Matching your pellet to your hook.

[Nigel Rainton]

.... And rice :-)

[Mick]

Very interesting debate gentlemen. How far are you going to go though? Don't use too many slugs because hedgehogs eat them and hedgehogs are in decline, don't use too many worms from your garden for the same reason plus the fact that lobworms aerate the ground and promote good plant growth. They also take years to reach adulthood, so the ethics of sticking a hook in a worm come into play, if you have that kind of conscience. I don't, I'm afraid. I've spent a lot of my life watching a lot of things I used to hold dear become swallowed up in our Nanny State and I'll be jiggered if I'm going to be swayed against using a bait that I wouldn't leave home without. I take on board all that has been said though, but I have to say a fair proportion of it is, in my opinion, over the top. Just my opinion, no offence intended gentlemen.

[Nobby]

I wondered if anyone would remember that old clip with Ray Walton and Fred Crouch in.... From memory they thought it was 'growth hormones' in the Luncheon Meat causing the barbule anomalies?

From my time working in a tackle shop I'm trying to recall which baits we sold the most of......maggots obviously, but on the whole I'd say it was ready-prepared pellets we sold the most of.

But this is a false memory really because when the matchmen or carp anglers came in they'd buy £40 worth in one sale, so their impact would surely be greater than a lad buying half a pint of maggots and a tub of ready made pellets.


Generally the matchmen bought dry pellets to make up at home, and for them we would buy in huge bulk bags by the top maker who supplied most of the pellet makers anyway.

Carp anglers mostly bought boilies, about 80-20 in favour of ambient to frozen.


You would be shocked at the amount of bait matchmen put in.......5kg for a 6 hour match regularly


And the carp anglers might use 10 to 15 kilos for a there-day long week-end session.


It's hardly surprising that the fishing goes dead after a match...the fish are sleeping off a feast!

Sooner or later these huge quantities of food must have some impact, surely?


I did read of one fishery having to be drained and the lake bed scraped clean because so much fat was on the deck from meat....though I think in this case it was cheap cat-food from Lidl which was very much in vogue about 6 years ago, rather than Luncheon Meat. Coshida, was it?

[Santiago]

I just based the 2 kg figure for pellets on my own use. Oops! I had no idea other anglers used so many pellets! Nevertheless, I think we should generally try to use as little bait as we can for what we each consider to be a good days fishing, regardless of the bait used, and that none of us should preach against any specific bait that is used in sensible amounts that we know will be scoffed up by the fish and not left on the bottom to rot. And that amount will be different for different waters, seasons etc.

Interestingly, so my son has been told by one of his ecology uni professors, worldwide about 1/3rd of ALL food made for human consumption ends up being THROWN AWAY !!!! So in the grand scheme of things I think the environmental impact of sourcing fishing bait is virtually nil in comparison; so perhaps our main concern should be how we, as end users, fish with it!!!

[Aitch]

You would be shocked at the amount of bait matchmen put in.......5kg for a 6 hour match regularly


And the carp anglers might use 10 to 15 kilos for a there-day long week-end session.

Many waters now have bait limits.... on match waters it'll be about 2kg I certainly feed less than a quarter of that on a club match

as for carping 10-15kg of shop bought boilies is going to be approx £110-£165 per session... dunno about other folk, but I can't afford that every time I do a weekends carping.... I'd use less than a kilo for 3 days.... and in the winter I use single baits, so for a weekend my two rods will use only a dozen boilies... I think you may be quoting a worst case scenarios

[Nobby]

I'm quoting what I sold at the tackle shop where I worked. Certainly the figures I gave are the ones that I remember most simply for their excess.


I'm not suggesting that these figures are exactly what every angler buys, simply using their excess to suggest that there must eventually be some impact on the environment.

Perversely, to over-feed in match circles ( though this is really only in Winter) is to risk huge ridicule from the other anglers......but in warm weather the amount used seemed to be a bragging point

As to the carp anglers..I once saw 4 set off for France for a weeks fishing. At a rough guess there was about £600 worth of boilies in that van! I must point out that they didn't pay that much of course.......they got a far better price for buying so much.

I have no idea if they used them all....... Personally I still have a tub of boilies here that I bought 5 years ago. I couldn't get a sniff on them, but huge chunks of luncheon meat got a bite in moments.

[Santiago]

Boilies don't work for me either, although I did find a use for them; they work very well in crayfish traps! On the Thames it's hard to beat corn and worms. Even maggots fail to catch the bigger fish!

[Dave Burr]

I'm afraid that bait is merely an indicator to the mind set of some anglers. I don't like 'greedy' anglers - those people intent on taking every fish in the water and bragging about it. Match anglers are under this label as its the name of their game and I feel they have far less regard for their fish than anybody else. But its not just the match angler who looks up and down the bank and thinks 'well he's put a kilo of bait in and that chap's only put half a kilo in......' Pretty soon they are turning up with a wheel barrow full of bait and are trying to buy the biggest fish/catch. Its greed with little consideration to common sense or fish care.

However, when you go to France you need to be well armed. I have fished rivers and lakes where even the locals bait with 5 to 10 kgs of boilies a day! The theory being that when a shoal of carp amble by they are likely to average 30 to 40lbs in weight so it takes little imagination to realise just how much bait these fish can put away. Whilst they are in your swim you can amass a good catch but once the lake or river bed is devoid of bait they drift away. You need to feed 'em to hold 'em.

I've taken 70 to 80 kilo's of boilies and bags of groats, corn, pellets etc for a fortnight in France with my lad but always brought at least half of it back.

It was the same in the old bream matches but the anglers tended to bait sparingly but went in with the big guns if the fish turned up and by heck, they put some feed in.

Nobby, I've heard many tales of lakes being drained and X number of uneaten boilies or, in your case, fat being removed but have never seen any evidence of it. I think that most are just urban myth but I may be wrong.

Small stillwaters that are heavily match fished must have some problems with excess feed but there are usually so many fish in them most of it gets eaten. Try that in an old fashioned farm pond and you'd end up with an island of pellets and boilies and very few fish.

[Shaun Harrison]

I have just sat and read this thread (I've not been following it -the title put me off). Being in the angling trade selling all types of bait for 35 years now and knowing a little bit about it I was finding myself shaking my head more and more with some of the rather strange and 'guessed/presumed' comments. Fortunately Dave Burr and Santiago have both spoken wise words.

I don't intend to get bogged down in this as I have written countless articles in the national magazines over the years on the subject but I will say two things.

The reason some struggle to catch on pellets is that the market is flooded with out of date rancid pellet. Rancid fish meals and oils are not detectable by the human senses - most fish species seem to be able to tell the difference though. I am constantly being offered out of date pellet and the people offering these are amazed at the reaction they get from me so they are obviously managing to move them elsewhere. Be very aware of re-bagged pellet, I have even had sacks turn up that have been re-bagged because the use by date had obviously been reached. They have always gone back the same way as they came as well and surprise surprise the suppliers haven't been able to supply that size of pellet for some time (until their re-bagged stock has finally been moved).

The second point I will make is that Halibut/Marine pellets are the worst thing that has happened to U.K. angling in terms of bait. Used on their own they are far too high in oil content for coarse fish to be able to cope with. There is more out of date Halibut Pellets around than anything else I am aware of. Funny how some of the pellets sold in clear bags are oozing with oil, so much so that a small puddle can be seen in the corners of some bags. Brought back to life? Fresh pellets aren't like this.

In fact I'll stretch to a third point. The angling bait trade uses a tiny fraction of fish meals in the grand scheme of things. So much so that the best meals that were obtainable a few years back simply are no longer available to the bait trade. A few years ago most would happily sell you 1,000 kg of most of the meals. Nowadays you don't get a look in. Even bulking your orders right up to several pallets they just aren't available. The pet food dried food trade (cat biscuits, koi pellet etc) takes a massive portion and have seemingly managed to push a lot of the angling trade companies out of it. I'm glad I never based my business of fish meal baits. 10 years ago there were multitudes of different fish meals available. Nowadays if the truth be known, most of the bait trade is working with the same two or three meals.

[Nobby]

For some unknown reason I am gifted, or perhaps cursed, with a sense of smell that really hates rancid and oxidised oils. Other people seem not to notice this awful smell...my wife thinks I am mad. There's some salad dressings on supermarket shelves that simply make me gag, and as Shaun has said the fishing bait industry seems to be cursed with ropey oils too.
There's one popular bait maker whose pellets absolutely stink...they're a big seller though as they are a firm pellet that stays on the hook well. It is they that use the term 'dog oil' in regard to a fish oil and most tackle shops stock their products.

I have bought them in the past myself....and do you know what Shaun? ....I've never had a bite on them!
It seems the fish might be as fussy as me