Bait According To... Darrell Peck
As someone once said, there are no secret baits, only bait secrets. Here, Darrell Peck shares some of his…
The bait which changed everything for me was Mainline’s Activ-8, when it was first released back in the late ’90s. I was still at school, but was already a super-keen carp angler, spending all my free time fishing a local lake called Channels. The lake wasn’t rock hard, but at the same time, it became very obvious that this bait was head and shoulders above what we’d been using until then. I went from struggling, to catching every trip, and my friends experienced the very same. There was no doubt that Activ-8 was way ahead of its time.
The game-changing baiting moment which altered everything for me was something very simple: pre-soaking my boilies in lake water. I’ve done it since I fished in Belgium during the autumn of 2014. Some might refer to this method as ‘washing out’, but that’s not really how I see it. The baits actually become saturated in their attractors due to the contained, low volume of water they are immersed in. There are two reasons why I like to soak my baits. Firstly, they soften, and so they become easier for the carp to eat. Secondly, once saturated, they are less susceptible to taking on the odours from the lakebed—I find pre-soaking my boilies especially effective when fishing siltier areas. These days, I routinely dissolve a little Cell Smart Liquid into the water, prior to introducing my boilies.
The last bait-related item I bought and loved was the RidgeMonkey Boilie Crusher. I’ll use Korda’s Krusha, obviously, when doing small amounts of boiled crumb for PVA Sticks and the like, but when it comes to baiting and pre-baiting, RidgeMonkey’s is far more practical. Boilie crumb not only introduces lots of smell and attraction to the water, but it also really helps as fish clean up the spots over prolonged baiting campaigns. When I’m fishing a venue regularly, I like to find new areas, away from the known spots. These often benefit from a little prior baiting and preparation. Baiting with boilie crumb is not only an effective spot-clearing tactic, it also makes it much harder for the diving birds to decimate an area.
On my wish list for a future bait item is a very thin, watery bait soak which has the same pulling power as the liquid from freshly chopped worm, but at a fraction of the cost. There is no doubting the attractiveness of the humble worm, but its downside is that it can often be too attractive when nuisance species are present. As such, it can be difficult to keep rods in place long enough for the carp to find your baits. I’d love to soak my boilies and tigers in pure worm juice.
Baits I long to use again are the first trout and salmon pellets from some 20 years ago. They were far more effective than today’s pale equivalents. They used to literally ooze with crude, orange-coloured fish oil, and the reaction from fish to these was immense. I’m not sure why, but I’d guess that the oil content has long since been reduced, for the long-term health benefits of fish. However, when it comes down to attraction and effectiveness, they were on a completely different level back then.
I try to take bait-related influences from anyone who is successful, especially those who fish carp matches, or who fish the high-stock, day-ticket venues—anglers like Rob Burgess and Tom Maker, I guess. On well-stocked venues, it’s much easier to see when something is working well, but also when something really isn’t. Ultimately, I’m approaching 40, so I’m an old hand at this now, and I’d like to think that I can recognise when opportunities are missed because my chosen bait is being readily ignored.
There are so many variables to my preferred baiting approach, but when Spombing to a clear spot, I’ll usually fish tigers and 10mm Essential Cell boilies with a little Cell Smart Liquid.
When it comes to hookbait preference, on the highly pressured venues, these days I try to avoid pop-ups. I use smaller, wafter-style alternatives, and duller hookbaits rather than bright ones. I feel that for the last decade, the trend and fashion has been for carp anglers to fish bright pop-ups on set-ups like Chod Rigs, Hinges and Spinners. Being so effective at both presenting and hooking, I feel a bright bait hovering a few inches off the bottom has become, for any passing and pressured carp, quite obviously the hookbait. Ultimately, a pop-up’s greatest asset, its obviousness, is also its greatest weakness.
My preferred free food size is 10mm. I like baits of this size a lot.
My biggest bait edge is the liquid left after boiling tigers nuts… it’s pure liquid gold! When boilies are soaked in it, or when it’s used with crumb, it’s absolutely lethal, and especially so when tiger nuts are banned on your chosen venue. I am not suggesting you use tiger nuts where they are not permitted, just simply soak your boilies in their juice. Keep this to yourself if you do, else some crusty old fart will likely report you—you have been warned!
