Will there be blood?

[Stathamender]

Just in the process of re-reading Barrie Rickards and Ray Webb Fishing for Big Tench, it might be 40 years old but there's a lot of sense in this book. The ground-baiting section gets very enthusiastic about using ox-blood and this had been very popular for a long time, apparently (according to the old writers anyway) all you had to do was stroll up to the local slaughterhouse and ask them for a bucket full and they'd willingly oblige (I wonder how true that was?) either liquid or clotted.

Things are rather different these days of course. Not just the elfinsafertee stuff but, especially, the knock-on effects of the BSE problems. DEFRA has a big range of restrictions on exactly what happens to waste products from abbatoirs especially for cattle. It's even got difficult to find blood meal (essentially dried blood) although this still appears to be used in fish farming. Most garden centres in the UK used to have it but now most of the sellers that popup on a google search are US based (there's still a few here though) and the nearest you can get usually is the combined blood, fish and bone meal. I'm told it's still quite easy to get in the Netherlands though. And then there's this on Ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Blood-Powder- ... 1025292631. There's a few other similar things listed on Ebay.

So what's people's experience here? Are people still using blood or something like it for tench or has the practice died out altogether? And has anyone used any of these various powders and additives? Has anybody tried it for pike/perch fishing?

Iain

PS I checked up on one of the waters Ray Webb mentioned, Pegley Pond near Sheffield, and was pleased to see that it's bordered by an area called Crabtree Wood.

[Santiago]

I just use Black pudding on the hook and it serves me very well on the local pit where the tench go to over 10lb! Fish it over a bed of mushed up black pudding and bread! And watch the water fizzzzzzz!

[AshbyCut]

In "Baits and Groundbaits" (pub 1950.Gilbertson and Page Ltd), 'Faddist' suggests :-

"Two or three drops of oil of tar are sometimes mixed in with tench groundbait as an added attraction - tench are said to be attracted by the smell of tar - but care must be taken in adding the drops as the spirit is a poison and burns the skin if carelessly allowed to dry on."

The days before Health and Safety, obviously.

[Aitch]

as an ex butcher and one who has worked in an abattoir, I can confirm that folk used to pop by occasionally and ask for a "Bucket o' Blood" we used to stick said bucket under a bleeding carcass and pass it on.... I know it was used as an ingredient for tench fishing and F J Taylor has a pic of his brothers adding a bucket to a bread mash in his book "Favourite Swims"

[Julian]

F J Taylor does say somewhere in his book - Fishing for Tench - that although they often used it , he did not think they caught anymore or any larger fish as opposed to not using it.

[Stathamender]

I just use Black pudding on the hook and it serves me very well on the local pit where the tench go to over 10lb! Fish it over a bed of mushed up black pudding and bread! And watch the water fizzzzzzz!

As someone who grew up just a few miles from Bury I have to say I'm shocked, yes shocked, at this. Unless of course you're using just inferior black puddings from outside Lancashire.

[Santiago]

Being a Yorkshire man I use only the best! I see you're now living in Yorkshire so you must have seen the light to have moved to the superior county; unlike me who moved away for employment!

[Isis]

Brings back memories, my local abattoir was very helpful when I was a teenage tench nut. He had me holding the bucket as the red stuff pumped out of the upside-down cow. It coagulated pretty quickly but you never let him put salt in to stop this happening. Hours later when you plunged your hand in the bucket of red jelly it was still warm!
Blood worked well for my tenching but we had another cunning use for it. On one club water I fished they held competitions on a Sunday. Not being a match fisherman I decided that if I was going to enter it would be on my terms. Pike were allowed to be weighed in so I decided to target them. Blood was poured into small pots overnight and I arrived to fish loaded with lots of lobworms. After the starting whistle, two gloopy blobs of blood was tossed into the swim leaving a slightly pink foam on the surface. Three lobs on a hook with two swan shots about a foot above the hook was cast out and I spent the next few hours twitching them all around the blood. Four small pike later and the club captain came to investigate after getting complaints from anglers in adjoining swims. Result was this style of fishing was then declared unacceptable. Just to add to my previous grievance with the club about them not allowing me to use deadbaits for barbel (minnows) not that that stopped me. This is back in the days of size limits and hempseed bans.

[Stathamender]

I think I'll be trying some black pudding on the hook (it's fairly easy to get inferior versions here in Yorkshire) and blood powder in the ground bait soon.

I'll let you know how it pans out.

Iain