10 easy ways to dramatically improve your bait
Achievable goals – adding one percentage at a time – are a far more successful way of improving your angling than setting yourself massive, scary targets.
“Match your hookbait size and weight with your freebies. For example, if you are fishing over particles then use a small, light hookbait, such as some fake corn or the like, it really does work well.” Harry Charrington
“Split your bait into two lots and chuck a load of natural glug over half of it when you get it out of the freezer. When it thaws out it will suck in the flavour and you have extra attraction and confusion for the carp.” Rob Hughes
“If everybody on the lake I am targeting is using a specific type of bait, I will do my upmost to try something totally different. If the lake I am on contains few nuisance species, I will use natural baits like worms, casters and maggots.” Jon Jones
“The single, most important part of an angler’s armoury is bait. If cost is an issue then buy smaller quantities of high-quality bait. Take it from me, a kilo of quality boilies will serve you far better than 10kg of poor quality ones.” Martin Locke
“Soak your bait in Amino Compound, which is a year round amazing additive that has an incredible protein level and preserves baits as well. Pour some over your hookbaits along with the bait’s flavour if you like.” Myles Gascoyne
“With so many anglers topping their baits with fake corn and the like, on some waters there is a good argument for going the other way and keeping things a little more subtle. Bright hookbaits can repel as well as attract.” Ian Poole
“Choose quality over quantity every time. Most carp have a big choice of food items available to them these days. If yours doesn’t stand out from the crowd in actual taste then they aren’t going to keep picking it up and you ain’t going to catch many.” Shaun Harrison
“I am a great lover of boilie-only fishing. This method seems to be big fish selective. However, for fishing at close quarters I love nothing other than a few handfuls of sweetcorn soaked in Nashbait’s Liquid Sweetcorn Extract.” Joe Jaggar
“Use what you’re confident with, not what you’re told the latest fad is. Personally I use Richworth’s K-G-1 and XLR8 and found them both superb fish catchers and mix different sizes when possible.” Tim Childs
“Always use bait that you have confidence in. There are so many brilliant bait companies around nowadays I can’t imagine making a boilie ever again. Get together with your fishing pals and all use the same bait.” Ian Russell