Coarse Baits

Someone asked me about cheap readily available coarse baits the other day, so I thought Id do a little bait entry....

These are great established baits that should catch you fish in most situations.
Given some of these, you cant really go far wrong, as they are established fish catchers.
With no specialist baits available, I'd happily fish with these, and quite often do anyway.

Bread

Awesome bait. Famous angler Chris Yates said that if he could only have one bait to fish with, it
would be bread. It floats when fluffy, sinks when wet, is easily pinched onto hooks from small pea sized bits up to big lumps. Bits of crust can also be directly hooked and are a favourite for use floating on the surface. Very versatile with colors and flavours, and can catch most course fish species. A cheap thick white is the best choice.

Sweetcorn

Another one of the main cheap baits. Bright and sweet. Used for many many years and found in more tackle bags than you'd imagine. Probably the easiest bait to get hold of, use, and be successful. Hook it directly, or on a hair rig. Easily flavoured or colored if desired, but pretty devastating in its standard form. I would feel incomplete if I didn't have a small tin with me on any trip.

Luncheon Meat

Great bait for carp. Meaty and and fatty. Cut it into small cubes of half a cm across for tench or other small species, or even carp themselves. Cut into large 3cm cubes to select carp and keep smaller species off it. Again, takes colors and flavours well. Hook a small cube onto the hook or hair rig alongside a piece of corn for a mixed bait.

Worm

Probably the best known fishing bait of all time. Fantastic for Perch, and very good for carp and basically ALL species. Easily obtained, but a little time consuming. Simple enough to just side hook, but can be difficult when they are wriggling about all over the place. They can be bought from some tackle shops or online, but are not a cheap bait, and FAR better to have collected them yourself from wet grassy areas at night.


Specialist Baits
There are of course other baits that are available from tackle and bait shops, like maggots, castor, paste, boillies, and so on. Paste and boillies can be very effective indeed.

Coarse trip

The old bugger did it again.....

We went back to our pond on Sunday, with light gear, after roach and poss tench.
We tried 2 pnts of white maggies and a little groundbait to tempt the piscnine ghosts this time for a change.

There was a storm brewing, the like of which had not been seen in some time...apparently. Yet here we were, sitting in bright winter sunshine, with very little wind. It felt odd.
Mike was telling me all about the scary shipping forecast and the emergency services all being on super standby for the south coast to be submerged, with the hurricane winds forecast, 6ft spring tide, and 1.5 inches of rain etc etc.
Because of the weather warnings, we had the pond to ourselves.
We think the weather and the HUGE drop in pressure put the fish off, (apparently it was one of the lowest on record)

Despite this, we had a couple small carp, and Mike managed another lovely tench.


A brief day, but a stunningly nice window of sun and clear skies with very little wind, in otherwise dreadful weather of epic proportions both before and forecast for after.
Maybe the fishing fairy was just giving us a break :-)

Coarse Trip

I should probably call this "Mikes grand day out".......

We left at midday for our local pond, armed with light gear for roach hunting.

It was very cold, so thermals and layers were packed on. Thankfully it wasn't windy.

We huddled under my bivvy out of the cold, drinking tea, with both pairs of light leger kit out to the left (me) and right (mike).

All rods used a combination of small boillies, with either a small maggot feeder or small breadcrumb feeder to just add the smallest amount of attractant. No feed was thrown in.

To cut a long story short, it rained like hell for 5 mins, then hailed, then snowed for another 5, then stopped and a cold winter sun came out.....briefly....to be overcast again.

I only had a couple of small roach all day, and they were only when I drowned a couple of maggots to induce a bite, but I had a steam train run from the margin, which I hooked into. It was a heavy fish, probably a carp, but my knot on the end rig gave out, and I lost the lot - NOT happy.

Later, I had a great run, which again I hooked into. I reckoned from the more gentle plodding and plucking that it was a tench, of good size too, but then all went slack and I discovered my hook knot had broken - even LESS happy - Grrrrrr!!!!!

The knot had been my fault, but a pre-tied hooklilnk failing on a smaller fish wasn't.

Most infuriating.

Mike had a very different day.....

He must have been on the right spot, as through the day, he had 2 carp, one in amazing winter orange colours, the other a common carp, which is stunning as in 7 years fishing this pond, Ive never seen one come out. Maybe its the only one? :-)

Then he had a stream of bites, resulting in 4 perfect skimmer bream of about a pound each (slimy things bream- I hate them).

THEN the jammy bugger had the target species - a Roach!

Stunning silver armour shining, at 1lb 6ozs.

As if that wasn't enough, one rod flung into the margin in very shallow water, produced a tench. In the coldest weather we've known so far this winter, he catches a bloody tench!

All 4lb 8ozs of beautiful green silk.

So, after all this, what did I learn?
Check my knots Twice.

When we settle down to fish, make Mike swap swims.