silkweed

[St.John]

thoughts are with you mike. cheers snape for clearing up the wd40 thing....don't think there's any questions left on that one!!

[Gammarus]

I used silkweed as a bait in the mid '60s, fishing for roach in summer on the Dorset Stour in Canford weir. I can't remember an awfull lot more about it, except I must have read about it somewhere and decided to give it a go. I do recall it was deadly on fine tackle in very clear water, I would pull it off the weir sill. Never used it since.

[Flightliner]

I used to fish the silkweed on the river bain in Lincolnshire just below a wier. The weed grew on the wooden piles where the water ran over.
A scrape of a hook into it did the loading up on a size twelve hook which was allowed to run downstream in the fast turbulant water under a bob float.
It was deadly for roach.
It was always a favourite after some rain when the sky was darkened by heavy unpromising clouds.
I have been fishing a water of late with a very good angler of the old school. We have found a little wier that holds some excellant redfins, Silkweed is next on the list as bait if the big lumps of breadflake prooves to be failing.

[CWK]

As a lad in the very early 60's I used to cycle over to Penton Hook wier on the Thames for a days fishing . Rod tied to crossbar with string , reel , floats , hook and shots contained in a duffle bag slung over my shoulder . Bait for the day was home bred gozzers contained in old tobacco tins, worms , a couple of slices of bread scrounged from the local bakers . More often than not the best bait for the roach and dace in the wierpool runoff was silkweek harvestd from the wier sill .. Happy , happy days...

[GarryProcter]

As the other chemist on this forum I can offer a second opinion on Snape's post - it is spot on! I also seem to recall that when I last checked on the official WD40 web site it was stated that it should not be used for fishing (not least because of pollution issues).

I have used silkweed as a bait. When I was a lad (dinosaurs roamed the earth) it used to be recommended in most books as a roach and dace bait. I used it a little when fishing a weirpool on the Dane, catching a few roach and dace. Never used it 'in earnest', more as a distraction from failing to catch barbel.

[JerryC]

I used to fish the silkweed on the river bain in Lincolnshire just below a wier. The weed grew on the wooden piles where the water ran over.
A scrape of a hook into it did the loading up on a size twelve hook which was allowed to run downstream in the fast turbulant water under a bob float.
It was deadly for roach.
It was always a favourite after some rain when the sky was darkened by heavy unpromising clouds.
I have been fishing a water of late with a very good angler of the old school. We have found a little wier that holds some excellant redfins, Silkweed is next on the list as bait if the big lumps of breadflake prooves to be failing.

I'll second that - silkweed, and it's inhabitants, (especially the little black snails) are deadly for roach on their day - fill the hook along the weed growth on the edge of the weir and off you go.

[Weyfarer]

WD40 is most useful in removing the tackiness remaining after peeling price labels etc on glass or metal.

Silkweed I've half heartedly tried without sucess in the past but I really must give it a proper trial now that I live in decent roach country.

Did anyone ever tried bullock's pith? (pre-BSE that is)

[Gurn]

Did anyone ever tried bullock's pith? (pre-BSE that is)

I wondered when someone might mention this, I have never tried it Weyfarer, have you?
Apparently a good bait for chub. Allow me to quote Wilfred Gavin Brown....
"Bullock's pith (a good winter bait and obtainable from your butcher). This pith, which comes from the bullock's spine, is used for the hook bait, while, mixed with bullock's brains, it can make an excellent groundbait."
He also goes on to mention Dock grubs, blackberries, strawberries and macaroni amongst others.

[GarryProcter]

Never tried bullock's pith or brains Gurn, but when very young did try dock grubs. I don't remember what I caught (well it was a dreadfully long time ago), but I do seem to recall it was very much harder to find a dock grub than a fish to take it! We also used to catch caddis grubs and use them for bait - many (small) roach were caught.

[Dave Burr]

Ahh the days spent trotting silkweed around a weir pool - happy days indeed. One thing that always struck me about fishing with silkweed was the boldness of the bites, at times I used a massive cork float that took most of the shot from my tin yet the roach would drag it through the surface foam (sometimes too thick to see the float!) and it would sail away like a pike bung, so much for the gentle bite os a roach.

Bringing weed up to date, my mate had a barbel on it in Spain a couple of years back when every other bait failed.