A question of bait choice

Why is it anglers come to France having spent good money on their holiday, owning a fortunes worth of tackle including the latest rods, reels and bivvies… only to then try to catch fish on the cheapest bait they can buy?  Surely bait has to be one of the most important elements of the equation, after all it’s the bait the carp chooses to eat, not the ÂŁ250 reel!

We’re always happy to speak to anglers before they arrive here at Genets… in fact we encourage it.  They always ask me;

“What bait is working and what do you stock”

I reply;

“CC Moores Odyssey XXX and Live System (in summer when the Ph is high) and Quest’s Rahja Spice.  They both work really well here and the fish are totally confident feeding on them.  Feel free to bring your own supply or I can have it waiting here for you.”

But so very often they then bring a bait that has never been used here before and then struggle to catch anything.  By Tuesday they buy some of the bait I’d suggested and invariably go on to catch.  But they’ve wasted 2 or 3 days catching nothing.

Then I get guys that tell me;

“I got this bait for ÂŁ6.50 a kilo… really good… it’s so and so” (supposed to be top companies bait in a plain wrapper that would cost you ÂŁ12 a kilo in tackle shops)

Guess what… they also struggle.

Please, before anyone says I’m just trying to make more money by selling bait… I really am not.  Feel free to bring your own supply if you feel you can buy it cheaper.  I just want people to catch at Genets and after watching 1,000’s of hours of people’s efforts I can say without doubt that a good bait is absolutely essential.  And it’s all the better if it’s bait the fish are confident to feed on.  After all they eat 100’s of freebies for the few times they get caught.

Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

Larry, Les Genets

Comments

One thought on “A question of bait choice

  1. Jon Perkins says:

    The main question here is – what are people chucking into your lake ?

    We also stock and supply quality bait from a leading UK firm, and most of our clients are happy to use it, in fact they positively want to use it as they know that it is what the carp are used to. We have had a few customers using bait of dubious origin and we are now at a point where we do not allow any shelf life baits and we are actually at the point of restricting customers to using only boilies from one supplier. It is a lot easier to ask clients to use one make than to specify brand names that are OK or not. They can buy it direct from the manufacturer or buy it here on site ( so no-one can accuse us of profiteering !)

    I want to know what my fish are eating – that is the reason for this decision, it will probably also mean that anglers do not waste 3 days of their trip, using bait that the fish have not seen before and therefore may choose to ignore.

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