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Please do not pre-bait

Ian Crook

Ian Crook

Senior Member
Hello all,

This is a polite request on behalf of barbel anglers everywhere....

Please, please, please, whatever you think, DO NOT pre-bait any river prior to the start of the season which other people may also be planning to fish.

This is a practice which seems to be getting worse every year, if everyone spends the next few weeks chucking bait in, the barbel will not be at all hungry by the time the 16th comes around.

So please, for this year, give it a miss.
 
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Just edited my original post as I missed out the two very important words "DO NOT", oops, kind of read the opposite of what I intended...........
 
if everyone spends the next few weeks chucking bait in

Crooky not every one wants to pile it in by the kilo :eek:

In fact although i know it happens here and there personally i don't know of anyone who prebaits in that manner.
It can't be that much of a problem that all the barbel are full up by the 16th can it ?

The beggining of the season is usually a slow start because they've got other things on their minds :D

Ian.
 
Hi men ,

True mate . I always try and think about who will be coming behind me and Sue as we wander about , and try and put only enough in the swim to get a bite then we are on our toes . Might be diff if we sat in a swim for a whole day , but even then we fish in patches and bait to the amount of fish we think are in the swim.

Hatter
 
There are plenty who will put a handfull of "Their chosen" boilies in just about every potentially productive swim, almost every day...........that's a few kilos a week. If 30 people are doing the same, the mind boggles............

Then when the season starts, the pellet boys get on it, the gravel quickly dissapears and everyone is saying "the barbel have gone, otters and eastern europeans have eaten them"..............
 
Andrew Boyne said:
So . . . as long as no one else is planning to fish it then i'm ok! ;):D
Click to expand...

well i am so you cant :p:D hi andy how are you any plans for the start of the new season
 
Well unless you know of somewhere in particular Ian, i reckon the level of bait going into the rivers is a fraction of what goes in once the season has started, just where are all these people piling in this bait, i just don't see them.

Ian.
 
I knew i was spotted putting both of those pellets in the river last night LOL
 
Sorry Ian, Joke! I'm from Yorkshire - pre-baiting is far too costly and as t'other Ian has suggested - pretty pointless as they'll be ( cough ) ' pre - occupied '! ;)
 
The Chairman on Thursday


Absolutely. Though, just to be safe, I do have a couple of my serv - er - employees putting in one hundred clay balls filled with a thousand chopped lobworm every day, plus some greaves and gentles for luck. Quite an underwater feature developing in the small-river swim concerned.


As ever,

B.B.
 
I think when you say DONT PRE BAIT you should be abit more specific..There are certain baits that dont fill the fish up but can keep them coming back for more such as hemp/corn etc..Pellets boilies and all the other high protein high oil content baits etc are the ones imo that you should be refering too..:)
 
Craig,
Ian, and i agree on most things, but we love to banter, and when he say's something i don't agree with he knows i'll pounce !
This is one of those times, i just don't see his logic.
There are people out there pre baiting - normally me as well, but not yet as i haven't taken delivery of my bait ingredients.
Once the season starts everyone will be baiting whether before during or after, it must be hundreds of times more than is going in pre season.
Some like to walk the banks baiting several swims, some are static.
If the tiny fraction of what goes in compared to after the start of the season is filling them up, then we shouldn't be catching anything after the start.
Answer me this question....where normally do you find the most prolific fishing? in my experience it's where the most bait is going in.
Using Crooky's logic, we should all be using single hook baits ( though i know many do )
There are idiots out there that pile it in by the bucketful, but it's rare, and Crooky's coments may be with that in mind, if so then i agree.
It's all about using your bait responsibly.
Pileing in maggots will see little effect on the fish, pileing in boilies and pellets, will quickly see the fish go off the feed.
I fish over and prebait with a small handful of broken 12mm boilies, prebaiting normally if i'm lucky is about twice mid week.
Pileing the bait in will see too many smaller fish and chub entering the swim, reducing my chances of the bigger fish.
This is the method that has caught me 5 times as many Barbel than any other fishing the venue i was fishing last year. the same the year before on a different venue. Small though the amount is i put in whilst prebaiting it's the method that i know brings the best results.
I certainly wont be changing my methods.

Ian.
 
Hi ian
I dont bother pre baiting anymore..I used to do it when i lived in the midlands and fished the lower severn and caught a good fair few double figure barbel and big carp and big bream but due to its size and fish stocks you couldent put enough in!!!!!:D..But on smaller rivers i dont think its of any benefit..My approach is simply find the fish first and feed little but often..I remember being at a bs meeting some time ago and pete reading said that when he fished adams mill when he waded in at a particular peg that someone had pre baited with boilies and when he walked out the boilies were up to his ankles!!!..:eek:..The point being ian as youve rightly pointed out,you should first have some idea as to fish numbers your targeting before deciding how much bait to put in...That applies imo to any part of the season..:)
 
Prebaiting

It must be great to fish stretches where you can prebait (responsibly) and expect to walk straight to an available swim on the opening day. Or are you camping out from the 14th?:)
 
OK, being more specific.

If you are planning to fish a venue where almost every swim will be taken from the 16th June to about the end of august, such as many on the Kennet, please do not spend the next three weeks throwing handfuls of boilies or pellets in every swim, every day.............

I know of 8 different people who are all putting around a kilo a week of boilies in the same small stretch and have been for the last 2 months, I just think this type of practice is stupid, I certainly won't bother fishing it this summer as a result!!!

Feeding maggots, hemp or corn would be quite pointless anyway as the fish know they are food and they will simply wash through the river.

The reason people pre-bait is to get their bait of choice "known" as a food source prior to applying it in a fishing situation.

The request was a polite one, if you don't agree that is your choice..................
 
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