Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Howard Kaye
Traditional baits for skimmers
SCOURING the weekly catch reports in past issues of Angling Times is a fascinating way to spend a few minutes. Glancing through match reports from the 70s and 80s, they had one theme in common – natural baits were king.
Maggots, worms and casters were used by pretty much everyone, with a smattering of groundbait sometimes added to the mix.
But as I trawl through the years when perusing the giant archives of our sister title, there is a noticeable shift in bait use once the commercial boom begins.
The mentions of natural offerings are less frequent and the likes of pellets, boilies and sweetcorn become the norm.
That switch in trend occurred when carp overtook silver fish in the popularity stakes and to this day the change has never been reversed.
Even though commercial silver fish have started to become more popular in recent years, the baits used to target them are still either packaged or tinned.
Sensas’s Howard Kaye has been a fan of targeting silvers in both eras over around 50 years and he certainly does things a little different to most.
“I see a lot more people catching bream, tench and even barbel on commercials but they are seemingly brainwashed into using pellets for every session.
“But there is no doubt in my mind that using an old- school maggot, caster and groundbait approach is the way forward on stillwaters.
“I’ve compared the two bait regimes and
I catch more and better quality fish on commercials when I rely on natural baits.”
Playing it safe
Most anglers that turn to groundbait will make mixing it their first task of the day. Water is added before vigorous stirring and riddling lumps before loosefeed is added.
Large quantities of casters, dead maggots and chopped worm are often piled in to the blend in one hit but Howard winces at the thought of doing such a thing.
“What the fish want to eat changes each day and there is every chance they’ll want more of one bait than another. In fact, there are times when some baits can be off- putting and if you’ve mixed everything together, you’ve got a groundbait that won’t work.
“The answer is to keep your groundbait in a bucket and to add small quantities to a bait box. You can then add pinches of loosefeed and experiment with different amounts, working out which works best on the day.”
Three or four tangerine sized balls go in at the start and these include small amounts of chopped worm, dead maggots and casters.
If action is forthcoming then he will top up with the same mix, but only when bites dry up.
Should he struggle, he will make changes, removing one of the loosefeed ingredients to see if that makes a difference. If it doesn’t, the experimentation continues with each ingredient until he cracks the code.
Howard will wait around 15 minutes without a bite before he makes his next move.
“Feeding on top of a shoal of silver fish will spook them. It is much better to catch everything that is there and only add extra when you need to draw more in.”
His favoured groundbait mix is a blend of Sensas Lake and Magic Sweet Fishmeal. This has a fairly low fishmeal content which helps reduce the number of carp likely to show interest.
The perfect line
Once you trigger a response from a shoal of silvers the action can come thick and fast, so it is best to fish as close to the bank as possible.
“The closer you can fish, the less time it will take to get them in the net and that is going to lead to you catching a lot more.
“I plumb up to find the base of the nearside shelf or slope and then fish around a metre beyond that.
“The base of the shelf itself is a magnet for carp and F1s looking for food and when fishing for silvers I want to avoid them because I am fishing reasonably light tackle and also roach, bream and tench won’t settle if those lumps are trying to get in on the action.”
Manor Farm magic
If your favourite fishery has a good head of roach, bream, tench and barbel, Howard is convinced his approach will be just the tonic. Evesham’s Manor Farm Leisure has six lakes that all hold big numbers of silver fish and the Island Pool is our man’s favourite. Catches of bream and tench regularly exceed 50lb but achieving such weights is only possible if you set the right trap. “Recently I fished a match here and fed a line with naturals and groundbait and another with pellets and corn.
“It was incredible just how many more fish I caught on maggots and casters – it didn’t slightly edge it, it was a resounding win!”
His single rig was set- up and he quickly found a suitable spot, fishing a touch overdepth.
As expected, small roach and hand- sized skimmers were the first to respond but the bigger bream were absent. There was only one answer – change the mix.
“I’ll bin this groundbait, add some more from my bucket and this time include just dead maggots and casters, leaving out the worms.”
That move didn’t work so more tampering was required and he eventually got his rewards with a quick brace of 2lb fish on double caster hookbait over a groundbait mix including chopped worm and casters – with no maggots!
Experimentation whenever the bites dried up kept the bites coming and by the end of the session he had placed more than 40lb in the net.
Had he just fed the swim in the same manner or used pellets he was adamant his result would have suffered.
“The basis of this approach are based on what I learned fishing rivers. Silver fish love natural baits and if you offer them you are sure to trigger a feeding frenzy.”
“Once you trigger a response from silvers the action can come thick and fast”