Nowadays, for a big catch, skill, good gear and patience alone are not enough. The fish is becoming more sophisticated and cunning, so fishermen have to adapt to these trends and add new types of bait to the usual set of necessary equipment. Scientists do not remain indifferent and are helping to get more catches by creating electronic baits and special pheromones for fish.

Differences between artificial and natural baits

Traditionally, fishermen use natural fish bait made from plant ingredients or animal products, which attracts fish with its aroma. As for artificial bait for fishing, it works on the principle of generating a certain sound or visual effect, which helps to attract seasoned large predators to the hook.

Artificial options

This type of bait is most often made by combining several materials at once, which makes it easy to achieve the desired effect. Less often, manufacturers make bait only from metal or plastic (twister, wobbler, popper and oscillating nozzle), provoking predatory fish to attack small relatives. More experienced fishermen also use jigging tools. In any case, all products must be selected according to individual needs.

The simplest and at the same time An effective factory device is a sound generator, which creates a signal underwater that attracts fish. The nuance of this device is that it does not stimulate biting, but only guarantees the attraction of fish to the required area. After this, all responsibility passes directly into the hands of the fisherman.

Another common electrical device is an artificial combined bait, which simultaneously creates mechanical vibrations, as well as a noise and light effect, which makes the likelihood of a bite several times higher.

Features of natural bait

There are a huge number of options for preparing natural bait, but it is always prepared according to a certain principle. While ingredients may vary, the main components of a really good bait are always the following components.

Smart choice

The correct choice of bait directly depends on the conditions and method of fishing. For successful fishing and especially a large catch, bait must be chosen, primarily based on the type of casting. For catching high-water fish, the best option is to prepare a tasty ball, which at the moment of contact with water will disintegrate with further immersion of its particles to depth. To do this, you need to form an edible dense lump with a pronounced aroma, which is thrown with a sharp movement of the hand at a distance of 6-7 m.

For catching deep-sea fish, it would also be appropriate to prepare a smelling edible ball, but, unlike bait for high-water fish, it should not lose its shape under current conditions until it hits the bottom. To obtain such bait, a very dense lump with a strong odor is formed and thrown at a distance of approximately 15 m. To catch fish above the very bottom, a completely different approach is used. In this case, instead of a lump, you need to try to recreate the semblance of a cloud consisting of the smallest particles of bait. This technique will attract fish to the surface.

As for catching especially cautious and large fish, the bait should be cast so carefully that it not only reaches the bottom intact, but also does not create turbidity when it comes into contact with the surface. Otherwise, the bait will work as an attracting factor for both large and unnecessary small fish.

The main thing in a successful choice of bait is to correctly determine the depth at which the fish is currently located, making allowances for the current and turbidity of the water, and then prepare the appropriate food option.

Best Recipes

Many novice anglers are wondering how to make fish bait themselves without spending a lot of money on store-bought methods to improve the bite. There are many options for bait for DIY fishing, but not all of them guarantee a positive result. To return home with a really good catch, it is better to use the recommendations for preparing bait from professional and experienced fishermen. To do this, you should adopt one of the recipes, and then optionally supplement it with some flavors or pheromones.

The most common bait for catching fish is without a doubt the worm. Three types of worms are mainly used: the common earthworm, the red worm, and the “golden tail” (dung worm).

The most common one is the common earthworm. It can be found in garden plots and vegetable gardens. But it can be found most easily and in large quantities on warm evenings on garden paths, as well as in the turf. Most worms that live in earth holes are extremely sensitive to all kinds of earth tremors, and they try to disappear instantly.

The extracted worm is placed in a previously prepared container with a lid, half filled with moss. An ordinary medium-sized earthworm without a ring is especially effective for catching most species of predatory fish in the cold season. We are talking about especially large specimens of this species of salmon (the latter are found in heavily overgrown reservoirs). Other worms are used as fish food.

When putting on the bait, make sure that the hook is not too small for it. To avoid false bites, make sure that the bait does not hang too much from the hook. The worm is put on a hook in the following way: the sting of the hook is pulled through almost the entire worm. If the worm is large, it is rolled into rings and a hook is passed through each ring.

Methods for attaching a worm to a hook

The bait takes on a more natural worm shape and increases fishing efficiency. But despite this, it is not always possible to use such bait. So, in fast currents or in reservoirs overgrown with aquatic vegetation, the bait can fall off the hook. Then they resort to a less known method of baiting a hook (the worm is put on in such a way that it takes the shape of a closed ring).

The red worm can be found under rotten leaves. It is easy to assemble by digging the ground with a manure fork. The red worm is an excellent bait in the warm season in clear waters for almost all types of fish that bite on the worm.

For certain types of fish (tench, rudd, roach, perch, etc.), the “golden tail” worm is a special delicacy. Many fishermen resort to it, despite the difficult and unpleasant preparation (it lives in manure and compost heaps). Small and medium-sized golden tail worms are caught with a hook only in one place, the rest of the worm is intended for biting. Don't be afraid that the fish will eat everything and leave. The fact is that several such worms are attached to one hook, which together form a kind of ball.

To keep the worms fresh, it is best to keep them in damp moss, which is used to half-fill a flower pot (remember to cover the hole in the bottom of the pot). After a few days, the contents of the pot are poured out, and the moss and worms are left outside the pot for several hours. Then a layer of fresh moss is placed in the same dish, and old moss with worms is placed on top and they wait for some time for healthy worms to settle on the fresh moss (i.e., the lower layer of the contents of the pot).

After this, the old moss is removed with the remaining worms unsuitable for fishing. Every day, pour a little (about one tablespoon) of milk into fresh moss. Cover the pot from above.

In winter, worms can be stored in a wooden box half filled with clay soil and moss. Instead of moss, you can use vegetable peelings. The boxes are placed in a dark place in the basement and care is taken to maintain the necessary soil moisture.

Meat worms also make good bait. A piece of spoiled meat is placed in a tin can with holes made in the bottom. Removing worms from a jar is easy. To do this, it is filled with bran or sand, after which the worms hastily leave their home through a hole in the bottom. Several of them are put on a small hook.

The secret to successful fishing is the right bait. Experienced fishermen know that when choosing it, there are no unimportant things.

The best baits for fishing in spring and summer will be discussed in our article.

What types of bait are there?

From the fisherman's dictionary: “Bait is an element of equipment on a hook for catching fish.”
All of them can be divided into 2 types:
natural,
artificial.
Natural, in turn, can be divided into
bait (materials for luring of animal origin or live),
baits (plant baits).
Artificial baits include a wide variety of flies, spoons, electronic lures, sound lures, and so on.
How to choose from such a variety the most effective, “catchy” one, as fishermen say? There is no universal recipe. The type of reservoir (still or with running water, deep or shallow), the type of fish and its habits, the time of year, time of day and weather determine the choice of bait. However, it should be remembered that the bait that works best is the one that is “interesting” to the fish - this is what it is used to eating in these specific habitat conditions. Accordingly, in spring and summer, the best solution would be to use live insects, fresh vegetation, as well as artificial baits imitating them.

10 Best Lures for Fishing in Spring and Summer

Baits

Worm is a universal bait, well known to every fisherman, which is perfect for any time of year. The most common bait used is a crawler (a large earthworm). White earthworm, earthworm, dung worm, underleaf worm - all these types of worms will also be an excellent bait for non-predatory fish. Since fish are interested in moving bait, worms are baited not lengthwise, but across, folded several times.

Bloodworm(mosquito larva) is a natural food source for most freshwater fish. It lives at the bottom, in silt and mud, from where it is obtained, mainly by scooping silt from the bottom along with bloodworms or luring it out into the light at night. The main difficulty in fishing using bloodworm bait: in the summer it is not stored for long, you may need a cooler bag. The bloodworm is placed on a special small hook, which has a sharp sting and a thin shank. The most effective attachment is a “bundle”, for which several larvae must be tied with thread or an elastic band.

Blowfly larva (maggot)– an excellent bait in summer and spring for perch and all types of non-predatory fish. Fishermen love this bait because it has no competitors in terms of durability on the hook. Differently colored maggots attract different types of fish with their color:
red and brown - silver bream, perch, whitefish, bream, ide;
green - ide, roach, bleak.
Maggots are colored using special dyes or feeding them with special food. Maggots are placed in different ways: one at a time or several per hook. It is important to remember that the larva is very mobile, so a hook with a retaining barb must be used.

Shitik (caddisfly larvae)- another spring-summer bait that can provide catchability. Shitik excels in catching non-predatory fish: white fish, barbel, perch, bream and others. The features of placing a caddisfly on a hook are as follows: 2-3 larvae on the hook ensure the capture of only one fish, the bait must be constantly changed, so the supply of shit for fishing should be large enough.

Grasshopper. This undeservedly forgotten bait several decades ago was perhaps the first most popular among fishermen in the summer. Grasshoppers begin to actively reproduce at the end of July, and the grasshopper fishing season remains open until the end of August. They fish for grasshoppers mainly using a fishing rod with a float or fly rod. The main prey is grayling, trout, chub, roach, and ide.
Catching grasshoppers is simple and exciting - just remember your childhood and arm yourself with a net and a bottle of grass. For fishing, you need to keep them alive. But hooking is somewhat inhumane: you need to break off the first joints of the racing legs and spread the wings. If the grasshoppers are small, several pieces go on the hook at once.

Nozzles

Bread– this is the most popular bait for fishing; fish from the carp family are the most “indifferent” to bread. Every fisherman knows many recipes for making bread, the main task of which is to make the bread more viscous and dense so that it does not fall off the hook. To do this, the bread crumb is moistened, mixed with vegetable oil, honey, potatoes, raw egg, and then poured with boiling water. Often crushed insects (bloodworms, worms, worms) are added to the bread crumb. But even properly prepared and strung bread stays on the hook for just a few minutes, so the attachment has to be changed very often.
Bait in the form of a piece of fresh bread or dry bread crust is also often used.

Canned corn. Corn in any form - fresh, boiled, cornmeal and crushed - is an irresistible bait for fish in the spring and summer. Chub, crucian carp, silver bream, roach, bream, ide, and carp bite well on corn. There are a great many recipes for preparing corn for fishing. However, with the advent of canned corn on sale, the process of preparing high-quality bait was significantly reduced. Corn grains are placed on the hook in different ways for different fish: one or 2-3 for roach and ide, up to a dozen grains on a hook for carp.

fishing baits

Millet and semolina porridge are universal baits suitable for fishing in spring and summer. Porridges made from barley, buckwheat, oatmeal, and peas are also often used. The finished porridge should be cooked in a water bath or properly baked in the oven to obtain the thickest possible consistency, then the porridge ball will not fall off the hook. When baited, the hook tip is covered with a ball of porridge.

Artificial baits

Summer jig. The jig is a metal body with a hook soldered to it. This fishing tackle can be used either together with baits and attachments, or independently. Jigs can be winter or summer, with the summer jig being larger and more often used for fishing for bream, chub, silver bream, perch, ide, dace, roach, bluegill, rudd and of course crucian carp. Fishing with a jig requires special skill and the use of special gear, but at the same time it is recognized by fishermen as effective and very exciting.

Fly spinner. A spinner is a simple and versatile artificial bait that can be used all season long. At the same time, such a variety as fly bait is quite effective in the summer, since it imitates a rapidly rotating insect. Fly baits are most often caught using spinning rods and fly fishing.

fishing baits