Stop your bait smelling of silt
Reeled in to find your previously lovely smelling hookbait now stinks of rancid silt? Here’s how to overcome that problem thanks to top silt expert, Dave Sykes
There will be a time when you either deliberately or accidentally fish over silt, and ideally you want to fish over the ‘right’ silt and not the horrible rancid smelly stuff that abounds in the autumn when leaves fall.
Top silt fishing expert, Dave Sykes looks for three forms of silt: (1) “a fine sandy, almost benign silt, (2) a silt that will harbour lots of food such as bloodworm and on which the carp will actively fee, and finally (3) the silt that is more akin to a sewage farm!”
Both the latter types of silt will smell to varying degrees and it is important to endeavour to keep your baits, and particularly hookbaits free from taking on these putrid odours, to increase the chances of a bite. This is paramount in the leaf falling periods, cold weather and early spring.
Seven top tips...
01) “Firstly, speak to your bait supplier and explain what you are fishing over, i.e. pleasant smelling silt or real rancid stuff which will be possibly high in tannic acid,” explains Dave. “Many companies have baits which don’t take on silt odours readily, but all will eventually.”
02) Dave advises: “Don’t use a bait that has an open matrix of ingredients, in other words a coarse bait, as not only will the inherent flavours be lost quickly, but it will easily take on rancid smells. Rather use a tight matrix type bait, good ready-mades or baits containing caseins, gels etc. which produce a nice tight hard and rubbery outer skin.”
03) “It might be that your bait supplier produces hardened hookbaits. These are perfect but need then to be further glugged up to further reduce the bait from taking on the silty smells. A good way of doing this is with a food dip and adding a small amount of neat flavour.”
04) “Glugging baits heavily with fish oils and/or vegetable oils is an easy method to use – and very cheap if you want to use lots of bait. Come the winter months use hemp oil, cod liver oil or a mixture of L030 and hemp/CLO.”
05) “If you use pop-ups, again, make sure they are very hard and dry, but top coat with a little neat flavour. This again will slow the whole process down of taking on board the smell.”
06) “In warmer weather get your bait rolled with the highest levels of fish oils possible. This is another preventative method and then glug with a natural product such as a fish protein (CC Moore’s Amino Compound) or the like.”
07) “Soaking your freebies in normal lake water prior to putting out in the lake is also a worthwhile tactic, and either fish a hardened hooker or a glugged hookbait. This really does depend on the silt you are angling over.”
