Fish Blog 2 - Drowning worms and other things; Tips on fishing natural baits.

The basis and core of fishing is bait fishing using natural baits or foodstuffs to attract and entice the fish through sight, smell, action and finally, taste. To have success, you must try and satisfy the fishes requirements for all of these.

1/ Sight. Most fish do not have very keen sight. They rely more on the action of their prey to see it, and the vibrations this send to their lateral line to sense it, than on looking for food. This said, active foragers and pelagic predators such as carp and trout have exceptional eyesight. What you put on the end of a hook must not only be what it represents, it must look like it too. A scrunched up big worm will not attract as many fish as a few smaller worms, single pinned, wriggling in a bunch of tails. Thinking about what the fish sees is important to how you rig the line, for instance, a strip bait is always best fished on a double hook rig, with the top hook through the leading edge of the bait and the trailing hook through about 1/2 - 2/3 of the way down. This ensures the bait presents well and lays flat, not bunched at the bend of the hook.

Smell - Fish have very a keen sense of smell. This is of utmost importance to keep in mind whether bait, lure or fly fishing, as many artificial smells (soap, deodorant, insect repellent, oil, petrol etc) will keep the fish from biting an otherwise acceptable bait. Keep your hand clean of these things and it will help you out immensely.

This sense of smell can be utilised to our advantage through the use of oils in our bait or burley (groundbait/chumbait). Dough baits can be made with canned salmon, sardine or tuna with oil, with the contents of the can mashed into the dough. The oils spread and carry the scent of the bait through a much wider area than the scent alone would cover.

Burley can be mixed from many things, but the basis for all my burley mixes are corn kernels, bread crumbs, rolled oats and canned sardines in oil, mushed to paste. Mix until it is well oiled through out. Form balls and allow to air dry. When these hit the water, they will crumble and fall. Easy to lob with or without a catapult.

Fresh is best. From live, to freshly killed, to fresh frozen, to a few hours old to a few hours frozen and beyond, the less fresh your bait, and the more it is rethawed/refrozen, the less effective it will be.

Action - Fish are well aware of their environment, it keeps them alive. From finding food to avoiding predators, a fishes awareness of the environment is the difference between life and gruesome death. For this reason, they know what they expect from a food source, or from a predator. A dead shrimp laid nicely on the hook with a hitch to secure the tail at the top of the hook is sure to work better than a shrimp bunched, folded and scrunched onto a hook. It is important to fish the right sized and style of hook.

Use as little weight as you can to secure the bait in the strike zone, and where possible, allow free line for a fish to run with the bait and swallow it with out feeling weight. Running sinker rigs are my favourite if using a sinker, which I try to avoid where I can.

Fish expect food items to come from upstream and so the best presentation on rivers and streams is to cast up the stream and allow the bait to run past you and on down stream whilst controlling the slack. You do not want enough weight to pin your bait to the bottom, just enough to get it into the water column and float it down. This will present it to many more potential lies and targets.

Taste - Fish have very keen taste, especially those like catfish and carp and members of the barbel family which have taste receptors outside their lips! If there is something off about the flavour of the bait, it will not make it into the mouth, but be spat from the lips. Follow the tips for smell and you should be good!

And finally, fish a bait the fish might expect to see. The exceptions are items such as corn kernels, cheese and white bread, all of which are excellent baits, all of which catch a range of species.

Good luck.