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Baiting Tools: Baiting Needles

One of the simplest and cheapest baiting tools you can buy to greatly improve your baiting options is a baiting needle. Baiting needles are just needles with a gated or ungated hook on the end. Its purpose is to pull a bait hair through a small piece or bait. You can’t effectively use a rig hair without a baiting needle so keep a couple in your tool box.

I find I end up using my baiting needle for picking open knots, threading beads and hooks and all sorts of things.

Baiting Tools: Bait Stops

Bait stops are little pieces of plastic that prevent a hair from pulling out of the bait. These baiting tools come in a variety of shapes and colors and in a pinch you can use a little twig if you don’t have a bait stop. However for a few dollars you can buy several seasons worth of bait stops.

You can also get hair extenders. If you want to add a few millimeters to the length of your hair and hair extender does just that. I also find that hair extenders work betters as bait stops for large pellet baits which tend to have pre drilled holes that are sometimes a bit too big for normal bait stops.

Baiting Tools: Spods & Spombs

Spods and spombs are different versions of the basically the same thing. They are plastic containers on the end of your line that you fill with chum and cast out to your fishing spot. The chum gets dropped on your spot, allowing you to chum a spot too far away to reach easily.

Spods look like a rocket with a nose cone and an open butt end. You shove the chum in the tail end of the rocket and when it hits the water the buoyant nose cone turns up in the water and dumps the chum out the back of the spod.

Spombs look like a cluster bomb. You open the spomb lengthwise and cram it full of chum. You close the spomb shut and cast it out. When spombs hit the water these baiting tools cracks open and dumps their contents.

These spods and spombs are so effective that serious bait fisherman will have a rod that they use just for spodding. This makes it so you can add chum ontop of your gear throughout the day instead of having to constantly switch between spod/spomb and fishing rig.

Spods come in all sizes and generally require a rod with a bit more power to wing a filled spod or spomb 100 yards or more.

A Video Demonstrating How a Spomb Works

Baiting Tools: Sling Shots

 

If you need a baiting tool that will let you chum a spot a short or medium distance away a sling shot works great. A $5 wrist rocket from Walmart will throw a boilie 80 yards with reasonable accuracy. However, if you want to chum with particle baits such as corn, maze or sour wheat then you need a sling shot with a larger, cup shaped pouch.

If you are shooting different sized baits out into the water with slingshots make sure to shoot them separately by size. If you sling shot a handful of corn and wheat and boilies together the boilies will go the farthest and then the corn and then the wheat. If you shoot them separately you can get all three to hit the same spot.

When I take kids fishing, they spend half of the time having a blast chucking boilies into the lake with my boilie thrower and sling shots. Next to reeling in a monster I think the slingshots and boilie throwers are the best part of fishing for kids.

Here is a video of me using my carp fishing slingshot

Baiting Tools: PVA Bags

PVA is amazing. PVA is one of the most under utilized baiting tools that no one seems to use! If you have not fished with PVA you are missing out. PVA is a biodegradable plastic that dissolves on contact with water. PVA takes only seconds to melt in warm water but can take minutes in colder water. There are many PVA products on the market and PVA has nearly limitless potential as baiting tools.

The most common way that people use PVA is to attach a bag of chum to their rig. If you are fishing with a relatively small bait and you want to boost its attractive potential you the hook, the lead and a bunch of chum in a PVA bag and cast the bag out into the water. The bag dissolves leaving your hook in the middle of a perfect pile of chum.

PVA bags dissolve when they touch water so wet baits (such as wet fish chunks and canned corn) can’t be used in a PVA bag. Oils, certain flavorings, and salt water don’t dissolve PVA. Consequently you can make PVA friendly corn by boiling your corn or wheat in salt water and adding a little vegetable or fish oil.

Catfisherman can make a killer PVA bait by taking adding a PVA bag filled with small pellets and fish oil (menhaden oil or shad oil) to the end of their line. When that PVA bag dissolves it will produce a potent cloud of scent which will draw in every catfish around.

PVA comes in solid bag, perforated bags, or mesh tubes. You can buy or make a small plastic tube to insert into a PVA bag while filling it to keep the bag open and act as a funnel. Solid bags are generally cheaper, they melt better in cold water and can hold liquids or powdery chum. Perforated PVA bags are also cheap, they melt the quickest, they sink better than solid bags but not as well as mesh and they can hold powders but not liquids. Mesh sinks best, is more versatile (you can customize the length of each bag) and mesh is a must when fishing in current. However, mesh takes the longest to melt which can be an issue in cold water.

PVA comes in foam nuggets as well as bags. The foam nuggets can be used to make sure that your bait does not land too close to your lead or get buried in the mud by sticking a small chunk of nugget onto the point of your hook. The buoyant nugget makes you hook sink slower so that it trails behind the lead during its decent to the bottom. It also makes the hook land on the bottom softer so that the lead is less like to drag it down into the mud on a really soft bottom.

PVA strings are another common baiting tools. You can use PVA string to create a chain of baits, like beads on a necklace. This chain can be tied onto your hook and casted out. When the PVA dissolves the fish finds your hook among a cluster of baits.

PVA string can also be used to secure the flapping parts of a rig. On high and low rigs you can tie the hooks to the leaders’ mainline with PVA string for better aerodynamics and tangle resistance. When the rig hits the water the string dissolves and the hooks hang freely.

A view showing how to make a great PVA stick mix for winter carp fishing

Baiting Tools: Methods feeders

Method feeders are lead weights that are designed to have gooey sticky bait mashed around them as chum.  The idea is that this ball of freebie chum attract in schools of fish when then find your hook bait. Its another great way to attract a lot of fish and to get fish feeding confidently and aggressively.

Method feeders are simple. You find a sticky bait and then mold a ball of bait around the weight and cast it out. Each time you cast you put a new ball of bait around your weight. Oatmeal is a great and simple bait that works great for catching carp with a method feeder. Soggy pellets soaked in fish oil is a great method bait for catfish. However there a numerous manufactured method mixes on the market with great flavors for carp or catfish.

The downside to method feeders is that you are limit in baiting choices. Your bait must be sticky and gooey for this baiting tool to work

Method mixtures work best when the action is really hot. You can re-bait and get back into the action a lot easier than with PVA bags, so if the fish are crawling up your line a method feeder will put a lot of fish on the bank very very quickly.

Baiting Tools: Throwing Stick

If you are chumming with boilies beyond 80 yards a throwing stick is one of the few baiting tools availble. A boilie throwing stick is a hollow tube. You put a boilie inside it and swing the stick overhand and with the right technique the boilie comes flying out. You can throw a lot of bait really fast and really far, plus its loads of fun. However, it take some real practice and skill to use effectively so be prepared to practice for a while if you buy one.

When I take kids fishing, they spend half of the time having a blast chucking boilies into the lake with my boilie thrower and sling shots. Next to reeling in a monster I think the slingshots and boilie throwers are the best part of fishing for kids.

Baiting Tools: Margin Poles

If you need to bait very close to a snag a margin pole is excellent. The margin pole allows you to put a spoon full of bait and you rig exactly where you want it as long as it is less than 8 meters. Some of the best cat fishing and carp fishing is directly under overhanging bushes. Casting to these bushes is so difficult to do without losing gear. A margin pole allows you to tuck your gear and bait right in very close to a snag. For a video of me using my telescoping margin pole click here.

Baiting Tools: Bait boats

If you are beyond hardcore and are willing to spend any amount of money to catch more fish, then I have the ultimate baiting tools for you: radio controlled bait boats. These beauties can carry up to a 12 pound payload of chum hundreds of yards out into the lake and then dump it with the push of a button. A special hopper carries your hook along for the ride and dumps it right on top.

If you want the gold standard of bait boats you can buy a wireless fish finder to attach to your boat so that you can have your boat search for bottom features and holding fish to bomb with its payload.

Not only do bait boats help you fish at distances impossible to reach by casting, it also allows you to stealthily fish in impossibly tight spaces. You can drive your bait boat under over hanging brush where catfish and carp love to hide but a rod and reel cannot reach. Or you can drop you bait and gear right next to a sunken log or brush without fear of accidentally getting snagged.

However, while we can all visualize some serious advantages to using these high-tech baiting tools, the disadvantage is the $700-$2000 price tag. So if you have the money to buy a full sized boat and you want a full sized fishing boat but you don’t have any room to park a fishing boat in front of your house, then may be this is your alternative.

Where to Buy These Baiting Tools

In the US, you can buy spods, PVA, method feeders and other baiting tools at Big Carp Tackle