Maggots
Again they are overlooked by the modern specimen angler. We seem to have a fixation, that everything new must be better than the older type baits. Nothing could be further from the truth. The humble old maggot will catch anything and everything. Even the mighty carp adore them. The best way to use them for carp and tench fishing is to get some polythene bags and place some maggots into them, and then to put the bags into your freezer. Take the bags with you next time you go fishing and throw a large supply of the dead maggots into your swim. The great advantage of the now dead maggots, is that they do not crawl into the mud to hide, they just lie there in full view of any passing fish. You will have to have a fair amount with you, as once the fish move in, you will have to keep up a good supply to encourage them to stay. If you fish three or four live maggots on a hair in amongst your dead maggots, you will find that they are every bit as effective as the more modern boilie. At the end of a fishing trip, do not throw your remaining live maggots into the water as is the customary practice. Take them home with you, and freeze them for next time. Remember also that maggots can easily be flavoured. If you are going to flavour them, then when you put the maggots into the polythene bags, add a very small amount of your flavouring to the bag, blow up the bag, and screw the top shut, shake the bait well. Then tie the top and freeze. The flavour will be drawn into the maggot as they freeze. If you do not want to freeze them, then put them back into a clean bait box and keep cool till the following day, then you will have a supply of flavoured maggots to fish with. Most tackle shops only have their maggots delivered once a week, and if you can find out when, you can purchase really fresh maggots, as there can be nothing worse than stale smelly maggots, that have been kept in a bait box in the fridge for a week. The medium that they are kept in has become soaking wet, and they smell. Not a good thing as far as the fish are concerned. You can buy maggots in all sorts of colour's, and it is always worth having a variety with you, as I have found on many occasions, that the fish only want one colour. Perch and bream adore red. You can have floating maggots, by using rig foam in various matching colour's. Just cut some maggot shaped pieces and use on the hook together with your maggots. A good way to keep your maggots up and out of the mud, and in full view of any passing fish. If you keep your maggots for any length of time, you will find that they become lethargic, and finally stop moving about. They start to change colour. First to a slight brown, getting darker and darker. You now have casters. These are again another great bait, so don’t even think about throwing them away. To hook them, simply push the point of your fine wire hook into the blunt end, and slightly to one side. Turn the hook so that the spade end is up, push down on the spade end until you have pushed the hook completely inside the caster. This is a fragile bait, consisting of a hard outside shell, and a very soft inside. They are very easy to burst while trying to get the hook in, but persevere, and you will get better at the hooking process, the more that you do it. Maggots can be fished with lots of other baits, like worm and maggot, corn and maggot, caster and maggot, and bread and maggot. Of all the baits that you can get hold of, the maggot would be the one that most of us would go for if we could only have one bait.