Are these the best baits of all time?
From sweetcorn and pellets to bright hookbaits and foodbaits, these are the best...
Sweetcorn
When we asked Dennis McFetrich what it was like using sweetcorn for the first time in the 70s, his response was: “It was almost like cheating it was that good!” Although not as fashionable these days, corn can be your secret weapon on any lake, and for an added twist, try flavouring/colouring your own.
Mainline Cell
A flavour of boilie instead of just ‘boilies’? Madness! However, we all know how successful boilies are and how they’ve changed fishing forever, so we’ve decided to pick Mainline’s Cell as one of our ‘Top Six Best Baits’ for the simple reason that it is, well, the most successful foodbait ever produced - outselling all other boilies by some margin.
Maggots
If we had to pick one bait to always try and tear a water apart on, it would be maggots. Whether it’s a pressured day ticket venue, virgin inland sea, river or garden pond, no fish that’s swimming can resist a wriggling ‘germ’. They are often regarded as the ultimate winter carp food by many big names, too and produce the goods year in, year out.
Pellets
During the early ‘trout pellet’ phenomenon, super hard waters suddenly became, well, easy. Anglers such as Jon Coxhead for example took full advantage of their appeal, even making Yateley’s Car Park Lake look – dare we say it (big gulp) – easy. They’re now the country’s most popular background feed.
Artificial hookbaits
2001. That was the year when the masses discovered Enterprise Tackle’s Artificial Sweetcorn – all thanks to Terry Glebioska and his 59lb 7oz new British record. The invention of fake baits allowed us to fish previously un-Hair-rig-and-long-distance-friendly baits such as sweetcorn, hemp – even bread.
Fluoro pop-ups
It’s the single biggest item that has changed our catch results in winter – and when the close season was abolished, spring too. It was Frank Warwick and Dynamite Baits in 2003 that first made them commercially available and since then, 99% of the carping population now has a tub of ‘bright ones’ in their bait bag, which now come in hundreds of different shapes, size and smells.