What baits do you guys favour and why?

[Brutus]

I’m not talking about sharing any secrets here, be as vague as you like. But in the last year, I seem to favour wafters for all of my fishing.

either oddities like flouro coloured barrels. Or, simple fish based conventional shapes. I don’t know if it’s coincedence but it has helped sort out the fish for me and this year I’ve caught a personal best and one not far off in the same session - so I have reason to have faith.

what about you lot?

[Gazlaaar]

Dumbell bottom baits, I believe an elongated bait is harder to eject than a round one, plus the rig I use for bottom baits relys on the weight of the bait to turn the hook.

Pop ups I do use from time to time, bright baits for Hinged Stiff Rigs and a match the hatch for my lower multi/pop up rig. I can't really call it a multi as I use shrink tube for a kicker so it's just a low pop up rig really.

The dumbell I'll sometimes cut in half and use a tiger or a couple of bits of maize, it totally depends on the situation.

[B.C.]

1 hour ago, Brutus said:

I’m not talking about sharing any secrets here, be as vague as you like. But in the last year, I seem to favour wafters for all of my fishing.

either oddities like flouro coloured barrels. Or, simple fish based conventional shapes. I don’t know if it’s coincedence but it has helped sort out the fish for me and this year I’ve caught a personal best and one not far off in the same session - so I have reason to have faith.

what about you lot?

Congrats on the pb mate...…

I like large, heavy baits atm.... 18mm or 16 x 20 mm dumbells…. Been fishing a lot of clean gravelly spots. I believe these gravel feeders will suck and blow that bit harder in order to dislodge stones and get to any naturals..... If I think I'm getting done, then a 10mm length of cork stick used as a hair stop is my tweak, to hopefully aid the bait flying in easier..... Been trying to keep things very low key on the deck, no bright colours or glugs or flavours, just large, dark , HNV baits..... Been averaging a fish a night, not the hardest water in the world, but I'll take that...

[crusian]

Pop Ups , preferably white so they stand out over the black decaying leaves , I've not caught many with pink ; I like the idea that my hook is " cocked " already positioned ready to hopefully hook a Carp , rather than have to have it spin to take hold .

Also I want my presentation to reset .

I must try dumbells more , for the reason Gaz. gives .

😀

[greekskii]

Matching pop ups, cork dust if possible. Don’t like cork balls as I don’t trust flossing around that bait to keep it on.  That’s been what’s caught me 90% of my fish for the last 2-3 years. Going to give the fluoros a go over winter again to see if I can put my confidence back in to them a bit to fish over a bed of bait. 

I do have 100% faith in my homemade pop ups however which are a washed out orange colour. Put one of them out and I’m confident I can nick a bite. 

[salokcinnodrog]

I honestly no longer have a preference, as I now catch (bog all usually😖😳😆) on most baits.

 

For a while I seriously avoided pop-ups, couldn't catch on them to save my life, yet I had caught the first 20 from one lake on a pop-up. The next lake I fished I could not catch on a pop-up at all, every fish came on a bottom bait, either singles or doubles.

On Ardleigh almost every fish came on a Snowman bait, the top bait being a bright pop-up with the bottom bait being my food source bait. I think there were a couple caught on pop-ups.

A few sessions on Thwaite almost every fish to start with came on pop-ups, Scopex,  Pineapple/N-butyric, Green Zing, Monster Crab and Squid and Octopus being the most productive. I then did a winter session, the first few days was pop-ups, where I started playing with my Garlic Spice recipe, then everything switched to my food source.

 

As I went onto Brackens, it was snowman baits, food source topped with either S&O, MC, or my Garlic Spice, no takes came on individual pop-ups, no matter what I tried.

I moved onto the South and Central, it has been Snowman set-ups on those three above, or individual Garlic Spice pop-ups, yet other pop-ups have produced nothing.

 

Basically I will experiment until I find what works, I have no preference.

[harpz_31]

I like to keep my bait as close to my free offerings so i never use pop ups.

Just a 16mm bottom bait drilled out with a cork insert.

[salokcinnodrog]

9 hours ago, harpz_31 said:

I like to keep my bait as close to my free offerings so i never use pop ups.

Just a 16mm bottom bait drilled out with a cork insert.

Just a query on that, you can fish a pop-up with free offerings around it. Put the whole lot in a bag or mesh and your hookbait will be right on top of your freebies. It is slightly more difficult with a stringer or boilie freebies only, but even then it is still possible.

 

Not being difficult, but a pop-up fished close to the lakebed over or with a mesh bag of pellets or chops can be a very effective tactic😉

[harpz_31]

but then its got stick mix or chopped boilie around it, and a pop up would react differently to a standard bottom bait.

I know its seems nit picky and over the top a bit but I never saw the point in getting a fish to be confident eating free offerings and presenting something different on the hook

on underwater footage of fish approaching hook baits ive seen it doesn't take much to spook them off

[greekskii]

22 minutes ago, harpz_31 said:

and a pop up would react differently to a standard bottom bait.

so does a drilled out and corked hook bait though? albeit less than a pop up but still reacts differently when fish are mooching about over the area. 

[harpz_31]

yea totally agree but it is less, you can never be 100% accurate

its a compromise between keeping my hook bait as close to a freebie as possible but surprising the hell out of them when they pick it up but if your rigs good and your hooks sharp its to late

 

[jh92]

For a while I struggled with bait and confidence using it, a while back I switched to sticky krill and it's really playing in my favour with short sessions.

I've bought the pure krill liquid too and what I do is put a few boilies in a bag and a splash of liquid, coat the boilies in it and then add some ground up boilie so it sticks to the outside of the boilies. 

Not sure if adding it to the boilies is making any difference but it's catching me fish on some of the harder waters I fish on so will keep on doing it lol. 

 

 

[Ginger9991]

12 hours ago, harpz_31 said:

I like to keep my bait as close to my free offerings so i never use pop ups.

Just a 16mm bottom bait drilled out with a cork insert.

I use pop ups in solid bags. Really is smashing the place im currently fishing.

[yonny]

I use all sorts as hook baits but if you said to me I could only use white pop ups for the rest of my life I could live with it.

[kevtaylor]

I use wafters, hardened bottom baits and pop-ups cork ball and normal.  White features heavily for me but I also match the hatch and use dull yellow and bright pink on occasion.

 

[The_Viking_Angler]

i use all sorts like most who have posted but i do use the snowman set up a lot.

[smufter]

I'm beginning to favour wafters nowadays......

 

[muftyboy]

On 22/10/2018 at 14:07, yonny said:

I use all sorts as hook baits but if you said to me I could only use white pop ups for the rest of my life I could live with it.

Never done that well on white to be honest .

Washed out pink and purple are my favs. 

But I'm sure of I had one brilliant session on white that could change .

[oscsha]

Love apurple pop up or snowman 

[salokcinnodrog]

On 22 October 2018 at 12:04, harpz_31 said:

yea totally agree but it is less, you can never be 100% accurate

its a compromise between keeping my hook bait as close to a freebie as possible but surprising the hell out of them when they pick it up but if your rigs good and your hooks sharp its to late

 

 

On 22 October 2018 at 14:07, yonny said:

I use all sorts as hook baits but if you said to me I could only use white pop ups for the rest of my life I could live with it.

 

2 hours ago, muftyboy said:

Never done that well on white to be honest .

Washed out pink and purple are my favs. 

But I'm sure of I had one brilliant session on white that could change .

It is possible to fish a pop-up very close to the bottom, matching free baits, in fact that was the original D-rig. You don't have to fish a pop-up two or three inchess off the lakebed. Critically balancing the bait makes it behave like a freebie. Putting it in a mesh or bag with a load of chops etc as the fish suck the whole lot goes in in one mouthful.

 

 

Strangely I have not done at all well on white pop-ups, I have tried them, chocolate cream, coconut creme, and caught zip. I have caught on fluoro orange, flouro pink, yellow, green, brown or red, yet I can't catch on a white one.

[yonny]

18 hours ago, salokcinnodrog said:

 I have tried them, chocolate cream, coconut creme, and caught zip. I have caught on fluoro orange, flouro pink, yellow, green, brown or red, yet I can't catch on a white one.

I think colour is more important than flavour. This year I ran out of my favoured white pop ups so started using any old white things I had lying around. Results continued.

[Brutus]

Wow, some good feedback on here. Sorry i've been quiet, cursed with work!

 

funny enough, i never used Boilies or anything of that ilk up until 3 years ago. Hated them, maize was my preferred bait. It wasn't so much the boilie, but this ethos that I had to spend 8-15 quid and lob loads out - now I know a lot better (still loads to learn) and tend to favor little and often, using pellets, hemp, corn and crumbed offerings of what I fish. Goes a lot further, call me a skinflint but I don't want to be tipping 2/3 kilos of bait into a lake every session. I rather a couple of handfulls of bait to get fish in the area and get a bite that way. But that's just me.

[harpz_31]

I'm with you Brutus and find a little and often approach works best for me.

The amount of times I've seen people filling it in and end up killing not only their swim but all those around them as  well.

[yonny]

23 minutes ago, harpz_31 said:

The amount of times I've seen people filling it in and end up killing not only their swim but all those around them as  well.

That is the fault of the angler, not the method.

Heavy baiting in the wrong situation will kill it from the off.

Heavy baiting in the correct situation can result in the session of  lifetime.

There is a time and a place for singles, and a time and a place for little-and-often, but the greatest sessions I've ever had have been over heavy, heavy baiting - you just need to know when to take that approach.

[salokcinnodrog]

2 hours ago, yonny said:

That is the fault of the angler, not the method.

Heavy baiting in the wrong situation will kill it from the off.

Heavy baiting in the correct situation can result in the session of  lifetime.

There is a time and a place for singles, and a time and a place for little-and-often, but the greatest sessions I've ever had have been over heavy, heavy baiting - you just need to know when to take that approach.

Years ago at Taverham a mate and I absolutely filled it in with 10kilos of hemp, a couple of kilos of pellets and a few kilos of boilies for an overnight session. The lake had been fishing out of sorts, probably the main reason we did it.

The anglers opposite were taking the mickey that we had totally killed it.

By the morning we were shattered, I think it was 10 double figure carp each, and I was blanking on one rod being fished on hemp boilies (Total Hemp mix), the fishmeal baits were taken in minutes. When they came round in the morning the complaint was we had kept them up all night with the noises of buzzers and camera flashes.

The strange thing was my blanking on the Hemp Mix boilies over hemp, yet the fishmeals caught. The fishmeal had a fair dosage of salmon oil in them, which on Taverham was a feeding trigger. Baits without salmon oil could be totally ignored!

 

I do find piling it in is a killer on most occasions, especially on short sessions less than a couple of days, but as above, there are exceptions.