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Features >> IAN POOLE: The Baiting Game

IAN POOLE: The Baiting Game

The amount of bait that each of us has at our disposal is a subject that will always get discussed by carp anglers, and one of the things I’ve had said to me a number of times over the years is “that it’s ok for you as you have unlimited bait and can put in as much as you want without worrying about cost.” Well, I will say that it wouldn’t quite be an unlimited amount, but I do know that if I needed a reasonable quantity it would be available. I would be the first to admit that I am very lucky, but for many years I was paying full price for all of my bait. In fact, I can remember turning up at Horseshoe in the late nineties and witnessing some of the sponsored anglers on there spodding out more bait in one evening than I had at my disposal for the entire session! I was fishing longer trips back then and remember taking a kilo of home rolled boilies backed up by a bucket of particle and a few kilo of pellet for a three or four day visit. When you consider how many carp where in Horseshoe back then, the amount I could afford to use wasn’t considered to be that much. However, not being on a level playing field in regards to the quantity of bait at my disposal was something that never bothered me. I had what I had and wasn’t in competition with anyone. Once I started to get more familiar with the water, I also realised that being successful at Horseshoe was down to far more than who could put the most gear in and more about where and when you did it. Yes, you could sit it out for a week in one of the famous swims, fill it in and hope the carp turned up at some point during your stay. If they did (and they often did!!) you could put together a big catch, but there was another option of following the fish and picking them off with bags and smaller spodded areas. Back then the Horseshoe fish seemed quite predictable in their movement patterns and once you got in tune with this you could keep one step ahead of the carp and literally move before they did. Your traps were then prepared for their arrival giving you another 24 hours at them before they were off again.

A BIG INFLUENCE

I think that period of angling just mentioned did have a considerable effect on the way I’ve fished since, as despite spending time on a number of other waters known to respond favourably to heavy baiting tactics, I have done fairly well sticking to what I have the most confidence in, and that’s using very sensible amounts of bait even when many others around me have been applying huge quantities of boilies. It just shows that there’s always more than one way of being successful on any water, and it’s important not to get caught up in the more bait is better way of thinking. Quantity certainly isn’t everything in my book, and I would always be more confident with two kilo’s of good quality bait with a proven track record than 10 of something bought on price alone so I could ‘fill it in’ and be like some of the other anglers on the water who were in a position to use lots of bait.

FISH ON YOUR OWN TERMS

One of the reasons I thought I would cover this subject now is because just recently I know of someone who has gone through exactly the same thing, and moved on to a new water where a couple of anglers have been doing well fishing over 10 kilos of boilies per night, a quantity that only a very small percentage of us would have the resources to be able to match. After a couple of blank trips the angler concerned was very down about what was happening and told me he couldn’t hope to compete against these anglers. To be honest, he sounded beaten already, but all I said was why try and compete. You haven’t got that quantity of bait to play with so why worry about it. It also turned out that the heavy baiters were angling midweek when the water was quieter, while matey was turning up on a Friday night and literally dropping into one of the remaining swims, two completely different scenarios that results wise should never be compared to each other. If you do look at stuff like this, comparing you catches to so-and-so who may have more time and more bait, then you’ll very likely going to be disappointed.

I never base or compare my own catches against anyone as very few of us are on a level playing field in regard to the things just mentioned. I’ve fished a lot over the years and just tend to get a feeling as to whether I’m doing ok for the time I’m putting in. There’s no doubt that in the right situation, having large quantities of bait at your disposal would be a big advantage. As I said earlier, I’m lucky in the fact that I do, but as of yet have never felt the need to take advantage of it. As for matey, it was only a few weekends later that he began to catch his fair share and completely on his own terms too. In fact, I hazard a guess that had he gone for it with the bait thing he would have still been struggling to get off the mark, given the timing of his sessions and inexperience when applying large areas of boilies.

WELLY WHACKERS

If there was one water where I could have used much more bait than I did, then I guess it would have been Wellington. Boilies, and plenty of them, was all I really heard mentioned when I first went there, with plenty of anglers thinking nothing of sticking out two or three kilos for a nights angling. I was fully aware of how many carp were falling to this method of angling, but while I was on there caught 90 percent of my fish over the spod. A mix of 10, 14 and 18mm baits along with a few chops and plenty of hemp was my most successful mix by far. If my preferred tactics hadn’t of worked then I would’ve had no hesitation of trying the other ways I had been told about. However, rather than let others influence how I’m going to fish immediately, I like to work it through myself from the start, a point worth thinking about for anyone travelling on a new water. We all like to hear what the going tactics and baits are, but jump on the band wagon the whole way and then you are fishing in exactly the same as everyone else. You often hear about anglers turning up to a new water and doing very well on their first few sessions, and while some may claim that the angler concerned just got very lucky, it was probably more down to the fact that he went in with tactics totally different to the stereotyped approach that regulars on a lake can sometimes be drawn into, and it simply caught the carp off guard. I’ve seen it happen many times and from both sides too, on a couple of occasions being the new angler concerned, and also one of the regulars who probably got a bit too stale in their thinking.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you come up against an angler or a group who do have access to far larger quantities of bait than you, don’t let it affect your own confidence or any other aspects of your fishing. Firstly, it’s important that you don’t drop the quality of bait you are using in order to compete quantity wise. Make full use of what you have by pre-baiting carefully using modest amounts in spots you know it will more than likely get eaten. It’s far better to bait up thoughtfully with 100 boilies and get nearly all of then found by the fish rather than spray several kilos all over the place and get most of it picked off by coots and tufted ducks, something I’ve seen happen on numerous occasions. You can also make use of cheaper but still hugely effective baits such as hemp to make your bait go further. The hemp and boilie approach has been my starting point on the majority of waters I’ve fished over the years and I can’t see it changing anytime soon.

Of course, there is also the option to change to the bait that is going out in quantity. However, it is likely that others have already done this and again you’ll become one of many, with lots of your target fish already caught on the bait concerned. For me personally that isn’t a situation I would like to find myself in.

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