How to be more accurate with a catapult

Precision and accuracy are two skills in your fishing, that when honed, can make you a much more successful angler. Accuracy and precision can account for many jobs that include casting, feature-finding and another massive piece to the puzzle is bait accuracy and application. Now whilst the spod or Spomb and throwing stick are great for more distance baiting, for short-range application, the humble catapult is the most superior baiting tool going and here’s how to be awesomely accurate with it.

1 Catapults should always be held side-on so that your fist is horizontal, rather than upright.

2 90% of the time the pouch is held by the piece of plastic/string. The other 10% of the time hold the pouch itself so that you can fire the bait downwards, towards the water. This helps in windy conditions as the bait is being fired at the water. However, this tactic doesn’t group the bait as tightly.

3 When feeding at range, it’s best to flick the wrist that holds the catapult frame forwards as you release the pouch to help achieve greater distances. This will spread the bait more as well, though. The other added bonus of doing this, is it prevents the catapult elastic/pouch from smashing your knuckles.

4 For increasing your distance you will need to put less baits in the pouch. If you are fishing at close-range you will get away with filling the pouch right up, but the further you need to go, decrease the amount of bait in the pouch.

5 When feeding regularly and at close/medium-range, try cutting the elastics back to prevent them from tangling.

6 With groundbait catapults, elastics are often cut down too, but this time so that when you pull them back and bottom them out, the balls of groundbait will be catapulted the same distance. (Obviously this relies on the balls being the same size and the angle of elevation being the same).

7 For really precise (but note a lot more time consuming) baiting, opt for a ‘canal’ or ‘maggot’ pult.