Tommy Pickering

Getting the best from worms - unmissable tips!

THERE are few more natural baits than a worm, and they will catch every fish that swims, on all venues.

I’ve caught bream on a gin-clear Irish river and 300lb of big carp

1 TWO WAYS TO HOOK THEM How you hook a worm can vary depending on the fish you’re after, and I have two main ways when fishing a commercial water. For carp, I take the whole worm and nick it through the head. This gives a better hookhold should I strike and miss a bite. For skimmers, barbel and ide, though, I will cut a worm in half and then hook it through the middle, allowing the juices to leak out. 2 REDWORMS RULE FOR BREAM We all know bream love worms and that a dendra is a good bait, but they really love redworms too. These tiny worms don’t look much but they have great pulling power, even for the biggest of fish. On a big natural lake when fishing the feeder I’d use two redworms. I’d hook one and then push it up the hook shank before hooking the second, leaving it resting on the bend to allow the maximum amount of hookpoint to show. from the edge on them, but there’s a lot more to fishing with worms than just chopping them up and sticking one on the hook. Here are my five top worm tips, no matter where you’re fishing this week…

3 HOW FINE TO CHOP? Chopped worm is a brilliant feed, but how long you spend with the scissors depends on the size of fish you are aiming to catch. Big carp and tench need only a rough chop with the scissors to create larger pieces, but the opposite applies for small skimmers and roach. In this instance I will chop the worms almost into a ‘soup’ of finelyminced pieces.

4 CREATE A WORM CLOUD Chopped worm and caster isn’t just good for fishing on the bottom – it can be deadly when targeting carp and F1s up in the water. In this situation, don’t throw away the soil that the worms come in, as this will help you create a super fishattracting cloud. I riddle the soil off but keep it to hand and then chop the worms. The soil goes through the riddle to remove any big lumps and is then added back to the worms. Throw in some casters and you’ve got a super slop to feed with a small pot on the pole.

5 BIG BAITS FOR THE EDGE If you’re after the bigger carp when fishing the margins on a commercial, big baits really are best – and that certainly applies to worms. One dendra is not big enough and while two are good, I would have no qualms about fishing three whole worms on a large size 12 hook. This is a real mouthful that smaller fish will struggle to take, but a doublefigure carp will gulp it down without a second thought.