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Go to hookbaits

Jon Frisby said:
Massive Spam lover. It was on offer tother day in Asda. £2.70 a tin.(20%off) Bought a cheeky 10 tins again last week. So far apart from 12 maggot caught Barbel the other week, 85% have come on Spam. Its a far better daylight bait than boilies. Boilies come into there own at night, as I firmly believe as a visual round bait, its a red flag. I'd like to know if there's any anglers that do weekends and would give the Boilie catch rate during daylight and Night time. I bet its not much better than 30%.
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On the Trent in daytime clear water I’ve always struggled for a bite on boilies 14mm+. 8mm pellets are much better, and I’ve caught a few recently after trying double 8mm ‘zinger’ boilies (2 of those are still a very small bait). So for me it seems to be the size of bait rather than boilies full stop.

The exception to this was weirpools, I was a member on Gunthorpe and they’d take any size boilie all day every day.
 
Coming up to my favourite time of the year, autumn! Go to bait for me will be caster and hemp or maggot feeder and if in a situation I can use 2 rods I will fish one downstream of the feeder with pellet or boilie/paste or meat….ringing the changes until something works. This is on Severn or Trent….if on the Ouse it will just be paste.
No reason other than this is what has worked for me in past seasons
 
Simon Gurney said:
Hi Gavin , just bought some elips but keep reading they’re not as good as original ones how you find them mate?
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It’s the only bait I use to be honest and have 100% confidence in them above all other baits. Shorter hair for Chub, longer hair for Barbel.

I know others say “they don’t work” but think they’re just miffed at the barrel shape vs. the original elyptical shape (which I assume became costly to manufacture).

Look on the Hinders YouTube channel and there is a vid with Trefor West showing how to attach them correctly to a hair and talking about them.

I only ever use the large (10mm) ones as hookbait and a small bag will last me all season.
 
Alan Palmer said:
Coming up to my favourite time of the year, autumn! Go to bait for me will be caster and hemp or maggot feeder and if in a situation I can use 2 rods I will fish one downstream of the feeder with pellet or boilie/paste or meat….ringing the changes until something works. This is on Severn or Trent….if on the Ouse it will just be paste.
No reason other than this is what has worked for me in past seasons
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Maggots are very reliable but the one drawback is you need to know for sure that there are barbel there. Otherwise it's a pretty expensive session. The Thames, where I'm currently fishing, is not the best river for locating barbel and this is doubly so on a new stretch. If I could only use one bait ever, it would be meat or the original Activ8, which was very reliable.
 
Only ever done well on Lobworms, on the lower TT. Once, I had been down for a good 6 hours biteless in a devoid and fish less peg. Nick turned up with 20 lobworms, I said ooh can I try one. It went from biteless to a fish a chuck. We ended up digging for lobworms on the bank, just to keep the fish coming... and it was an early March day..
 
Plan today was maggots and hemp/ castor
Got here and overnight rain had brought peat in and the water is black - normally kiss of death
Maggots worked fine .. for perch and persevered for an hour
Upstream rod went off on 10mm halibut so switched from maggot to pellet and very slow
Changed out one rod to liver & lamprey dumbel and it’s been very productive which has amazed me with this peat colour
Why I always have options as no 2 days are the same - some days they’ll have anything, others they can be finicky as anything
And no hook pulls today 👍👍
 
Gavin Burt said:
It’s the only bait I use to be honest and have 100% confidence in them above all other baits. Shorter hair for Chub, longer hair for Barbel.

I know others say “they don’t work” but think they’re just miffed at the barrel shape vs. the original elyptical shape (which I assume became costly to manufacture).

Look on the Hinders YouTube channel and there is a vid with Trefor West showing how to attach them correctly to a hair and talking about them.

I only ever use the large (10mm) ones as hookbait and a small bag will last me all season.
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Cheers Gavin
 
Pellets, dumb bells or conventional boilies for me.
I started my occasional barbel fishing back in the pre pellet days on the Severn when it was all hemp and caster with double caster on the hook. Really busy fishing, match style, one rod, stood up in the water, getting a bite most casts but having to fight through the dace and bleak. Great sensation when you struck at another dace bite only for the rod to hoop over with an angry barbel on!
 
Pellets and Spam , I do not see the need , or want to be bothered with boilies. For me they offer nothing in the way of being a bait , altogether too artificial for me . I do not dispute that they work , but I am a bit old fashioned, I even feel a bit of a fraud using Hali pellets tbh .
In winter , if we get a day of warmer weather , with a rise in water temp and a good flow in the middle of a cold snap, then maggots are a must have bait .
My best days for quantity over quality have always been in these conditions .
Despite many attempts at using Lobworms I only ever seem to manage to tempt trout or chub on them .I would love to catch a Barbel on a lobworm.
The Salmon Anglers on the Ribble catch Barbel every season on Lobs .

David
 
David Craine said:
For me they offer nothing in the way of being a bait , altogether too artificial for me
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I think your generalizing a bit there David as a boilie can be many things with the only similarity between them all being the cooking process.

Most are over flavored hard inert balls sold in a fancy tub, no dispute there.

However Some of the very best ones made by proper bait companies offer a nutritional diet that cannot be found in other baits especially halibut pellets and spam.

Proper food recipes put together with good ingredients like natural seeds, milk proteins, fresh eggs, spices, meat proteins, natural sweeteners etc etc and these types of baits offer a hell of a lot to both the fish and the angler.

Unlike a lot of boilies you can buy, mine go mouldy if left in the fridge longer than a week.
 
Richard Isaacs said:
I think your generalizing a bit there David as a boilie can be many things with the only similarity between them all being the cooking process.

Most are over flavored hard inert balls sold in a fancy tub, no dispute there.

However Some of the very best ones made by proper bait companies offer a nutritional diet that cannot be found in other baits especially halibut pellets and spam.

Proper food recipes put together with good ingredients like natural seeds, milk proteins, fresh eggs, spices, meat proteins, natural sweeteners etc etc and these types of baits offer a hell of a lot to both the fish and the angler.

Unlike a lot of boilies you can buy, mine go mouldy if left in the fridge longer than a week.
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I’ve tried boilies with little success over the years.

This summer I got some John Baker Taste F2 base mix and added some Search 4 flavour and had two barbel on two evenings using them as loose feed.

The one thing I do like about boilies is the ease at which you can make them at home which makes for a very fresh custom bait which I can guarantee that no one else is using on the river I fish.
 
Boilies / paste with pellets in mesh bags or groundbait in feeder
Maggot with mag feeder
Worm with groundbait in feeder
 
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