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How long do you stick with one bait?

P

Paul Dowgill

Senior Member
Decided on a new bait this season - something I hoped that no one else is using on the stretch. I started by fishing 4 swims which i had been feeding for some time, 2 in which I have seen barbel, two deeper far bank swims. I have tried not to over bait - a dozen in each swim about an hour before fishing. Seven sessions (about 40 hours) in and I am looking at at two bites (1 chub and 1 lost barbel) and the cray fish seem to love the bait. I included two further swims (it is a short stretch of about a half mile) in the last couple of weeks. Most others are using meat and the ubiquitous pellet.

So, given a very low bite/time ratio my current thinking is
- I have not put enough bait in although it is a small river?
- the fish are not really recognising this as bait - too many pellets been put in so it is being out competed?
- the flavour is not the right one?
- wrong swims - but the number to fish are limited, and i have caught from these in the past
- presentation i have changed, single and double bait, long hair/short hair, short link/long link
- bait is smallish about 12mm
- I generally fish early evening into dark, as water is generally low and clear, should I try day time but it gets busy with walkers and lots of dogs?

The stretch is not easy - but I would have expected more, especially from the chub.

So do I stick with the new bait or rejoin the pellet brigade. How long would you normally give a bait before switching/tweaking it?

Thoughts appreciated.
 
If you are only using relatively small amounts of bait, i suppose you could try feeding a swim or two with pellets and see if they improve things.

Stephen
 
Stephen

I suppose I was thinking that too many pellets were going into a small river in the first place and so were not selective, hence the change of bait...
 
Paul, by feeding multiple swims you are potentially spreading the fish out, if possible you would be better choosing a swim others aren't fishing and just feeding that one swim whilst not fishing yourself, just go and feed the swim (without letting others see you) for a week or so, then fish it.

To be honest though, at this time of year you might do better on a spiced up meat and no free offerings.

Good luck.
 
Ian

Thanks- unfortunately there are no swims that are not fished - it is a very short stretch. Interesting the idea of meat - the water is low and clear and i would have thought large meat baits would not have been ideal in such conditions, especially as many others seem to be using large lumps of luncheon meat and are not catching (I think there have only be 2 or 3 fish out so far - that is barbel, so it isn't prolific - hence trying something different). No free offerings though does intrigue me - that may be the approach next weekend, with a slightly larger bait.

Cheers
 
If possible, try fishing two rods, one with the new bait the other with a bait you have had success on previously
 
Paul Dowgill said:
Ian

Thanks- unfortunately there are no swims that are not fished - it is a very short stretch. Interesting the idea of meat - the water is low and clear and i would have thought large meat baits would not have been ideal in such conditions, especially as many others seem to be using large lumps of luncheon meat and are not catching (I think there have only be 2 or 3 fish out so far - that is barbel, so it isn't prolific - hence trying something different). No free offerings though does intrigue me - that may be the approach next weekend, with a slightly larger bait.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Paul,

I didn't say a large lump, you can also try experimenting with shape, ie. punch out a cylinder shaped piece.
 
Hi men.

Bait , generally , if you know it has a track record of catching barbel , then to catch fish that are in the swim there is no need to pre bait . Only if you are trying to concentrate fish in the area or are looking to fish the stretch for a few years . A good bait is a good bait , they will know it .


Hatter
 
Agree with Ray. One rod for the new bait and another with pellet or other tried and tested bait.

Maybe you just aren't finding the fish or else you just need more hours on the banks until you do?

Happy hunting!

Stephen
 
i too am using a new bait this season (not new but is to me)
5 sessions, 9 barbel including a new river best and 14 chub including a new pb
i would say that works so maybe they dont like your choice???
 
Its early season do you think the fish are still in your stretch or could they have moved to spawn.When you are getting crayfish bites there are usually no fish in your swim.Sometimes when you feed stretches lightly/every day,one fish can eat everything you have put in.I once baited a stretch with frost and flood for a couple of weeks and on fishing the area had poor results,one of the Chub i did catch should have been about 1lb but was nearer 3 lb,it looked diseased but was just bloated with all of my expensive bait it had eaten.You might have hooked the two fish that have eaten all your freebies. If you have crayfish in the stretch you should usually bait more heavily than normal.It would help if you could tell us what bait you are using
 
Mark Anderson said:
Hi men.

Bait , generally , if you know it has a track record of catching barbel , then to catch fish that are in the swim there is no need to pre bait . Only if you are trying to concentrate fish in the area or are looking to fish the stretch for a few years . A good bait is a good bait , they will know it .


Hatter
Click to expand...

This is a good bait that does catch, location is the answer but although the river is low and clear there are so many new snags and fallen trees post floods that to see them in daylight is very rare. I have put bait in on the shallows and waited and waited but no sign - i am trying to get them to feed in places where i have briefly seen them or that look very likely. All this said there is not a large head of them - it is one of the rapidly declining Thames tribs - quite a lot of folk give it a couple of gos and give up, I promised myself some serious time this year, work permitting, before trying the Kennet!
 
Ian Crook said:
Paul, by feeding multiple swims you are potentially spreading the fish out, if possible you would be better choosing a swim others aren't fishing and just feeding that one swim whilst not fishing yourself, just go and feed the swim (without letting others see you) for a week or so, then fish it.

To be honest though, at this time of year you might do better on a spiced up meat and no free offerings.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

100% agree with this,I would say fish for 'bites' firstly, and use a bait that is hard to resist, such as meat maggots bread or worm, once you have located fish you might want to offer the alternative baits. But of course there is so much natural food in the rivers at the moment there is no need for fish to 'chance' an anglers offering.

Probably location is more important than ever in these conditions, fish seek cover in bright conditions, and as we know may only really feed at dusk into dark.

However I cannot understand how anyone can put their faith in just one bait, surely like any good match angler you will need to see what they want on the day, and that might not be the boillie/ pellet that you intend to use this season:rolleyes: it could be something as humble as a lobworm or a pinch of bread, not very fashionable I know but very effective.
 
Thanks guys for all the comments it helps the thinking...

As i have said the stretch its not easy (last year there might have been a dozen fish all season max) so my thoughts were try a different bait to what others are using to see if this might give me an edge - it is boiled hard (to at least keep back the crays) and meat base/flavoured and i have been using a glug.

Regarding crayfish the barbel i lost came after an hour or so of cray rattling...i do not think there is anywhere you can fish on the stretch where there would not be crays; those fishing luncheon meat have to cast every 15 minutes of so it can be that bad and regularly pull them out clasping the hook.

Re the range of baits, i tried that last season and never felt any were working well, except cheesepaste for the chub,which was superb, just before the floods but do take the point. I suppose what i have read from better anglers than me is that you have to try and get the fish to recognise the bait and i am aiming for something that is longer term, as Mark noted above, hence the feeding which though as i have said is limited. I suppose you would say i am using the West method and maybe no freebies is the answer (I shall try this).

I suspect this is the issue on many rivers where there is very low density of barbel and a lot of natural food and it does come down to location ,location, location...
 
Paul Dowgill said:
Thanks guys for all the comments it helps the thinking...

As i have said the stretch its not easy (last year there might have been a dozen fish all season max) so my thoughts were try a different bait to what others are using to see if this might give me an edge - it is boiled hard (to at least keep back the crays) and meat base/flavoured and i have been using a glug.

Regarding crayfish the barbel i lost came after an hour or so of cray rattling...i do not think there is anywhere you can fish on the stretch where there would not be crays; those fishing luncheon meat have to cast every 15 minutes of so it can be that bad and regularly pull them out clasping the hook.

Re the range of baits, i tried that last season and never felt any were working well, except cheesepaste for the chub,which was superb, just before the floods but do take the point. I suppose what i have read from better anglers than me is that you have to try and get the fish to recognise the bait and i am aiming for something that is longer term, as Mark noted above, hence the feeding which though as i have said is limited. I suppose you would say i am using the West method and maybe no freebies is the answer (I shall try this).

I suspect this is the issue on many rivers where there is very low density of barbel and a lot of natural food and it does come down to location ,location, location...
Click to expand...

Again Paul I missed the problem of Crays, so using meat etc would be a problem, of course fish wise up to our normal baits such as pellet and boilies, they soon associate these with danger, I was talking to a very good angler last week who has accounted for a river record nudging WA barbel on more than one occasion, he did tell me that he has to find a really out of the way location that rarely sees anglers, in fact it is so out of the way it can only be accessed by boat, he has found that despite the location the fish are still wary of the popular baits, and has found that Scource boilies work well.

Just been watching the late Kev Green on Carp Crew, the one with the challenge with naturals vs man made baits, this was on a new fishery where the carp are not wised up to pellet or boilies, and the took the man made with gusto, certainly out fished the maggot approach, however they will wise up and then the maggot will become king, until that 'blows' too.:rolleyes:

But as you say location is everything, especially when they are not spread out so much in this weather, margins and shady cover are always my first approach.
 
Paul Dowgill said:
Thanks guys for all the comments it helps the thinking...

As i have said the stretch its not easy (last year there might have been a dozen fish all season max) so my thoughts were try a different bait to what others are using to see if this might give me an edge - it is boiled hard (to at least keep back the crays) and meat base/flavoured and i have been using a glug.

Regarding crayfish the barbel i lost came after an hour or so of cray rattling...i do not think there is anywhere you can fish on the stretch where there would not be crays; those fishing luncheon meat have to cast every 15 minutes of so it can be that bad and regularly pull them out clasping the hook.

Re the range of baits, i tried that last season and never felt any were working well, except cheesepaste for the chub,which was superb, just before the floods but do take the point. I suppose what i have read from better anglers than me is that you have to try and get the fish to recognise the bait and i am aiming for something that is longer term, as Mark noted above, hence the feeding which though as i have said is limited. I suppose you would say i am using the West method and maybe no freebies is the answer (I shall try this).

I suspect this is the issue on many rivers where there is very low density of barbel and a lot of natural food and it does come down to location ,location, location...
Click to expand...

Interesting that your lone barbel barbel came 'after half an hour of cray rattling'. Do I take it that there was no cessation of that rattling right up to the barbel bite?

It has been said on this thread that crays stop their actions when barbel are about, and I have heard that said elsewhere a number of times too. However, I don't buy into that...I have caught several barbel with crays rattling away right up to the bite.

I suppose I will now be told that the rattling prior to the bite was barbel not crays. All I can say to that is...the tiny river I fish has a very low barbel population, and up until the cray infestation you were lucky to get a couple of bites per session, with NO rattling in between. Now that the cray population has built up to plague proportions, you will often get them rattling away within seconds of casting out...and it's more or less non stop every cast. The only time it really stops is when you wind in to replace your bait....or get a three foot twitch!

Cheers, Dave.
 
Dave the rattling did continued up to the bite, i recall a gap but at most maybe a few minutes...and perhaps the fish had just come on to the bait and the crays went...hard to say...but they have got worse as the season has gone on and the water has got warmer. This weekend they did not stop..very hard bait after half an hour reduced to about 5mm - is there anything they do not like but barbel do?
 
No Paul, absolutely nothing. There have been various tales about boilie flavours/types that they don't go for, but I have tried them all and it's a fallacy.

Doing as you're doing, a boilie that has been hardened is the way to go, if they are your choice of bait. If you roll your own, just add egg albumin to the mix, that will do the job. They won't leak flavour so well, but if you bait up with unhardened baits, they will take the hardened one just as well because of the flavour leaked from the feeders.

If you want to use meat, you could fry chunks of it, either with curry powder or similar as a coating, or just as it is, turning continually to cook each side until it browns slightly and gets a tough shell. Or you could do what I do, put a dirty great chunk straight out of the tin on a long hair and put up with the rattles until the wrap around occurs. That way, it will last a considerable length of time, purely because of the time it takes to whittle a large piece away. However, you must use a stop pulled completely into the meat. If not, they will pull the stop out of the hair loop and leg it with the meat :D

The same applies to fairly large pellets, if they have a central hole drilled through them and you are going to hair rig them, use the type of extended stop that can be pulled well into the bait. Banding them doesn't work...but super gluing a pair of them, sandwiching the hair between them, does.

Cheers, Dave.
 
I use to use match box size on the Medway before the day of crays ... those were the days :) I have to say the crays are a pain but you do get used to them and the chub have grown out of all recognition which i think must be due in part to the lovely flesh. Superglued pellets i have used with some success in the past but was looking for a different bait. Perseverance is required i suspect and i have the one bite, which is more than many. :D
 
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