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Blown baits

M

Mark Thompson

Senior Member & Supporter
Do baits "blow" or do we lose confidence in them on a poor day and conveniently use this as a excuse and simply accept this when others agree ?
Eg Sweetcorn had its day .
Talking barbel here not carp:).
 
Mark Thompson said:
Do baits "blow" or do we lose confidence in them on a poor day and conveniently use this as a excuse and simply accept this when others agree ?
Eg Sweetcorn had its day .
Talking barbel here not carp:).
Click to expand...

It took me ages to catch a barbel on halibut almost to the point of never using them again and I'm glad I didn't Iv caught barbel on halibut from 6mm to 21mm so gained alot of confidence with halibut.
 
I have suspect that baits may blow. However, whatever it was that made them appealling to fish will remain and it won't be too long before they are well worth using again.
 
Some baits definitely blow Mark, particularly in daylight. In fact I would go so far as to say that virtually any bait, however high the quality, will eventually blow if used by the majority, week in, week out on hammered stretches. It was once thought impossible to spook barbel on any amount of hemp but that has been proven untrue.
 
Luncheon Meat has always been the more publicised No1 'Blown bait' ever for some 25+ years, yet it still catches the majority of barbel reported, or it did in the last press survey! So yes is proably the answer to the question.
 
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Mark Thompson said:
Do baits "blow" or do we lose confidence in them on a poor day and conveniently use this as a excuse and simply accept this when others agree ?
Eg Sweetcorn had its day .
Talking barbel here not carp:).
Click to expand...

Both of your questions are true Mark, a few blanks, and people often give up on a bait, even when the fishing is quite hard when you couldn't reasonably expect the Barbel to be climbing up your rods ! ;)

On the other hand baits most commonly used, and on particular stretches where many fish have been caught on such baits their effectiveness falls off to the point where it's very hard to get a bite, you'll know when that's happened when others using something different are still catching their fair share of Barbel.

It's so easy to avoid though, by keeping flavours subtle and different from the multitude, and meat in all it's forms is one of the best to achieve that.
I know most people talk of luncheon meat when they say 'meat' but there are dozens of processed meats different enough on their own that Barbel will take readily, but wont immediatly recognise the flavour, and it's also one of the easiest to flavour to keep it that bit different.

Ian.
 
Last season i made my own boilies and caught nearlly every fish that year on them.
Then this year not a single fish...
They taste so different to most barbel baits so its a big warning sign when they do get caught...:eek:

jamie
 
Going slightly off thread to chub; they are generally more cautious fish than barbel and quick to learn but I have never experienced them spooking on bread for some reason. Luncheon meat and cheese often produce snatchy bites but bread always seems to get that nice slow pull round.
 
If fish are hungry you can catch them on most baits. Otherwise big and smelly in high water -cheesepaste is good!- or small baits such as sweetcorn etc in clear water seems to work.
 

"Last season i made my own boilies and caught nearlly every fish that year on them.
Then this year not a single fish...
They taste so different to most barbel baits so its a big warning sign when they do get caught..."How strange given the close season and past success !
 
Mark i know.....
Its been hard this year so far and that seems to be the same story on every river but i can't get a bite on this bait now???
Maybe its this year lack of rain or whatever is putting them off
Or maybe its they have been caught on this bait and they some how remember????


jamie
 
Send me some ,I will catch a few on em ;)
Convinced I caught the same barbel twice within 2 hours recently one afternoon !
 
Mark Thompson said:
Send me some ,I will catch a few on em ;)
Convinced I caught the same barbel twice within 2 hours recently one afternoon !
Click to expand...

That has also happened to me Mark but it was on a different bait. It may well have taken the same bait again, who knows? Some baits take a lot more fish before blowing than others. I'm tiniking about maggots/casters in particular which, when applied correctly do seem to catch fish with great consistency.
 
Jamie,

That happened to me with some boilies I had bought, I do use them occasionally but only as a curiosity bait when my principle bait fails.

Dave
 
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