Is it possible to catch those rarely caught or never caught commons?
From their favourite baits to genetic make-up, Ben Gratwicke offers up some know-how
“So is it possible to catch these rarely or never caught commons then? There is a theory that commons have a liking for corn steep liquor, molasses and varying sweet sticky such things and many years ago Nashbait’s Sting Mix was meant to be good at singling out commons but how true that is I don’t know. But as far as pineapple pop-ups and molasses style baits, I know they have a fair track record at catching commons and this would be a good place to start.
“If there are a few or one big common in your lake and it rarely gets caught then it maybe down to its metabolism being slower. It needs to feed less and is better at converting its diet into body growth. There are often numbers of smaller mirrors that nip in there first and maybe it’s simply down to the fact it’s older and wiser?
“As for their genetic make-up being different, well, I suppose they still have a little of the old style genetics kicking around in there somewhere and are not as keen to get to the feed first unlike their greedy brothers and sisters.
“The big common in the famous undisclosed ‘The Mere’ went uncaught for a long time, only ever getting caught two
times. However, when the disaster happened over there two years ago and all the fish died, it was found to be of a huge size but had avoided being hooked and landed. Had it ever been hooked between its last capture and its very sad demise? Why I say this, is that a fish may get hooked but get off and this only has to happen once a year and the fish has got away with it again for another year. That is especially true if the fish likes to feed in an area that is hard to fish or land fish from. There are many mirrors out there which are once-a-year fish and commons are no different in that sense.
“The amount of natural food plays a massive role in these low stocked lakes, especially if the fish have been left for years as they get so in tune to their natural larders without the draw of man-made or applied bait. The Mere had many more problems with it well beyond bait and bait presentation and if it could have been fished as a ‘normal’ fishery (I’m glad it never was) would that particular common have stayed uncaught? Who knows?”