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26 Year Old Shelf-life Bait

Posted: 23rd Aug 2015

It's been another great weeks fishing and Craig the chap in Peg 1 decided he was going to catch a carp on a a boilie he has had soaking in his "special" dip for 26 years, yes thats right 26 years!! I think sometimes carp will pick all manner of items up, not just as a food item but also being inquisitive and mouthing an item out of curiosity. In this case with the "special boilie" it could be any of the above, but this brings me onto the touchy subject of shelf-life bait over frozen. It's a subject that seems to evoke an agressive response, sometimes from fishery owners, with shelf-life bait being the devil and will kill fish in under 30 seconds!! If given a choice we would all use frozen because it is in theory the freshest and should contain the least amount of preservatives, but in all honesty some of the shelf-life bait on the market these days is very good indeed. Nearly 90% of bait used at the fishery is frozen, but I don't turn my nose-up if a good shelf-life bait is used as a back-up. Companies like CC. Moore & Mistral make good quality Shelf-life bait that only contains one preservative along with a reduced water content to prelong its life. We as humans consume far more chemicals of all descriptions in our diet on a daily basis than the carp do. I'm more worried about some of the boilie dips, food dyes, goo, etc that is being used along with anglers dumping massive amounts of lead into lakes because of the stupid commerical stunt one of the main tackle manufacturers has encouraged everyone to do, and this will be looked upon in future years as an ecological issue and should be stopped. All lead shot is banned along with lead in shotgun cartridges, so why do we think it is acceptable to drop serious amounts of toxic lead into water without it having some negative effect on the aquatic environment. Anyway I could go on about this subject in great detail but it's food for thought and it's a subject we should all think about.

Back to the angling, all 3 of the chaps who booked the lake this week had fish over 40lb+ but it was both ends of the lake, 1 & 5 had the bulk of the fish this week. Adam in Peg 4 had to work hard but the fish seemed to be only passing through the swim and not holding in front of him, along with Pegs 2 & 3 being free you could see numbers of fish building up there as the week went on. Andy in Peg 5 had a cracking week with a couple of days catching mulitple fish at the same time including a brace of 40s.

Craig in Peg 1 fished so well this week and was a pleasure to watch the way he tackled the swim, baiting strategy and resting the swim to run a tally of 19 fish. He did not fish the nights, only from 06.00am to 14.00pm then rods back out at 19.00pm to midnight, with a good nights sleep until dawn break. I have said many times the key is baiting and resting the swim to build confidence with the fish and I cannot think of a better example this season by any angler!! Craig had 4 fish over 40lb this week to just under 47lb and it was a great week all-round for the boys. Best was Craigs 46lb 14oz with no less than 9 fish over 40lb this week including 46lb 12oz, 46lb, 45lb 12oz, 45lb 4oz, 43lb, 42lb 4oz, 41lb 12oz, 40 which cannot be sniffed at considering the size of the water. The total was 33 fish this week with another 9 stockies below 20lb that I have not incuded in the grand total. 9 over 40lb, 13 x 30lb+ of which 9 over 35lb+ to 38lb. 11 fish over 20lb including 2 x 29lb. And only a few small grassies this week. The fish are just climbing back up in weight and I'm looking forward to the back-end of the season with hopefully a few more 50lb+ fish showing in the tally.

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