Terry Hearn's game changers revealed

What have been your biggest game changers – a rig tweak, a particular bait, a certain way you mount your floater hookbait – over the years?

Wow, that’s another article not a question! Rather than pick one thing I’m going to take a more general angle, as us anglers experience game changers all the time don’t we?

Game changers are what we’re all constantly searching for, that one big edge. Sometimes they last hours, other times years. Changing swims, changing baits, changing rigs, sussing a new spot, maybe getting up to reel in a bream at 3am and hearing the carp jumping in an area we never expected them to be, or if you’re really lucky, being there when a pipe has been turned on or a rivers burst its banks and flowed into the lake… all game changers.

Location and watercraft aside, for me the biggest game changers of all have come from bait. I’ve gone through phases where I’ve started scrutinising everything I’ve been doing due to lack of action and not catching as much as I feel I should have been. Line, leadcore, rigs and hooks, all have taken the blame at some point or other, but almost every time it boils down to bait. Most of the biggest turnarounds in my fishing have been bait-related, occasionally after changing to a new boilie, but more often than not after changing to something completely different like nuts, corn or maize.

Yep, another game changer!

It’s easy to label one specific thing as the sole reason for success, but game changers sometimes involve a combination of things. During the winter of 99 I remember going through a very slow period at Sutton-at-Hone, that is until Gary Bayes rolled me some barrel-shaped baits, at which point everything turned around. The bait was the same as what I’d been using all along, but using them as barrels instead of round certainly seemed to make a difference. The thing is, at the same time I dropped hook sizes from 4’s down to 7’s, to match the smaller baits being used, and while all this was going on I was no doubt getting more in-tune with the lake and the carp’s movements too. Barrels definitely made a difference, especially back then as the only other angler I knew using them was Frogger, at Horton, but I’ve no doubt the smaller hooks made a difference too, as did a growing knowledge of the lake and the confidence that comes from getting your unhooking mat wet.

Getting a boat on the Thames, now that was a proper game changer

Success breeds success, and the same can be said of confidence. It might be that a change of bait or tweak of rig has made a big difference, but the good feeling those captures generate, the topping up of the old batteries if you like, has far greater an influence on our fishing than most realise. Mindset is so, so important. When you’re onto a winner you’re likely to do things you might not have otherwise done. You’ll move swims without thinking about it, you’ll get up at silly o’clock to watch the lake, and you’ll fish that short two hour evening session after work because suddenly it’s more worth it.