Bait According To... Ian Poole

The bait that changed everything would have been in the late 80s, when I used an expensive milk protein based boilie combined with a low level citrus essential oil/sweetener blend to target a local venue where I knew there was some good-sized fish. I just couldn’t seem to catch them using other baits and I planned a winter campaign fishing every week so I could keep a regular supply of bait going in. Each Friday (my day off work) I would take a three-egg mix with me and then at the end of the day bait up with the boilies I had left, which generally numbered around a hundred or so. In the beginning I wasn’t convinced these rather pricey creamy-coloured boilies that smelt of oranges were up to the task but I was keen to give them a fair go. They worked, and over the course of the winter I caught all of the known big fish in the venue, with the largest of all tripping up several times. It proved to me that a quality boiled bait didn’t need to be used in large quantities to be successful, and whilst I now choose fishmeal over milk protein, the emphasis on quality is something I have always stuck with, even on waters where others have been using much larger amounts of bait. 

The game-changing baiting moment which altered everything for me was getting to grips with how to fish solid bags to their best effect. This one-bite tactic does sum up the way I approach a lot of my angling and they have been very successful for me over the years on a good variety of venues. Back then there were some great trout pellets around—the likes of which you just can’t seem to get these days—and taken to venues which hadn’t seen them and fished in the solid bags, I felt like I could literally walk on water. It was a great time to be angling.

A bait-related item I would never part with would be my home rolling kit. We’ve never had it so good in regards to the bait available these days but I still prefer to use hookbaits rolled at home for the majority of my fishing. They can be tweaked exactly how I want rather than using something commercially rolled that would probably be okay but not precisely what I wanted. It may sound fussy but it’s a confidence thing and by rolling bait to my exact requirements I can then concentrate on everything else.

On my wish-list for a future bait-related item would be one of those corkball hookbait rollers. Maybe next time I need some hookbaits I will order one to see if they are any good.

I have an excessive collection of corkballed hookbaits. If I’m fishing a ‘match the hatch’ pop-up or semi-buoyant wafter, then looking similar to the free offerings isn’t good enough. It has to look exactly the same, and for me there is only one type of hookbait that will do the job. Most I roll myself and a few I have bought off the shelf, but yes, I have got more than enough in the freezer to keep me going for a very long time!

There are two baits I long to use again: the original Nash All-Season S Mix and the Richworth Multiplex. I used to roll the S Mix myself, adding 1oz of Robin Red, the Tangerine Oil Palatant and a splash of sweetener—a brilliant bait and one that produced fish for me everywhere. The Multiplex was the best big fish bait I ever used—bar none. It was a fishmeal-based mix based on the LT94 ingredient and contained no liquid flavours at all, which I think contributed greatly to its success. Grey in colour, it also looked washed-out and ‘safe’ within a couple of hours of being introduced and was one that produced the venue’s biggest carp for me on a number of venues, and quickly too.

I actually have one more, but it’s not a boilie, it’s a groundbait. Dynamite Baits Meaty Marine Groundbait was a game-changer in solid bags and was one of my secret edges for several years in the early 2000s on venues such as Linch Hill. The oily, meaty smelling groundbait was supplied in a tin and I was gutted when it suddenly disappeared from the shelves soon after its original release, but I also just as surprised when it was re-introduced a few years back. It seemed pretty much the same and despite it being dropped just as quickly once again, this time I was ready and relieved just about every local tackle shop of their remaining stock, storing it in my freezer for future use.

My preferred baiting approach nowadays is a one-bite method rather than the ‘fill it in’ approach, but that is of course very water dependent. Being versatile in your thinking and reading the situation is more important than doing the same thing every time.

In my bait bag you will always find a good selection of home-rolled hookbaits, such as corkball pop-ups, wafters and cured bottom baits, hemp oil for solid bags, plus some Betalin for glugging Zigs or floater hookbaits. 

I haven’t got a particular preferred hookbait colour but I would say that my hookbait colour will more often than not be closer to my free offerings rather than something that stands out. It’s only really in the depths of winter that I would go for something like an orange, yellow or white, and even then they normally wouldn’t be overloaded with ultra-bright dyes. In regards to preferred size, I do like a 12 or 13mm corkball pop-up but will very often match it to whatever I am feeding into the swim, with one of my favourites being a simple cured 14mm bottom bait.

I have always been a fan of smaller baits and rarely use boilies over 14mm. I think that could well be due to lots of my early fishing being on venues such as Horseshoe, Linch Hill and Linear, where small hookbaits and spodding dominated the catches. I have used boilies as large as 24mm in the past and caught on them, but it’s definitely a rarity for me to use anything close to that size.

My best bait edge is to be slightly different from the rest. I can think of nothing worse than fishing exactly the same methods and bait as the majority of other anglers on my chosen venue, and this seems to be the case on many waters I have visited in the past. This isn’t simply doing the complete opposite to everyone else just for the sake of it, but if it does become clear how a high percentage of carp are getting caught, do I really want to adopt identical tactics and be one of many? In this situation I have found that even small tweaks in regards to free offerings and hookbaits used can make all the difference.