Understanding blown baits

Mike Willmott says: “If your chosen bait is nutritionally well balanced (commonly known as a high quality foodbait) it’s highly unlikely that it will ever ‘blow’. In my opinion far too many anglers make the mistake of changing their bait far too often and more often than not, their results deteriorate as a consequence of doing so.

“A good quality foodbait will continue to catch time and time again, no matter how many times the fish have been caught on it, although it is important to understand that the bait must also be introduced between captures. By that I mean you can’t expect to keep tripping the same fish up on single hookbaits time and time again without them becoming suspicious of the bait. Diversely, if a carp has eaten several hundred free offerings between captures, not only is it more likely to accept the bait as a valuable food source, but its confidence levels will be very high. These two factors combined will almost certainly increase your catch-rate.

“It will probably come as no surprise for many to hear me say that I strongly believe the two best quality foodbaits ever developed are Essential B5 and Black Snail and I can promise you with absolute certainty that neither of these two baits will ever ‘blow’, no matter how many other anglers are using them on the water. Other anglers will have their own favourites, but I cannot stress highly enough that the better the bait in terms of its food value and nutritional content, the better the bait will perform on a long-term basis.

“Lastly, try not to take too much notice of these bait companies who bring out so-called new ‘wonder baits’ every year and ask yourself this: if last year’s blockbuster bait was so good, why bring out another? Methods ‘blow’, good baits don’t!”