How do different baits fall?
Our subsurface angling specialist Rob Hughes investigates how different baits fall differently through the water
It’s useful to know how your bait falls through the water and ends up on the bottom. That way you can sort of understand what the patch will look like. For a start, boilies are round so they fall pretty quickly and pretty straight through the water. If you’re banging ‘em out long-range with a throwing stick rather than a catty/by hand then they will banana a bit and travel when they hit the water as they are spinning but this is negligible. How far they go depends on the speed they are travelling but you can be sure they don’t travel much more than a foot (max) underwater from where they hit it, as they do not have the power.
Pellets sort of flutter down to the bottom depending on their size, and the bigger the pellet, the tighter the grouping on the bottom. Hemp and particle tends to spread as soon as it hits the surface billowing out in an upside down ‘nuclear explosion’ and spod mix, the sort that most people would class as ‘munga’ really just clouds up the surface layers with the bigger bits falling down to the bottom and the smaller bits ‘hanging’ in the mid-water and any groundbait dispersing. If you are using boilies at fairly close-range you can’t get much better than a multi pouch or two grouped tightly around the hookbait.
