Natural Bait

YOU CAN talk all you like about secret rigs, fancy tackle and deadly flavourings, but the undeniable truth is that if the fish that you are pursuing does not like the bait you are presenting, you will not catch it.

Here follows a brief guide to some of the main baits used by anglers, together with advice on how to present them on the hook, and when to use them. But the best advice is to keep experimenting with a variety of baits, and methods of presentation, until you have discovered the correct combination for any particular day.

Strange though it may seem, fish feed differently from one day to another and although a large lump of paste might catch your chub on Saturday, you might have to use a single maggot on Sunday to achieve success.

Maggots

Maggots are the larvae of the bluebottle, and they are the standard method of attack for most pleasure anglers. Most tackle shops sell maggots, and they can be bought in a variety of colours, including white, red and bronze, the latter being particularly popular for river fishing. Maggots
are usually sold in pint, or half pint, measures.

When fresh, maggots have a large black spot near their pointed end. They should be hooked through the blunt head end, using a hook sized between 16 and 20.

Pinkies are the larvae of the greenbottle, and are about half the size of a maggot. They are a good alternative bait to maggots, when the fish you are catching are small, or particularly shy-biting as they may be during the winter months. Not surprisingly, they are usually pink in colour, but they are also available in white, red, bronze and fluoro pink.

Pinkies sink more slowly in water than maggots, and so are not really suitable for loose feeding in deep water. They should be hooked in the same manner as for maggots. Use hook sizes 18-22.

Squatts are not very lively creatures, which makes them an excellent bait for packing into groundbait for ‘balling in’, or fishing through an open-ended groundbait swimfeeder. They are an excellent holding bait for bream. Use hook sizes 20-26 if you decide to use them as bait. 

Casters are the chrysalis stage of maggots, before they emerge as flies. When maggots first metamorphose into casters, their shells are pale and they will readily sink in water. However, they turn dark brown when left in the open air and rapidly become ‘floaters’. Generally speaking, anglers want casters to sink. They can be stopped from turning into floating casters by keeping them immersed in water, or sealed in an air-tight bag, which is how they are sold in tackle shops.

Casters are a good bait for attracting the quality fish in the swim, and they are particularly liked by roach. They should be hooked by threading the caster around the hooks bend, so burying the whole hook inside the shell.
Use hooks sized 16-18.

Lobworms

Lobworms are an excellent bait for targeting big fish from rivers in flood conditions, or for catching big perch. They are best kept in either the soil you dug them from, or better still, in grass cuttings, which has the benefit of toughening the worm’s skin. Lobworms can be collected from most
lawns at night, after it has rained, when they come to the surface.

Dendrobaenas

These are middle-sized worms. They are an excellent feeder bait when chopped up and tipped into the water from a pole cup or bait dropper, or when added to groundbait for bream fishing. As a hookbait it is best to
use a piece of a dendra, hooked at the cut end. They can be bought from most tackle shops, or even by mail order. Use hook sizes 10-16.

Redworm

Quite easy to collect from compost heaps, the redworm is a first-class bream bait, particularly when ‘tipped’ with a maggot or caster.

Triple world champion Bob Nudd likes to present a redworm by cutting it in half and hooking both pieces at the cut ends. He believes that the fish are attracted to the cut (hook) end which is letting Out all the lovely juices. Use hook sizes 14-18.
 

Man made baits