll simply lower the float straight back down again.
Sometimes you’ll lift at the tiniest of indications and think ‘that can’t be on’, only to see elastic stream from the pole-tip and a great big F1 end up in the net.
10) Back shots and a tight line will bring more F1's
Perhaps one of the best tips I have ever been given for F1 fishing is the use of back shots – and when it’s Alan Scotthorne who passes it on you definitely take notice! I fish a string of No9 back shots above the float, with the first one set 3ins above it and the rest spaced at 3ins intervals right the way up to the pole-tip.
Using back shots means I’m forced to keep the pole high and tight to the float. If I drop the pole low, the bottom back shot will sink the float. Using back shots I miss very few bites, as there is no slack line between pole float and pole-tip.
Paul Garner's 10 minute fizzy boilies
There are several things that you can do to increase the pulling power of your hookbaits, drawing carp towards them and stimulating them to feed. In tests I have found that this can make a massive difference to catches, often doubling the number of fish netted. Try making these fizzing hookbaits that carp really can’t ignore.
Step 1)
Add a teaspoonful of boilie dip to your chosen hookbaits.Agitate and leave for as long as you can for it to soak in.
Step 2)
Add another teaspoonful of flavour, followed by a powder such as super-sweet pH trigger. Roll the baits to cover.
Step 3)
Repeat step two as many times as you like, building up layers of soluble attraction around the hookbaits.
Step 4)
Coating the lead with the same liquid and powder combo will create a slick of attraction right through the water column.
Spice up your zig rigs this spring!
Give your zig rigs a makeover this spring with bait expert Dr Paul Garner, by following his spring tweaks for suspended baits.
You’d think that longer days and a hint of warmth in the sun’s rays would see carp catches soar. Trouble is, often the conditions flatter to deceive and many a time I’ve returned been frustrated by my lack of success in circumstances that looked perfect.
Yes, my swim choice may have been spot-on, but my baits were several feet below the carp. These fish spend a lot of time up in the water all year, but bright sunny days will see them anywhere from half-depth to just below the surface. You might see tell-tale black backs lifting slightly above the surface.
Also look out for fly hatches - waterfowl congregate to gorge themselves on this easy meal and the carp won’t be far behind. So what’s the key to unlocking these conditions? Zigging, of course!
Real bait zigs
If your local venue doesn’t allow the use of artificial baits, or you simply have more confidence in using a ‘real’ bait, my advice would be to get hold of some small marshmallows from the baking section of your local supermarket.
These soft, super-buoyant baits are just the right size and can be hair-rigged or side-hooked. On a size 12 hook and 0.20mm line a marshmallow will support up to a 6ft hooklength. Longer than this, and the extra buoyancy of an artificial bait is more effective.
Artificials
Carp are inquisitive creatures. Watch them up close and you will notice that they will sample anything even slightly edible that is put in front of them. This goes just as much for bits of cork and foam rubber as it does for intricately crafted Zig Bugs. A small piece of black foam is, for many hardened carpers, the only zig bait they use, but I think it can pay to ring the changes.
Changing the colour of the foam, or swapping to cork, can bring extra bites when black is not producing. Zigs are mainly about visual appeal, so using a bright colour can make the bait scream ‘eat me!’. Movement can also be added to a zig simply by impaling a maggot or small worm on the hook. It is surprising how much the wriggling moves the bait around, giving it extra appeal that will last for an hour or more.
I prefer Zig Bugs over straight foam for much of my zig fishing, but not because they resemble any of the carp’s natural diet. I like the fact that the dressing on a Bug disguises the hook, making it less conspicuous. Hook and bait as one also leads to better hookholds than with a hair-rigged bait.
Sold on flavours
A few years ago now I spent a day on the bank with a match fishing friend trying out different zig baits, and the results were quite astonishing. In particular, we were interested in whether flavouring the baits could make a difference. It was a particularly tough day, but we managed to winkle out half-a-dozen carp, every one of which fell to a marshmallow dipped in dilute flavouring.
This is hardly conclusive proof, but it has persuaded me that there are no disadvantages to using flavoured baits, and just possibly they can make a positive difference. The best flavours are those that disperse quickly and rise through the water column. Ester-based flavours, such as pineapple and strawberry, are particularly effective and I will give my hookbait a quick dip in these before every cast.
To feed or not to feed?
Whether to feed anything when fishing with zigs is a tricky question at this time of the year. In the height of summer on a prolific venue I’d have no hesitation in mixing up a bucketful of very sloppy ‘spod soup’ and raining down a cloud of bait over my hookbaits. The splash of the spod actually attracts carp when they are ‘up for it’. On all but the most prolific venues, though, I tend to be much more cautious right now and leave the spod rod at home.
That said, pinging a few 8mm slow-sinking pellets over your suspended hookbaits can work. The pellets will sink, ending up several feet below the hookbait, so there is little risk of overfeeding, although you might draw some of the carp down to the deck.
Six pellets every 10 minutes is enough to evoke a reaction if the carp are willing to respond to the pitter-patter of pellets going in.
Five baits that you must use when coarse fishing!
Check out bait expert Dr Paul Garner's best choices for bait this year...
Choosing just five baiting tactics that you must use for when you go fishing has been a surprisingly difficult task for me. It’s a case of being spoilt for choice – after all, there are just so many ways to catch fish and almost as many baits to use.
In the end my list came down to baits that will not only catch you more fish, but ones that will help you bag a new personal best and experience some high-adrenaline fishing. You’ll notice that soft plastic lures for perch fishing appear on the list – although these are artificial baits, they are fished very much like naturals, and are just as effective.
Here are my top five baits to use – you won’t be disappointed!
1) Catch carp on surface baits
There is no better way of catching carp than off the top, especially if you can get them feeding close in. That heart-in-mouth moment when a big pair of lips engulfs your hookbait and the line tightens is a million times more exciting than sitting behind a set of buzzers.
Yet still so few people have caught on to the adrenaline rush – in the main, I guess, because it can be a frustrating tactic as the carp refuse point-blank to eat your hookbait. Take my advice and find a well-stocked venue to begin your surface fishing quest. Take some 11mm floating pellets and catapult these upwind of any carp you spot sunning themselves on the surface. Now wait.
Don’t even think about making that first cast until the carp are charging from one bait to the next in a race to beat their shoal-mates to the free grub. Only then is it time to flick a freelined pellet or marshmallow out – and success will be virtually guaranteed.
2) Target perch on lures
Numbers of big perch are booming at the moment, although history tells us that this won’t necessarily always be the case – back in the 1960s our stocks were almost wiped out my a mystery disease, and that could happen again without warning.
All the more reason, then, to make sure you bag yourself a specimen stripey this year. While the humble lobworm or a small livebait will account for a lot of chunky perch, soft plastic lures take some beating if you want to net a real biggie.
Drop shotting is the method of the moment – but it is not the only lure fishing technique to use. With the weight anchoring the small soft plastic grub tight to the bottom, drop shotting is great on days when the perch are close to the bottom. This is especially the case during cold weather.
Much of the time, though, perch can be found in midwater and a drop shot is likely to present a lure too deep. Switching to a bright green 2ins-3ins long paddle tail lure on a tiny 1/4oz jig head is then much more effective, as it can be retrieved at any depth. Simply count the lure down as it sinks, start close to the bottom and then with each cast reduce the time before you start the retrieve to fish at different depths.
3) Make your own gel hookbaits
With a plethora of brilliant baits available straight from your local tackle shop, you may wonder why I still insist on making many of my own baits. It has to be said that I enjoy ‘messing about with bait’, but I genuinely believe that making your own gives you the freedom to come up with something a bit different from the norm.
I think my home-made gel baits definitely give me an edge. I often use them with the Method feeder, but they are just as useful for other tactics. Using gelatine or Veg-e-gel powder, available from the cooking section of supermarkets, I can set any liquid or powdered additives into a firm bait that literally melts slowly in water. Best of all, I can make a batch of bait in just five minutes. This is very different to other Method hookbaits, and has caught me fish on days when other baits have failed to work and gives me total control of the bait I use.
4) Spray pellets for chub
On my West Midlands rivers chub numbers are booming, with shoals of hungry two to five-pounders providing fantastic sport on float and feeder. These fish have grown up seeing pellets nine months of the year, thanks to barbel anglers. So pellets are obvious baits to target these chunky chevins.
A small Kamasan Blackcap feeder loaded with 3mm pellets works well, but not only more effective, but much more fun is to fish a pellet waggler tight against far-bank overhangs and spray 6mm pellets.
Expect bold bites as the chub compete for the free food. For best results keep a constant flow of pellets going in – the longer you feed, the more the chub will lose their natural wariness and the more fish you will put in the net.
5) Use boilies for specimen barbel
If a big barbel is at the top of your bucket-list for 2017, take my advice and use boilies. You may not catch as many, but my trials have revealed a massive increase in the average size of the fish I have caught on big baits.
Don’t be afraid to go-large either – 18mm or 20mm baits, fished either singly or doubled-up, make a decent mouthful for a double-figure barbel. Expect to catch few male fish under 7lb, but the large females will be suckers for a decent meal.
Most barbel tend to be caught on savoury-flavoured boilies, simply because that is what most people use, but dare to be different. Sure, you will catch on meat or fish-flavoured baits, but curry spices work great, especially in colder conditions, and I have found sweet flavours to be equally effective. Chances are no one else will be using them.
There is no point in feeding hemp or pellets if you are fishing with large boilies. Stick to just large baits, introducing a handful of bait on a PVA stringer and catapulting the odd boilie upstream to top-up the swim.
Steve Ringer's top 10 baits to use when fishing commercials.
Are you looking for for an edge when it comes to being on a commercial fishery? Then follow match ace Steve Ringer's top 10 baits that he uses when fishing for carp on a commercial as these tips will give you the advantage that you need.
1) Margins – big baits means more bites
When fishing in the edge, one of the hardest things is getting a carp to pick up your hookbait, especially when a lot of them are feeding. I would go as far as to say there is nothing more frustrating than being able to see carp in the edge and then not be able to catch them. This is where a big ‘target bait’ such as 10-12 dead red maggots really comes into its own.
If you think about it there are going to be lots of maggots on the bottom so if I fish just two or three on the hook it’s going to take a while for a carp to find them. Fish a bunch, however, and bites can be instant! That’s how much of a difference it can make.
2) Blow up your pellets
A few years back I was doing a lot of straight lead and pellet fishing but always felt I was missing an edge over other anglers who were fishing the same tactic. Then one day when I was packing up I noticed a few pellets had fallen under my seatbox. What struck me was the size of the pellets – they had taken on water and were almost twice the size.
This got me thinking as the same thing had to be happening in the water once the pellets had been on the bottom a while. I therefore decided to pump some hard 8mm pellets and leave them in water so that they ‘blew up’ into massive, soft pellets.
Once I got the process of prepping the pellets rightthe results were staggering and I was getting more bites than ever before on my ‘new’ blown pellets! I had found the edge I had been looking for and ever since that day when lead and pellet fishing I always have a few ‘blown’ pellets with me.
3) Hard pellets - noise is the key
When the fishing is hard and there isn’t a lot happening I am big believer in trying to draw a few fish into the swim and the best way to do so is to make a noise with hard pellets. I pick up my catapult and ping just 3-4 pellets on top of the float every 20 seconds.
The reason this works is that carp home in on the noise of the pellets hitting the water but at the same time I’m not putting lots of bait on the bottom and risking killing the swim. Size-wise this tactic works best with either 6mm or 8mm pellets because anything smaller doesn’t make enough noise to help pull a fish or two into the swim.
4) Coloured water equals red meat
I love fishing meat but it loses its effectiveness when the water is extremely coloured. When this is the case I will take a handful of my 6mm cubes and dye them red. The reason being when the water is very coloured red offers a strong silhouette and gives the carp a bait they can really home in on.
I was always sceptical about red meat in the past but I’ve had good results using it too many times in coloured water conditions for it to be coincidence. I use Ringers Red Liquid to dye my cubes and will only dye my hookbait meat and not the cubes used for feeding.
5) Foul-hooking? Hemp is the answer
I’m often asked how to prevent foul-hooking carp when fishing meat close in?
My answer is to use hemp. But, and it’s a big but, it has to be used in the right way. If you feed it little and often along with the meat then there is a danger the carp can get preoccupied on it and you won’t be able to catch them.
It’s much better to use hemp purely as settling bait. So at the start I will pot in two thirds of a large 250ml Drennan pot of just hemp to form a bed. Then if I start to catch a few and then start to suffer from foul hooking, I will simply introduce another big pot of hemp to settle them back down again.
6) Feed heavy close in to get out of jail
Every now and again in a match you need a get- out-of-jail card and, while most people use the margins for this, I prefer to fish short on a top kit straight in front of me. I mix hemp, corn and meat and simply lash it in to create the impression of someone packing up and throwing all their bait in.
I normally kick the swim off with three big handfuls of bait and go straight in over the top because quite often I will get a quick response from a fish within seconds. From that point on I will keep lashing the bait.It’s an approach that doesn’t always work but it has paid off on many occasions for it to be my ‘go to’ line when things aren’t going to plan.
7) Pack in the particles for bream
The secret to building a big weight of bream is particles particles – casters, pellets, worms etc. I pile in the particles in the first hour to put a bed of bait on the bottom. To do thisuse a bigger feeder and cast more often. Then when the bream turn up, perhaps 90 minutes in, I have a lot more bait on the bottom to hold the bream for longer.
8) Corn – two grains are better than one
Sweetcorn is a fantastic bait all year round but it’s particularly effective at this time of year. The interesting part about corn is that when it comes to fishing it on the hook then I always tend to find that two grains are without doubt better than one.
Loads of times I have caught on corn and alternated between single and double on the hook only to find two grains constantly produced quicker bites and bigger fish. There are two possible reasons for this, firstly the bigger bait stands out more over the loose offerings so the carp spot it that bit quicker, or it could be that everyone tends to fish a single grain of corn so two grains gets treated with less suspicion.
9) Stand out or blend in?
When fishing the Method or Hybrid feeder there are loads of different hookbaits you can use but I like to simplify things by dividing them into two camps, blend-in and stand-out. Blend-in baits are those such as hard pellets that match the pellets on the feeder. When the fishing is hard this type of bait takes some beating.
The reason for this is that when the fishing is hard there aren’t many fish in the swim so those that are there can afford to be picky about what they pick up. Hence a blend-in bait works well as it can trick even the wariest of carp.
If, however, there are loads of fish in the swim then stand-out baits such as mini fluoro boilies or bread really come into their own. These work because they are highly visible and give the carp something they can really home in on.
10) Give your meat a double cut
A couple of years back I spent a lot of time at Tunnel Barn Farm fishing meat into the shallow water across to far banks and islands. The problem was I struggled to hold the fish in the swim for long periods when feeding 6mm cubes.
What I needed, of course, was to create a cloud to firstly draw the fish in and then hold them in the swim once they arrived. To achieve this I decided to create a meaty mush by passing around a third of my 6mm meat cubes back through the cutter again, giving myself a feed made up of different sizes which almost exploded on the surface of the water.
This was added to 8-10 6mm cubes in my pot so when it was fed the cloudy mush pulled the fish into the swim and once they arrived they followed the 6mm cubes down to the bottom so I could catch them!
How to give your maggots and pellets the edge they need!
Maggots and pellets are without doubt the top springtime baits on commercials, but could the deadly duo be made even more effective? You bet!
Gallons of each are piled into our favourite fisheries and while bites are almost assured when using them both, your catch returns could be given an even bigger boost by making a few simple yet underrated tweaks. Maver-backed matchman Jake Robinson has been almost unbeatable in recent months, scoring numerous victories in competitions that have been contested by some of the country’s biggest stars.
Rather than apply tactics straight from the textbook, the Staffordshire-based rod has dared to be different and that bold approach has served him well time and time again. “Flavourings are often dismissed but I’ve worked on four different combinations that will work wonders at this time of year when big nets of carp, F1s and silverfish are in mind.”
“By giving my maggots and pellets a colourful and flavoursome edge, I’ve been able to keep the success coming, even when I’ve found myself on pegs described as were no-hopers.”
1) Luminous maggots
Red maggots are the number one choice of thousands of anglers, but could you make them even redder and increase their pulling power? “Red maggots straight out on the bait box aren’t particularly vibrant and I’ve found that adding a bright red liquid to them has several benefits.”
“First of all it makes your hookbait and loosefeed stand out a mile in clear water and the cloud also lingers to draw in fish that would be unaware of the feast waiting for them.” A whole bottle of Bag’em Matchbaits Red Aggressor liquid is added to two pints of maggots the night before a session, swilled around and then left to rest overnight. By the morning your bait will stand out a mile!
2) Pineapple pellets
There is an obsession with fishmeal products on commercials but going the other way and using a very sweet flavouring or additive can often score heavily. “Fish stocks have become accustomed to fishmeal and I think doing something different with your pellets helps attract the wary and often bigger fish into feeding confidently.”
Rather than dampen your micro or 4mm pellets with water, slowly add Pure Pineapple liquid and mix it in. Once all the bait is thoroughly soaked, place the bait lid on, leave to settle for 15 minutes and you’ll then have softened pellets with a difference.
3) Blood red expanders
There will be some days when no matter what you try, you just can’t convince the fish to feed. During those sessions, it is key to make sure that the fish notice your hookbait quickly and don’t fill themselves on loosefeed. “I often feed normal micro pellets and place a vibrant and unmissable target bait on top of that. A blood red expander is much better than anything else in my experience.”
Pump your expander pellets as you normally would and then sprinkle a teaspoon of Super Sweet Meat and Maggot dye over the top. Place the lid on the tub, shake for 30 seconds and you’ll then have blood red expanders that no commercial fish will be able to resist.
4) Yellow micros
When you are fishing in shallow water up against an island or the far bank of a snake lake, it can pay to introduce a colourful cloud. Introduce a couple of spoonfuls of yellow Super Sweet Meat and Maggot dye to your loosefeed. Don’t mix it in too heavily, keeping the powder visible.
“Each time you feed, a small amount of powder will be introduced neat and that creates a cloud that lingers in the swim. Red and green are common colours on commercials but yellow is underrated and as fish don’t see it that often is the reason it is so effective.”
Five ways to prepare your pepperami!
Are you struggling on a water that is heavily fished? Then this bait may be for you seeing as big carp can become wary of standard boilies. So why not try out this unusual bait that may make it easier and give you that killer edge on heavily fished venues.
So in order to keep the bites coming, you need to be one step ahead and offer the fish something a little different. In early spring, one of the best ‘alternative’ hookbaits is Peperami. Peperami is nothing particularly new as a bait, having first found a place in the carper’s bait armoury around a decade ago. Yet to this day its use remains sporadic at best, with most anglers reaching for plastic corn as their first port of call as a ‘change bait’ from boilies.
Such anglers could be missing a trick, because as well as being a durable, cheap and highly attractive hookbait, Peperami is a also a highly adaptable offering that can be used in all manner of different ways. Here we highlight five ‘rami’ tricks for you to try.
1) Fill a pva bag with chops
A small mesh bag containing small chops of Peperami and a pinch of low-oil pellets is a fabulous winter loosefeed. Don’t overdo it though, or you’ll satisfy the fish’s appetite before they get to your hookbait!
2) Grate for extra appeal
For a hookbait full of attractive scent yet low on food value, grate the rami finely, add a few grains of corn and seal a little parcel of the mix in a fine stocking material, tied off with some dental floss and then hair-rigged.
3) Pair rami with a spicy groundbait
A cylinder of Peperami fished in conjunction with a red groundbait laced with chilli powder is an excellent tactic. The highly-attractive mix will draw carp into your swim, where the only sizeable item of food they’ll find is the hookbait.
4) Make a balanced and ‘skinned’ hookbait
To give the fish something totally different to think about, try skinning or coring a couple of rami sections with a meat punch and hair rigging them laterally, with a small slice of cork on top to help critically balance the bait. A deadly set-up!
5) Make a peperami pop-up
To take the buoyancy theme one step further, remove the central cylinder of a rami section with a meat punch and insert a cork plug. This will pop it up off the bottom, right in the carp’s line of sight. Balance the bait with a shot
Top 10 baits to when fishing for big roach!
Roach anglers have never had it so good when it comes to the choice of baits that are on offer. Where once the menu would have been quite limited, in recent years new baits have earned their place alongside the old staples.
Here is my selection of the best roach baits to try, and why each one is so effective.
1) Casters
Just as dark-coloured dead maggots catch a better stamp of roach than white maggots, so casters will catch bigger fish too. Ask your local tackle shop for freshly turned casters, as these will sink well, and their dark red colour makes them ideal for roach.
Casters have a couple of advantages over maggots. First, the hook can be completely buried in a caster, ideal for fishing in clear water for wary roach. Casters also stay put on the bottom and won’t bury under stones or weed. Hemp and caster is a classic combination and my go-to roach bait for river trotting
2) Hemp
No self-respecting roach angler would leave home without a pint of freshly cooked hemp.
Roach love the taste but interestingly, when I have filmed fish underwater feeding on the seeds, they will often pick them up and spit them out repeatedly before eventually swallowing them. I think this is why bites with hemp on the hook can be really fast dips on the float and hard to hit. As a roach attractor hemp is unbeatable, and I will use it in combination with all the other baits in my top 10 to concentrate roach in my swim
3) Maggots
There isn’t a roach alive that won’t eat maggots. Try using a single grub for small roach, stepping up to two or three for bigger fish. Regular feeding is key to building up a good catch – a dozen maggots every 30 seconds is a good starting point.
I clean mine in fresh maize flour and boost them with a few drops of pineapple flavour the night before fishing. To sort out a bigger stamp of roach, try using red maggots or a bunch of dead maggots hard on the bottom. Being less visible, these baits will be less likely to be picked off by small fish, which feed mainly by sight.
4) Hooker pellets
Roach are turned on by the taste of fishmeal, and my local River Severn is turning up increasing number of specimen redfins on pellet baits intended for barbel.
These being hard baits, roach do tend to spit them out, giving fast unhittable bites. A partial solution is to use the softest hooker pellets that you can. I pump my own, which tend to be softer than pre-prepared baits. A 6mm pellet on a size 16 hook is about right. Try adding sweet strawberry and pineapple flavourings to hooker pellets.
5) Tares
Traditionally used as a hookbait when feeding hemp, the slightly larger and softer tares are easy to hook and stand out well as they sink through the water. Tares are very cheap and easy to prepare. Just soak them overnight and then boil for a few minutes until they soften.
Some anglers add a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda to darken the colour of the tares. Tares don’t seem to have a great deal of attraction in their own right, so combining them with hemp is essential. As a hookbait, they tend to attract better bites than hemp.
6) Sweetcorn
A very under-rated roach bait, but one that has caught me some lovely specimens from stillwaters and rivers. Two grains might seem like quite a big bait, but will catch roach from 1lb upwards and be immune to the attentions of smaller fish.
Specimen carp venues are the ideal places to fish this bait for big roach, as many carp anglers will incorporate corn in their spod mix but never use it on the hook – giving the smaller species a free meal and effectively prebaiting your swim.
7) DendrObaena
Worms will catch every fish that swims, androach are suckers for these baits. In fact, in some venues aquatic worms and midge larvae make up a large part of the diet of roach. Chopped worm and caster is a classic combination of feed and hookbait, ideal when you want to put together a mixed bag of fish.
To be more selective for roach, try fishing half a dendrobaena over hemp. Don’t be afraid to use the largest worm that you can for roach, as this will often single out the larger specimens
8) Mini-boilies
It is no surprise that 10mm mini-boilies have accounted for some of the biggest roach in recent times. These relatively large, hard baits are very selective for specimen roach, as smaller fish simply can’t fit them in their mouths. Scopex Squid and Tigernut-flavoured baits have both worked well for me.
It isn’t just carp venues where the roach fall for mini-boilies. I caught my biggest roach from Lochnaw in Scotland on a boilie, simply because it enabled me to single out the larger fish from among the millions of tiddlers that pounced on more traditional roach baits instantly.
9) Groundbait
French match anglers, who know about these things, have long used groundbait to attract and hold roach in their pegs. I use Sensas 3000 Gardons (roach) as the basis for my groundbait mix, adding lots of crushed hemp in shallow water, or when using an open-end feeder.
Roach up in the water are attracted by a light, cloudy mix, but on the deck I stick to dark red or black mixes. When expecting to catch on the bottom, I know the roach will settle over dark feed.
10) Bread
For some reason, bread in all its forms is a brilliant roach bait in running water, but is very inconsistent in stillwaters. The one exception is punched bread, which can be very good whatever the venue. Punch is, of course, just small pieces of flake, and I think its small size is the reason it works in lakes as well as rivers.
River roach, though, are much more willing to take a bigger bait, and a piece of fluffy bread flake the size of a 20p coin is ideal.Feed is liquidised flake, fed either through a small open-end feeder or a tiny bait dropper to ensure it reaches the bottom quickly without first dispersing.
Paul Garner's top tips for colouring your bait!
One of the easiest changes you can make to many baits is to alter the colour, but does this really make any difference to catches? I don’t think that fish are attracted to any one colour, but some are definitely more visible than others in different venues, and this can influence our results.
On heavily pressured venues, using a colour that is different from the norm can also catch you more fish, especially if you use some of the more obscure hues.
What can coarse fish see?
Coarse fish have eyes that are not much different from ours. However, they can see some ultraviolet light beyond the blue end of the spectrum that we can see, useful in deep water where most light is at this end of the spectrum. Rather than what colours fish can see, we would be better asking what colours are visible in the murky depths of a river, or the clear water of a lake? Light at the red end of the spectrum is actually absorbed quite quickly. If you go down to 30 feet then even in a gin-clear lake, reds will appear as shades of grey.
Most of the time, though, we aren’t fishing in water anything like this deep, so the colours we see are not that different to what the fish will be seeing too. At night colour becomes less important. Even though fish can see quite clearly on even a moonless night, they will see in black and white, with bright colours appearing as lighter shades of grey and dark colours like red appearing almost black.
Paul's top tips for dyeing your baits
Many baits will take colours easily, and some anglers who have experimented with unusual combinations have enjoyed surprising success until the fish become ‘wised up’ to them.
Why not experiment yourself, with simple food colourings? The sky’s the limit!
1)
As a general rule, you can make light-coloured baits darker, but you can’t make dark baits lighter. So remember this when colouring your baits. chickpeas, for example, will take red dye easily.
2)
Baits that are naturally moist, such as sweetcorn and chickpeas, can be easily coloured using powdered dyes.
3)
Chop meat into chunks or cubes and then lightly spray on some liquid dye. After a few hours the meat will absorb it.
4)
Groundbaits can be dyed using powdered colours added to the dry ingredients before mixing. Use dark in clear water.
5)
Maggots are very difficult to colour at home, so it is best to leave it up to the experts and buy them ready-dyed.
Best coarse fishing hookbaits to be using right now!
Tommy Pickering gives his opinion on the best hookbaits that you should be using right now if you are wanting to catch consistently.
The rise in temperatures in recent weeks has stirred fish stocks into feeding, but careful consideration still needs to be given to your bait choices if you are to succeed. Pick the wrong hookbait and there’s every chance that your target species will ignore it and leave you struggling for action. If I had to pick five baits to see me through the next few weeks, these are what they would be...
Casters.
These pick out the biggest silverfish in the shoal – the orangey-brown ones are best. Double and single caster works on a size 16 or 18 hook when roach and skimmers are the target fish.
Pellets.
Fish consider these their main food source. Hard pellets in a bait band score on bomb, waggler or pole for quality carp and F1s. Soft expanders are a better option for bonus tench and skimmers.
Meat.
In winter this can be fantastic on the bomb for commercial carp and F1s or river barbel. I push a tin through a meat cutter to create 6mm or 8mm cubes. Avoid cheap, fatty brands that tend to float.
Maggots.
Maggots tend to attract small fish to start with but bigger bonus fish may then move in. Dead maggots are extremely effective when used as a hookbait on the Method feeder.
Sweetcorn.
In clear water, a grain of corn stands out a mile. Use it on the bomb on a size 16 or 18 hook when casting around to find a shoal, or loosefeed it sparingly on the pole line through a small cup.
Paul Garners easy 10 minute rolled bread carp hookbait!
Bread is one of the best winter baits for carp. Its complex structure of means that it is light in water, making it easy for carp to pick up, and big baits can be used as it has very little substance. Bread lends itself to a whole host of tactics, so why not give it a go?
Follow these six simple and easy steps to be able to create the perfect rolled bread hookbait.
Step 1
Cut the crusts off several slices of white bread. It’s worth buying a good quality loaf for hookbaits.
Step 2
Sprinkle a pinch of krill powder or similar powdered additive on to the bread slices.
Step 3
Gently roll the slices of bread with a rolling pin or bottle. The aim is to reduce the thickness by half.
Step 4
Try rolling two or three slices together as an alternative to a single slice.
Step 5
Punch out the hookbaits. It is worth experimenting with different sizes of punch.
Step 6
Hair-rig the punched bread. A Quick Stop is the easiest, most secure way to keep it in place.
Quick tip
If the bites dry up on bread, try adding a couple of maggots to the hook. ‘Bread with legs’ is a classic cocktail bait at any time of the year, and one that can see you catching a wider range of species than bread alone.
Steve Ringer's favourite corn hookbaits for carp!
I use both corn and wafters for hookbaits, and will change my hook based upon which bait I’m using. When fishing corn on the hair I’ll use a size 18 Super MWG.
If I change hookbaits from corn to a yellow wafter I will switch to a size 14 QM1 hook and a 0.17mm hooklength – still 75cm long, of course.
In terms of hookbait choice, contrary to popular belief corn gives you quite a few! To simplify things, though, there are three I like to concentrate on...
1) Corn stack
This involves hair-rigging multiple grains through the narrowest part. The advantage of fishing a stack is that you are creating a big, stand-out bait and offering the carp something a little different to what they are used to.
2) Dumbell wafter
A 10mm yellow dumbell wafter resembles a grain of corn and blends in well with the loose offerings. It has two key benefits over the corn – being so light it sinks very slowly through the water, increasing the chances of a carp seeing it and following it down. Then, once on the bottom, it becomes a very light hookbait that is easily sucked up by a feeding fish.
3) Corn string
This is a real favourite of mine. The ‘string’ is a number of grains hair-rigged through the long part of the grain, and gives the fish an easy bait to spot. It gives the appearance of multiple grains lying next to each other on the bottom, and fish can pick up a lot of feed in one easy go.