Bait According To Scott Lloyd

The bait which changed everything for me was The Krill. I know what you’re thinking, massive plug-fest coming up, but it really did change everything for me, at a specific time. I was fortunate enough to get to use it right from the start, and it taught me an awful lot about how important a bait can be in terms of fish behaviour and encouraging them to eat a boilie as if it’s natural food. 

The game-changing baiting moment which altered everything for me came back in my early Stoneacres days, during my first few months with The Krill. I used loads of it, and I went right in with a mass pre-baiting campaign, which was very unlike me. I normally like to find the fish, and target them in the moment with little traps. Back then, though, by pre-baiting heavily, I managed to persuade the fish to stay in one area. They were like cattle in the end, constantly grazing, and they treated the bait like natural food. It caught me so many fish, without me having to chase them around!

The last bait-related item I bought and loved was a RidgeMonkey Crusher, and my God is it good. From my vlogs, many will know that I’ll chew small quantities of nuts, but for more than a handful, the Crusher is perfect. It makes such light work of tigers, and I have found myself using more crushed boilies too because of it. It’s definitely an edge, as it helps me keep those carp guessing!

On my wish list for a future bait item is Sticky producing particles! That’s the dream… maybe we could have a mix called Scott’s Big Juicy Nuts!

I have an excessive collection of balanced hookbaits. I could, and probably never will use them all, but I still keep replacing them! I use the Noodle Rig a lot, obviously, which suits this type of bait, so I have pots of pre-corked tigers, trimmed wafters, and even weighted pop-ups, all ready to go. You can never be too prepared, that’s all I’ll say.

There’s not really a bait I long to use again, but there are a few from my past which I might. Belachan paste was one I found great success with, many years ago, as were groats mixed with particles. Both could make a comeback, for sure.

Myles Gibson, without a doubt, influences me when it comes to bait, and it goes back to my days of using The Krill on Stoneacres. It was Myles who persuaded me to go with the mass pre-baiting campaign. The way he uses bait to his advantage, with huge quantities of seed and boilies helping to keep carp in the area, is a rare thing in carp fishing these days. It works so well, and you cannot help but admire his album. The boy can certainly catch ’em, and that is partly down to his baiting tactics.

What is your preferred baiting approach nowadays? As I touched on earlier, I spend most of my time fishing for a bite. With lakes now being so pressured, I have found it hard to get a baiting campaign off the ground. That, combined with how far away I live from the likes of Dinton, makes it very tricky. I spend a lot of time finding the perfect spot, rather than basing my approach on what I use, whilst also being super accurate with my bait and rig. I have caught over everything, from a sprinklings of nuts and hemp, to whole boilies just scattered around an area. It all works, as long as you put it in the right place.

For most of the year, my preferred hookbait is a match-the-hatch offering, so Krill Dumbell Wafters over Krill freebies, Manilla over Manilla, or balanced tigers over tigers. With the fish there eating my free offerings, most of the time I don’t want to make my hookbait stand out. The only time I change to something coloured is during the latter part of the year, when I put even less bait out. In that situation, I’ll use white pop-ups on Hinge Stiffs. All my baits are a standard 16mm, other than the tigers, when I normally go for the best-looking ones.

My preferred free food size is… everything! I try to mix it up most of the time, with everything from crumb and hemp to bigger, 20mm boilies. I like everything in my mix, as then, there’s something for every fish’s preference. I think the different sizes help keep the fish guessing, as they never know where the danger is. 

My biggest bait edge, without doubt, is a combination of boilies and nuts. So few anglers in the modern-day scene can be bothered to use particles, especially nuts. I prepare my own tigers, and always include rock salt in the cooking process, as it increases their pulling power. I don’t use loads, though, as many advocate, as I think you can overdo it. I always taste my nuts (you would if you could, don’t lie!), and if they taste nice to me, then I am happy that the carp will find them tasty too. I freeze them in batches, and thaw them in their own juices, which soak in further when I crush them up for the bait mix itself.