Fishing Bait and Additives
Fishing bait is one of the most important things to consider when fishing. You can spend 1000’s of pounds on fishing tackle and gear, but without some descent fishing bait it could all be wasted. Fishing bait has developed so much over the years and can be divided into defferent categories: Groundbaits, Pellets, Boilies, Particles, Liquids, Artificials and even Deadbaits. There is so much to choose from and all will play a different part in trying to catch you those fish. With so much to choose from Willy Worms have taken a lot of time to research the market and bring you the best-tried and tested baits from the best suppliers in Europe.
Fishing Groundbaits
How do I choose a groundbait? When choosing a groundbait the simplest thing to do is look at the groundbait bag. Many groundbaits will say on the bag what they are used for. E.g when fishing the Method, choose a groundbait with method mix on it. For example the Dynamite Baits swim stim method mix. The same can be said for species of fish you are targeting. Carp groundbait, Silver X Roach, Pro-Natural Bream, Supercrack Roach and so on and so on.
The simplest groundbait is white crumb or punch crumb, this is simply dried breadcrumb, milled into a powder. Ideal for winter fishing for roach and skimmers. The second most popular groundbaits are fishmeal groundbaits, basically dried out fish ground up to a very fine powder, perfect for carp, tench and bream. Another type of groundbait is made using crushed up biscuits, a lot of groundbaits from the continent are made up of this and tend to be much sweeter and blended with hemp, molasses and particles. Biscuits are also ideal for binding groundbaits. Bream love these type of groundbaits and Roach love chocolate flavoured groundbaits.
You can also get active or inactive groundbaits.
Active groundbaits will fall down to the bottom and fizz, these tend to have hemp particles in to help create this frenzied effect.
Inactive or inert groundbaits tend to be more like your method mixes which will stick together in one lump. Some particles will still fall out of the inactive groundbaits to attract fish.
Chub and Barbel prefer active groundbaits in rivers and lakes, Carp, Bream and Tench prefer inactive groundbaits, they will smell the groundbait on the lakebed and their movement will swirl up the water and groundbait creating clouds that will in turn attract more fish.
Why use groundbait?
- Pulling power, scented groundbaits have great pulling power to attract fish into your swim.
- Give fish confidence to feed in the first place. In clear waters groundbait will create clouds in particular dark fine groundbaits, like the Bait-Tech Pro-Natural Fine Lake Dark.
- Get your feed down to the bottom of the bed to make it easier to fish. i.e as a binder, it will hold your pellets, maggots and worms and live bait and take it to the bottom of the bed.
Fishing Pellets
Pellets are a great addition to any coarse and match bait. Pellets are probably the second favourite option after groundbaits. Pellets come in various shapes, colours and sizes. Some examples of types of pellets are expander pellets (ringers expanders), feed pellets (swim stim feed pellets, sonu baits feed pellets, bait-tech carp & coarse pellets). There are so many to choose from but here at Willy Worms we have sourced what we think are the best type of pellets on the markets from the best suppliers such as: Bait-Tech, Sonu Baits, Dynamite Baits and Ringers. Don’t forget many pellets can be used in a pellet pump which will help soak the pellet and squeeze all the air out to make them into a really good textured sinking pellets. Ringers pellet pump would be ideal for this. Again similar to groundbaits, pellets are flavoured in a similar way; you can get sweet and sticky pellets (bait-tech sticky method pellet) ideal for using in method feeders and fishmeal pellets. Fishmeal pellets tend to be more readily available and therefore cheaper to buy; many are used in commercial fisheries for carp as this is what the carp were farmed on originally.
There are also hook pellets, these can be small pre-drilled pellets for hair rigging, and also soft hooker pellets. These pellets tend to be soaked in liquid attractants to help bring in the fish. You can always add your own glug liquid attractant to your pellets giving you that extra edge in matches on commercials.
The most popular methods of fishing with pellets are pellet waggler and feeder fishing.