How to avoid the birds when baiting up

There are many tasks in angling which are made difficult or tricky as a result of pests. Bream make it difficult to keep your rigs in the water for any period of time, silverfish can make it difficult to keep a bait on your Hair and birdlife can cause huge problems when baiting up.

Seagulls, the flying rats of the sky, can snaffle virtually every bait introduced to your spot before they even reach the lakebed. After all of that malarkey, and when you do manage to get some bait onto your spot, over come the tufted ducks and they decide to repeatedly pick up your baits, one-by-one until they eventually hang themselves on your hookbait.

This scenario is only too common at this time of year and it can often leave many anglers irate and in despair. But here’s how you overcome your feathery little friends.

Little and often

Many gulls can spot a throwing stick a mile away and they all automatically come flying over anticipating a free meal. You have one chance at a time to get some bait into the swim, so do a ‘little-and-often’ tactic. Load your catapult or throwing stick up with baits and fire them onto the spot when the gulls have disappeared. Do this once every half-an-hour or so.

Or go heavy!

If the spot you’re fishing to is within catapult range you could do the opposite. Get a large pouched ‘pult, something like the awesome ESP Mega Pult and load it up with 20 to 25 boilies. With this many baits hitting the surface in one go it confuses the gulls and they may only get one or two.

Spod/Spomb

Another very effective method of getting boilies into your swim without them getting stolen in flight is via a spod or a Spomb. As the baits are being introduced into the swim, the gulls will not be able to steal them in mid-air or as they hit the water because they will be inside the spod.

Small boilies

Seagulls and tufties find it increasingly difficult to pick up smaller baits. Spod them or catapult them onto the spot and the birdlife will find it very difficult to (a) get at them in flight and (b) pick them up.

Dark baits

Dark colour baits make it extremely difficult for the diving birds to find once on the lakebed. In clear water this will be a huge advantage over a lighter coloured bait because it is less likely to draw attention from the birds.

Baiting in the dark

If you want to get away from the gulls totally, then bait up during the hours of darkness. Just after sunset is always a good time as the gulls decide to go and roost and best of all they can’t see your baits during flight.

And if they still dive on your bait...

01) First of all, fill your spod up three-quarters with your chosen boilie or particle concoction.

02) Next scald some floating pellets so they go soft and carefully plug the spod with them.

03) In the water, the pellets will float for the birds to eat and the boilies will sink to the lakebed.