Be prepared Pt 2, Bait

In this part I am going to look at the preparation and care of baits that I use on a regular basis, I am going to look at each type of bait in turn starting with live baits.

Now by live baits I am not talking about small fish but thing like worms, maggots and casters, I am going to start with worms as these are pretty easy to look after.

Dendrobenas:  These usually come supplied in a hessian sack when you buy a 1/2KG or more and this is the perfect container top store the worms in as it allows them to breathe naturally and also with a little bit of thought it is possible to keep them alive in the medium provided for up to a month.  The best tip I have been given is to feed them cold mashed potato as it keeps them big and juicy for longer. For storage a cold concrete floor out of direct sunlight i.e. a garage floor should be fine, just don’t let them freeze in the winter!

Lobworms: These are a slightly trickier animal to deal with in that I tend to collect them upto 2 nights before I fish with them, I will then store them in soil and cut grass until the match making sure to keep them cool but not cold. Check them regularly for dead or broken worms and that way you should be able to extend their life for a couple of days. As I say though I very rarely try to keep them for longer than 48hrs as I have been unable to extend their life in a bait tub for any real length of time, this winter I will be trying a worn sack though. I will keep you updated.

Maggots and Pinkies: These are so similar that I am going to cover them in the same paragraph, put them in a bait tub with about an inch to the top and stick them in a fridge, like this they should be good for about a week.  This can be used to your advantage as well especially when fishing for small fish (especially Bleak) as the skin of the maggot will get tougher and therefore they should stay on the hook for longer, the maggots also build up a resistance to the cold so they should be livelier for longer in cold water.  I also like to de-grease my maggots when I am fishing on running water as it helps them to sink faster, the way that I do this is by cleaning all the sawdust/ maize from the maggots, and then I riddle off all the dead, casters and large rubbish. Once this is done I will add a really good quantity of turmeric to the maggots, this not only removes the grease from the maggots making them sink quicker but also gives white maggots a subtle bronze colour that big Roach love.  I will leave this in the fridge overnight before the match, and then as I am sorting my bait I will riddle off all the excess turmeric (this prevents you from turning very orange).

Dead Maggots: There is only one way that I use to numbers of maggots and that is to riddle them clean, put them into a plastic bag, add a flavour if I am going to then I put them into the freezer for 24-48 hrs. This produces much better dead’s than boiling them as they keep their shape and colour for longer. If however I only need 1 or 2 at a time then I will rub them against my thigh whilst fishing, and that provides me with hook baits when I want a change.

Squatts:  These are the larvae of the common house fly and as such they are considerably smaller than normal maggots and pinkies, sometimes they come from the shop and they are positively tiny, as long as you get your bait a couple of days in advance I have a tip that can give you some of the biggest squats on the bank, feeding them.  This was shown to me on my first national and it has never left me (thanks Gaz the bait man), it is simple but I have tweaked it slightly to try and get the best results with minimal fuss.  I will usually have a pint of squatt for a normal canal match, the first thing that I do is sieve off all the brick dust that they will be stored in, this is to be saved for later. The next step is to riddle them into a shallow tray, whilst they are going through the riddle I will prepare their banquet. Bread and milk is all that you need I tend to soak the bread in the milk until it is properly sodden all the way through and tries to fall apart as you lift it, a good tip here is to use milk at room temp as too cold and it will affect the squats appetite.  Once the squatt are riddled and the bread soaked, I place the bread into the squats and leave them to it, I will keep a bit of an eye on them as they can climb out of the tray of they are wet so beware. I will leave them for as long as possible as the more they eat the bigger they get, about 3 slices of bread should be enough for a pint of squatt but experiment and if they will eat more then why not give it to them, I have tried 6 slices before on a good batch and some of them ended up the size of pinkies! Once they have eaten all the bread or you have run out of time, chuck them back through the riddle and then put them back into the brick dust and into the fridge. Storage wise, keep them in the brick dust and dampen it slightly to prevent them from shrivelling up too much, the colder the better (but not freezing) as they will go into suspended animation and not get any smaller.

Casters: I always use shop bought caster, but not every shop knows how to turn their own or how to look after them, I use 2 shops in my local area, Premier Angling in Chippenham and Reids Tackle at Witherington Farm.  I will think nothing of going on a 2hr round trip if it will get me the best quality bait for a competition.  Things to avoid are small dark casters as these will probably all float and if they are supplied in a vacuum packed clear bag as this causes bag burn. You need a good mix of colours light to dark and the gold standard is casters that are given to you wrapped in a paper bag inside a sealed plastic bag as these will not suffer from Bag Burn. If you are concentrating on carp then it is not as important, but confidence in your bait means that you will have more confidence on the bank and this can only help you catch more fish.

That’s it for live baits, there are probably more but I am struggling to remember them, I am now going to move onto particles starting with my favourite.

Hemp: I will cook up bulk lots of hemp from time to time, usually doing 6-8 pints at a time, I do it the normal way, big pan soak for 24hrs and then simmer until the kernels start to split. Simple. There are a couple of things that you can do to increase the potency of your hemp for carp fishing and it involves me putting my Speci Hunter hat on, Chilli and salt are both added to my carp batches as I have more confidence in it pulling the fish from further away.  If I am carp fishing you will usually find hemp somewhere in my kit as just through the noise of one fish feeding on it make one hell of a racket under water and will draw fish in from quite a distance. Try that with soft pellet!  For roach I will freeze the hemp into 1 pint bags and take a couple every time I go fishing, hook baits are a different kettle of fish though, before I bag up the batches I will sort through and select some grains that are only just starting to split, These are separated into another tub and I will pierce the flat end of the grain to aid hooking. Hooked in this way a grain of hemp can stay on the hook for upto 10 fish, something that you cannot do when hooking then the traditional way through the split.

Tares: I try to find shop ready tares wherever possible, the best come in a small green bag and I forget their name but they are perfect.

Sweetcorn: This is the easiest bait that I use, open the tin, pour into bait tub and then cover with water, if I fancy giving it a kick then I will add a flavour or some salt to it in the bait tub.

Meat: For feed I use Morrison’s own brand and a MAP meat cutter in 6,8 and 10mm depending on the venue and size of carp that I am targeting, I will rarely do anything to the loose feed meat apart from store it in the fridge at home and on the bank I will cover it in plenty of water, on hot days it sometimes pays to only put a small amount on your tray at a time and top it up throughout the day as it can go off in the sun.  Meat for bomb hookbaits is a different prospect, I will take a tin, thickly slice it and then use a multitude of different sized punches to get different sized pellets of meat. I then split them down into small re-sealable bags and then flavour the meat in different ways. The fun part of this is finding out the best flavours so I am not going to spoil that for you.

Pellets, both expander and soft can be prepped on the bank, the only time I really prep my pellet the night before is if I want mushy feed pellet, I will take ¼- ½ a pint of 4mm pellet and cover item with an extra half an inch of water sat on top of them, put it in the fridge overnight and in the morning you will have sloppy pellet, perfect for hard days in the winter.

Groundbait for roach and small fish is best mixed on the bank, if however, you are after bream or other big fish then the longer you can let the bait rest the better as it creates an inert bed of feed for them to graze over. I will mix my bream groundbait the night before and it usually consists of 50/50 Browning Etang and Betaine Mussel mix, although the colder it gets the less fishmeal I put in and I will swap the Betaine mussel mix for No1 or Canal. Top tips when using ground bait is always use a drill!  I have found nothing better when mixing 4-5kg of groundbait and leam together, make sure that it has enough guts to do the job and that the whisk will get into the corners of the bucket that you use. If you do not have a drill then be prepared to riddle it a couple of times to get it to do the job you want.

So that’s it, I am going to save some bits for another day, but if you have any questions then please by all means drop me a line and I will try to answer it. Until the next time, tight lines.