baits for pike, often out

I even went to the extent of carrying out controlled fishing tests over a number of years where I fished a coarse fish dead bait on one rod with the other rod with identical tackle on a sea bait. To remove any swim bias, the rods were alternated every cast. The results showed that on the majority of waters I fished that the sea bait was superior.Thorpe Park gave the most positive results in favour of sea baits. The sea baits produced more runs, fish and bigger fish. All the twenty pound plus fish that I either caught or saw caught were on sea baits. I once fished a swim near the Dome, fishing one rod on sea baits with the other on either roach or bream dead baits. The outfits and terminal tackle were identical. After an hour, I had my first run on the sea bait that produced a 171b 8oz fish. I changed the rods around but the next run again came from the sea bait rod, this time it was a 221b 12oz pike. Again I changed the rods around and in the next four hours had two more smaller pike on the sea baits. That was fairly conclusive to me.The tendency for pike to prefer sea baits has been well documented and written about but this is only part of the picture. I believe that this trend can be linked to the observations that I have made about fishing with cockles as against swan mussels. In the fifties and sixties, I used to use freshwater swan mussels for tench. I was never happy with using swan mussels as they are relatively slow growing and it is easy to wipe out a whole community through over intensive collection. It was the lack of an easy local supply, coupled with the need for conservation that finally led to the search for an alternative bait, namely cockles. The results, as with sea-baits for pike, often out-performed the freshwater bait. I once used cockles on a well stocked local water producing results that even surprised me. I arrived to fish a short evening session. It had been a hot day and an evening session appeared to be the best bet to catch fish. I set up with a powerful float rod with a fixed-spool reel loaded with 51b b.s. line. The terminal rig was a small peacock waggler with a crow quill insert, locked onto the line with the bulk shot. Only a number 6 shot was placed down the line, and that was tied direct to a size 8 hook. This was baited with a cooked cockle that came from a fresh fish shop. I do not use pickled cockles as they are pickled in vinegar which is acidic. I believe that the pickled cockle is too acidic for the majority of fish. I plumbed the depth at 5ft deep and catapulted a few cockles into the swim. After less than half an hour, I had my first bite that produced a double figured carp. The next bite produced a four pound tench, that was followed by a similar sized bream. Fish came regularly to my net but I was surprised at the great variety of fish that it produced. At the end of the session I had had eight different species of fish; carp, tench, bream, roach, perch, eel, roach and rudd.It has been my experience that it is rare to catch a perch on a sea bait. However although it’s rare that a perch takes a cockle, when it does it is often a good size. I know of a 41b 9oz perch taken on a cockle that rejected a worm that had been fished on the previous cast.Prawns are another sea bait that work well on some fisheries. I used to carry a few whole prawns with me when I used to fish the Royalty Fishery on the Hampshire Avon. I would often free line a prawn through the swim at various times during the day. This often used to produce some very good chub with the odd barbel. In more recent times we have used whole prawns or peeled prawn sections on still waters and have done very well with a variety of fish, particularly carp and the odd good roach at times. Again, I believe that the salt in prawns is largely responsible for their success.Naturally the observations with pike on dead baits and the cockle against swan mussel are linked by one factor, and that is salt. Let’s face it, would you like your Sunday roast without any added salt? I don’t think many of us would like it. Perhaps fish are like humans in this respect and we should add salt to our baits. I know that some top carp anglers are already adding salt to their boilie mixes and have enjoyed some good results. I decided to follow suit but I am much more of a paste man rather than a boilie fanatic.I made up one of my favourite pastes with the addition of one tablespoon-full of salt. To make this paste, crack four large eggs into a bowl and give them a whisk. Add 3ml of Richworth Eastern Promise flavour, half a teaspoon of Sweet Fusion palatant and the same amount of Dairy Fusion palatant. Then I add the full tablespoon of salt. Then 500g of Richworth Red Menace is added and worked in to produce a stiff paste.Red Menace is a red birdfood base that is much spicier than the yellow alternative and, unlike some birdfoods, it rolls very well. I believe that this base mix is very under-rated but it works exceptionally well.If small fish are a problem, I turn the paste into a boilie. I roll them into balls and place them into boiling water for up to 6 minutes. The longer the bait is left in boiling water the harder the bait. When mitten crabs are a problem on the Tidal Thames it pays to leave the bait in boiling water for the full six minutes to produce a hard bait.I was surprised at the difference that the added salt appeared to make but it is too early to make any rigid conclusions. More time and much more testing is necessary before these can be made. However I am most encouraged by the results so far.I have used both the salted and the unsalted paste on various venues including trials on holiday venues. On most holiday venues, I was only using one rod at a time as I was using a 10ft stalking rod with a centre pin loaded with heavy line. The terminal tackle consists of a Preston Innovations “Tyson” pole float that has great sensitivity whilst being sufficiently robust to stand being pulled through weeds and various snags. I only have one number 6 shot down the line that is attached to a largish hook. The hook is kept large to give the paste more area to key onto.The paste is generally fished over a mixed pellet feed. I use a mixture of Richworth hemp and trout pellet as feed. The mixture, I believe gives better results than obtained from either pellet fished individually.One holiday venue that I used this approach was at Willow Waters at Pocklington, near York. The main lake on this venue is a well established water going back to the 1900’s and holds a good head of many species.I got up early one morning and fed two swims with the mixed feed. I left them for about thirty minutes before returning to fish the first swim. Almost immediately, I was catching roach that were averaging about 4oz with the odd better fish to 12oz. They were really taking the paste on the size 6 with no trouble. I had had about 12 roach when I struck into solid resistance and was glad that I had resisted the temptation to scale down for the roach. This was no small carp as it was testing my 101b b.s. line and powerful rod to the limit. I also had plenty of scary moments as the fish tried to get into various snags but each time I managed to steer it into open water. Eventually the fish surfaced and I could see it was a good common carp. Shortly after, I netted it and weighed it at 191b 6oz. Unfortunately it then started to rain and I went back to the bungalow for breakfast.When I had had breakfast and the rain had stopped, I returned to fish with the unsalted paste. I caught several more roach and a couple of bream but no carp. Sport had really slowed down but this might have been due to it being later in the day and the fish not feeding as well as they were earlier in the morning. I tried both baits out several times on that holiday on Willow Waters but could not draw any rigid conclusion. However, most of the better fish were caught on the salted paste.When I returned home, I fished a local commercial fishery with a match fishing friend. He is a good angler with a lot of experience of fishing trout pellet paste. We had both opted to use trout pellet paste as we wanted to catch some of the crucian carp that were in the water. Crucian carp appear to have a particular liking for trout pellet paste so we were both confident. However, I decided to add a little salt to my paste to see if it would give me an edge. Our rigs were very similar using pole floats fished close in over a carpet of trout pellet. He was using a size 10 hook whilst I was using slightly heavier line with a size 8 hook.Sport was good and we were both getting a lot of bites and catching regularly but by the end of the session, I had had nearly twice as many fish. I realise that it would be impossible to say that the salted bait was solely responsible, as factors like swim selection needed to be taken into consideration. I also suspect that I had more experience with crucians and was more likely to spot their shy bites.On tidal rivers the addition of salt to baits appears to give a more dramatic improvement to the results. Again, a much longer period of testing will be required to come to a firm conclusion. No doubt, I will be back on the tidal Thames this winter to experiment with salty baits.In one particular application my bird seed based pastes have not done that well is on the River Kennet, fishing for chub and barbel. I was surprised that friends of mine using milk protein pastes were doing so much better than me. I thought that with the more open texture of a bird seed based bait the flavour would have leaked faster to attract the fish quickly into the swim. Then I found out that they were adding salt to their base mix. Was it the base mix or the added salt that was producing those superior results? I do not know but I will be trying the salted version of my paste this year. The comparative results should make interesting reading.

Conclusion. There is no doubt that there are many sea food baits that can produce some very good results with a whole variety of species. However whether it is just a question of the salt content, or some other factor is questionable. The use of added salt to boilie or pastes is practised by many top carp anglers who have enjoyed some good results. It appears to work better on some waters than others but it is still too early to draw any rigid conclusions. I will continue to use sea food baits as they have worked so well for me and I will continue to experiment with adding salt to baits.