Is it just me....?

[Aitch]

Or are our baits fighting back....?
on my last trip out I took a selection of baits, maggots, corn, worms,and a little bread..

Now bread in itself isn't such an ordeal to hook, but as I approach 60, I'm finding the smaller punch sizes much more difficult to hook... it seems that I need much longer arms, or a pair of binoculars... and don't get me started on the old "Is it still on or not" issue of using breadflake on the hook

Maggots.... well they seem to be a staple when it comes to fishing, I never leave the house without at least half a pint o' the little wrigglers... but it seems that they are getting very "Burstworthy" (is that really a word..?) lately... it seems that they are just full of fluid nowadays and tend to go "Splutch if you use a hook larger than a size 12...

Corn.. now I really cannot take any issue with corn.. being reasonably inert and fairly tough it does seem to be a fairly robust bait... that said there are so many words written on how to correctly hook it, that with my mind in a whirl I tend not to use it as much as I should.

Pellets... well I think that they should be banned... anyone who has ever tried to mount one in a bait band will know the depth of feeling with which I speak.... Just as you start to get the band round the pellet... "Ping" either the pellet gets catapulted yards out into the water, or wings your ear on it's way into a low trajectory orbit

Pinkies... now I know that they are just a smaller version of the humble maggot, but have you tried hooking one of the little bu&&ers lately...? with eyes like mine I have virtually given up using them, one of the reasons being that in my match fishing days pinkies would be fished on a size 20 or 22 if the going was hard... nowadays with manufacturers being totally anarchic in their hook sizing, a size 18 is the same as a size 12 and god forbid you try putting a pinkie on one of those.... I refer the honourable gentlemen to the word "Splutch"

Hempseed... sorry, but life is too short to try and hook hempseed.... that way madness lies.

Worms.... Well Redworms are fairly straightforward and are not too much trouble once hooked they wriggle enticingly but try putting one on a barbless hook and you get one cast and the little so and so does a runner... Brandlings exude that horrible yellow milky yuck that smells awful and
Lobworms seem to have been bred with all the latent tendencies of a WWF wrestler... one such specimen that I tried hooking last year had me in a half-nelson before I even got the hook anywhere near it... the ref was just getting to the count of 3 for a pin-fall when I got a shoulder-blade off the deck and managed to put it back in it's tub... but the real villain of the peace has got to be the Dendrobeana...
One of the accepted methods of hooking one is supposedly through the saddle... yeah... really? Have you seen them things jump... the first nick of the hook and the little s*ds go ballistic... I swear I have whip marks across my face after trying to hook a "Dendra" through the saddle and don't even get me started with trying to put a hook up it's bottom and out the side... (well in it's place I don't think I'd be too chuffed at that) even trying to hold onto one is getting a bit of a challenge these days and as with all worm baits coupled with barbless hooks it'll be gone when you've reeled in after your first cast... and if by some dint of fate I do get a bite on a "Dendra" then chances are it won't be a bite per-se... it'll be the worm getting the fish in a headlock...

Luncheon meat... now you may be forgiven for thinking that this bait is safe and convenient.... have you tried getting the stuff out of one of they fancy ring pull tins..? I asked the wife to open a tin for me and get the stuff out... she presented me with a bowl of mince.... I looked at her, then the bowl, then her again and the face said it all... "get yer own meat outta the tin next time..." in the interests of self preservation I wisely said nothing and retreated manfully to my garage... maybe I'll have to show her how to open both ends of the tin and push the lot out next time... or maybe I'll just do it meself...!

Cheese paste.... If you make your own, you'll know what I mean... Blue cheese and pastry with a bit of garlic mashed in... Best you don't use the wife's food processor to make this stuff as the raised but ever-so daintily trimmed eyebrow, means that woe will betide the errant user in future. oh and the smell on ones hands after a day's fishing sentences one to the delicate but wrinkled nose of SWMBO no matter how hard one scrubs one's hands lingers for what seems a lifetime....

It's looking like I will have to find something else as a bait...that doesn't fight back, drive me crazy, alienate me from the wife, or wound me mortally

[Santiago]

Hempseed must be one of the easiest baits not to hook! I regularly use hemp on the hook but never hook it! The secret is in the cooking and the squeezing. Once cooked overnight in a flask of boiling water, simply pinch a grain between finger and thumb until one sees a small split between the two halves, and then insert the bottom of a fine wire no.16 hook into the gap, and then relax ones grip. No hooking required! But if you must hook hemp then I can recommend the fake plastic variety!

[Dave Burr]

Harry, have you considered golf?

[Aitch]

I tried it back in the 80's Dave.... I nearly brained myself at a driving range and subsequent balls had my neighbours cowering untill a chap came along and took the wood from me and handed me an Iron... I had a feeling that golf wasn't quite the relaxing pastime that fishing was....

[Crucian]

I tried it back in the 80's Dave.... I nearly brained myself at a driving range and subsequent balls had my neighbours cowering untill a chap came along and took the wood from me and handed me an Iron... I had a feeling that golf wasn't quite the relaxing pastime that fishing was....

Just tried to have a cup of tea and a biscuit whilst reading this post...but can't stop laughing

[Bobby Marlene]

Excellent post. Made my day

[Marc]

Harry, have you considered golf?

No foul language on the TFF, please.

[RBTraditional]

You should've gone to Specsavers!
Seriously though, I have trouble seeing things close up sometimes even with my glasses, particularly in poor light conditions.

[DaceAce]

This thread reminds me of 'visiting' one of my team mates in a ten-a-side match on the Dorset Stour along with another mate about 40 years ago. The three of us were good friends and had fished together a fair bit but this day was the first that we'd really looked at what the one fishing was doing in detail. He'd had just one gudgeon using maggots on an 18. We looked at his baited hook - two skewered maggots, at which my mate took the rod from him, rebaited just nicking two maggots on by the tiniest bit of skin and proceeded to catch six dace in six casts. We left the one who was supposed to be fishing in peace having, we thought, shown him how to do it but he caught no more fish - he simply didn't have that delicacy of touch.

[Tengisgol]

Great post Aitch! Very funny.

On the failing eyesight front:

I was inspired after reading Jim Baxter's waggler book to be a bit more refined in the end tackle department, especially with clear water in my roach swim last weekend. So I'd bought fine line, modern stuff of about a pound breaking strain, and fine wire s18 hooks. Tackled up ready at home but first cast at my swim I wanted to move the dropper an inch and the hook length broke. I only had an hour and a half to fish and after twenty further minutes I still couldn't re-tie my hook (failing eyesight and shaky fingers). Sod that, went back to three pound Maxima and a size 14...