Q Most anglers used to fish birdfood boilies in winter and fish meals in summer, but nowadays a lot of them seem to use the latter all year round. Is that right?
AHi Jim. You’re right, and this is a long-standing bait trend that goes back to the 1980s. Generally speaking, birdfood-style baits are easier to digest in cold water than a comparatively ‘rich’ fishmeal.
Having said that, milk proteins are not particularly easy to digest and yet they have long been used as a cold water option.
You say that a lot of people are now using fish-meals and oils in the winter, and I’d have to disagree with that, or certainly based on where I have been fishing anyway. That is one of the key reasons why, on the limited fishing I did last winter, I specifically chose to use a bait format that was fishy, meaty and oily. It worked really well, and apart from fulfilling my constant urge to be different, it came about largely from recalling that a decade or two ago we often used very meaty and oily baits in the winter with great results.
I’d also noticed pike anglers hooking carp on small deadbeats, and you can’t get anything more fishy than a fish!
In January this year I did well using finely chopped luncheon meat, Sticky Krill crumb mixed with Krill powder and a good dose of hemp oil. This oil releases really well in even very cold water (I had it ‘slicking’ in 4ºC water temperature) and is a great indicator of when fish are in the area. Suffice to say, in fishing there are a lot of ‘rules’ that have become established by urban myth – a great many of these can be ignored, so keep an open mind!
Adam Penning, Prologic