The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Not sure if this will be helpful.

When I first started fishing, at a small but very deep pond back in the mid to late 1960's , with a stock that was at least 99% crucian carp (the rest was made up of one or two large perch and roach) the following baits were all very successful for the crucians:

- small redworms ( those you get from a compost heap) or a small dendrobena
- very tiny pieces of very soft breadpaste - just enough to cover the point of a number 20 hook
- a small piece of par-boiled potato

Bjp wrote:

Phil Arnott wrote:I fished one water that held only a small head of crucians and almost invariably they were caught on soft cheese such as Kraft cheese slices despite anglers fishing with more usual baits.

i remember reading somewhere that dairylea was good so i bought some triangles but it was so soft it was unusable, so can you tell me how you use the slices.

regards

bjp

My mistake it was Dairylea I used not Kraft and it is very soft but you just had to cast it carefully. I seem to remember moulding it on the hook then dipping it in the cooler water to harden it up a bit as mentioned by Santiago. I know I used to cast it a fair way as I also caught good catches of bream and roach on it. I used a heavily shotted antenna float and cast it underhand.

Eventually the roach and bream learnt to bite bits off the side rather than take the whole bait! I had a frustrating session missing sail away bites so I let a bite go without striking and then reeled the bait in very carefully and inspected it to find a perfect bite mark in the side of the cheese.

You can always stiffen cheese up a bit by mixing it with some harder stuff. Dairylea was particularly soft on warm days but you could keep it in a cool bag. I use them all the time for my sea baits. In Winter of course cheese can be too hard and you have to use cheese paste instead.

Tiny pieces of prawn works well on one of my local waters

Thanks for all the suggestions fellas. I had thought about cheesepaste, the biggest problem is getting it past the hordes of small rudd before they hammer it. That is one of the reasons that I use a banded pellet, they are, to a point, rudd proof. However, I will take on board what you have all said and 'broaden my horizons'!! Much obliged.

Wallys-Cast wrote:Always had best results with a little bit of bread flake. Fresh loaf straight from the bakery, I usually eat half of it myself on the way to the pond.

Wal.

Glad I'm not the only one...its the smell that gets me..

Aquaerial wrote:

Wallys-Cast wrote:Always had best results with a little bit of bread flake. Fresh loaf straight from the bakery, I usually eat half of it myself on the way to the pond.

Wal.

Glad I'm not the only one...its the smell that gets me..

thats why i alway use a big tin of sweetcorn when fishing half for the fish and half for me i love it

regards

bjp

Santiago wrote:Make a Dairy Lea sandwich and punch that!! Also peanut butter works very well in punched sandwich.

so simple i should have thought of that
in fact i guess i could just spread the cheese over one piece of bread and then punch it to make a smaller bait

regards

bjp

Simple bread and cheese paste used to work really well for me

I find there quite shy biters so i squeeze a sweet corn and use the skin. Works for me....

Corn, bread and soft pellets , but as Dave said its hitting the bites that's the problem. I caught 5 Cru's on Wednesday but missed a load of bites that were obviously crucians too.