Paul Garner
Buoyant chub baits
EVERY seasoned chub angler will know that sinking feeling you get when an unmissable pull on the rod-tip results in a strike that meets with nothing more than thin air.
Chub are very adept at picking up baits in the extremities of their lips before moving off. With a normal hair-rigged bait this can mean that the hook rarely finds its way inside the fish’s mouth, and so a missed bite is almost guaranteed.
What we need is a way of encouraging the bait to be taken further back into the mouth, with the hook following it back into a position where it can take hold.
The easiest way to make this happen is by adding some buoyancy to the hookbait. There are many different ways of achieving this, depending on the type of bait you are using, but almost any bait can be made more effective by making it buoyant.
PASTE BAITS
It is quite difficult to make a paste bait that naturally floats.
Incorporating large volumes of light ingredients, such as shrimp powder, or milk powder, can achieve this effect, but the resulting paste is very soft and sticky. Much better is to look at what the paste can be moulded around to make it more buoyant.
One of the most enduring routes to a buoyant paste is to mould a lump around a piece of cork stick mounted on a short hair rig. The amount of paste used can be adjusted to produce a bait that either floats, hovers, or sinks slowly. As with other baits, make sure that the paste is very close to the hook – it should touch the bend of the hook for best results. This set-up works best with quite stiff paste baits that will adhere well to the rough surface of the cork and break down slowly. Even so, it is worth recasting regularly to ensure that the paste hasn’t been whittled down by small fish.
As a back-up, should the paste be nibbled away, why not swap the cork for a small pop-up boilie?
CRUST AND CAKE
Of course, bread crust is naturally buoyant and it will often require a swan shot to sink even a small piece. Old as the hills it may be, but crust is still a very effective chub bait. It does have one downside, though – it will break down quite quickly in water.
You can make bread more resilient by spraying it lightly with cold water and then microwaving it for about a minute. This gives the bread a more rubbery texture.
A better alternative is to make your own bread, or cake-like, hookbait. If you have a bread maker this can be achieved by making the dough mixture somewhat stiffer than for a normal loaf. Another way to achieve this is to knock up a runny batter by mixing eggs with the base mix used to make boilies. Aim for a runny paste about the consistency of thick custard. Pour this into a well greased and foil-lined baking tray and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes at 160 degrees C.
Be sure to give buoyant baits a go for chub this winter. Especially when the temperatures are really low, a bait that is easy for the fish to pick up can make a big difference to your catches.