Winter Baiting

[yonny]

Gents.

I think we all know that if you keep the bait going in throughout autumn and into the winter you can keep them moving/feeding.

What are guys thoughts on starting baiting through winter though? Do you think you can switch a 'dead' lake on by regular feeding if you start in January for example?

I can't say I've ever really done it, preferring to stick with singles. Has anyone else tried it?

[yonny]

When I say baiting I mean filling it in at least twice a week. Not chucking half a kilo in before you go home.

[AnglingAnt]

4 hours ago, yonny said:

Do you think you can switch a 'dead' lake on by regular feeding if you start in January for example?

 

I am like you i tend to fish singles over a maybe a handful of bait, but i do know anglers who turn everything on its head regularly during the winter and do well from it. personally when i know they are grouped up and slow i think its just throwing money in the water but a lot depends on the bait and whats in it. I have noticed the anglers i see doing well with it are using very bright very hi attract pop ups so its an argument to say that maybe they would of hard those bites even if they hadn't filled the lake in, its more important to me to stay mobile and actually find fish and put something colorful in front of them it usually nicks me a bite. 

[greekskii]

6 hours ago, yonny said:

Gents.

I think we all know that if you keep the bait going in throughout autumn and into the winter you can keep them moving/feeding.

What are guys thoughts on starting baiting through winter though? Do you think you can switch a 'dead' lake on by regular feeding if you start in January for example?

I can't say I've ever really done it, preferring to stick with singles. Has anyone else tried it?

Ask rab about his winter on the kennels. They had wound down. He was feeding 5kg twice a week throughout January. He rinsed it in February. 

I think it can be done. Providing you put a huge amount of bait out. 

Edited January 25, 2018 by salokcinnodrog
It censored, so I changed a word to (hopefully) fit

[salokcinnodrog]

I am opposite to other anglers in that I rarely catch on high attract singles in the winter, most of my fish do come on the food bait.

 

I have posted this before, but a week long session on Thwaite, which I had caught on high attract baits previously, the start of the session I caught on high attract baits, but after a couple of days every fish was caught on the food bait which I had introduced from the start. I kept up with the high attract bait on one rod, but it totally stopped producing, whereas the food bait switched on.

 

I had hardly fished the water that year, and the winter week session was my first long trip on there that season, so I had not pre-baited it at all that season. 

 

On Earith I simply kept the bait going in, at the end of my sessions, with the exception of the two trips where the lake froze over for me.

 

[yonny]

1 hour ago, B.C. said:

Depending where you put it, the birds will get at it too, so 5kg becomes 3kg if you know what I mean

I think that can be a good thing.... if you can get everything on it including the bird-life, silvers, tench, bream etc etc to really clear the area then modify your baiting to really get the carp going?

1 hour ago, B.C. said:

As long as there is a healthy stock, can't see why it wouldn't work, especially as recent winters have been pretty mild.

Why not a low stock water BC, assuming no-one else is baiting heavily?

14 hours ago, greekskii said:

Ask rab about his winter on the kennels. They had wound down. He was feeding 5kg twice a week throughout January. He rinsed it in February. 

That's what I wanted to hear. I'm talking a minimum of 5 kg twice per week!

 

[salokcinnodrog]

On a low stock water with tufties and coots I have seen them move in to clear the bait within minutes of it being put in. It doesn't help that it has been so difficult to find the carp. 

 

The inflow on Nazeing helps keep the carp moving, but you just can't pin them down with any bait as they move from pressure, even the spodding. 

 

If there are no feathered friends it may work better though, especially if the carp are not so pressure conscious.

[yonny]

48 minutes ago, salokcinnodrog said:

On a low stock water with tufties and coots I have seen them move in to clear the bait within minutes of it being put in.

There are ways to get round that IMO. Up the amount of hemp for starters, the bird-life can't clear that.

[salokcinnodrog]

3 minutes ago, yonny said:

There are ways to get round that IMO. Up the amount of hemp for starters, the bird-life can't clear that.

No, I leave that to the crayfish

 

A couple of years ago I tried piling in particles and boilies with plenty of hemp in, (cheap damaged tins from work), the coots absolutely loved it, but every time they surfaced the sky rats would try to pinch whatever they found. Coots do seem to manage to eat hemp, probably because they are small item feeders.

I got to the stage of spodding in the dark. That was a time for distance sticks as I needed the marker rod to find the gravel bar edge where it met the silt. Cast the marker rod out, gradually feel it back to the silt, clip up, reel in and then work out how many wraps or the distance by walking it out, then getting the spod rod and fishing rods at the right distance.

 

I managed one winter take, which annoyingly I had a hookpull on, but it didn't fight like a carp, no pulling back.

 

 

 

 

[emmcee]

I've done this once. I was fishing dinton pastures black Swan at the time but then switched at the start of January to white swan.  3kg on a Monday,  2kg on a Wednesday and just a kg to fish with. I ended up with 8 fish from January til end of March which was more than most of the anglers had caught who had been on all season.  The bait was a homemade birdfood bait which was very soluble combined with a flavour that had a very good cold water track record.  Whether or would of caught the same amount using any other bait who knows but it definitely worked.  Another note to point out was that it was hardly being fished that winter, maybe a handful of anglers who I know weren't big baiters.  Not that 6kg is alot. 

[yonny]

So the replies are very promising, which is good, because I started my little campaign two weeks ago lol..... 

[emmcee]

3 hours ago, yonny said:

So the replies are very promising, which is good, because I started my little campaign two weeks ago lol..... 

like on another thread, "effort equals reward". good luck and tight lines.