Bread

Inventors

Many of us mix up all kinds of concoctions to use as bait in the hope that it will be the pied-piper of baits, attracting fish from miles around. We also spend hours dreaming up new rigs and tweaks which will give us an advantage over our scaly friends. 

Generally, these ideas have a 50/50 success rate. When they work, we chalk it up to our ingenuity and expertise as anglers. When they fail, its because of the weather, the fish having an off day or any other excuse we can think of, but it most definitely is NOT our fault. 

Picky Eaters

Fish don't determine their next meal by taste. Although they have taste buds, the biggest deciding factor is the smell. This is why many of us like to experiment with all kinds of foul smelling, diseased ridden, vomit inducing baits. Smell is very important when you are fishing in a river or a large open body of water such as a big lake. Fish in these places are sparse and something is needed to attract them.

Overdoing it

Some fishing parks here in Thailand are extremely well stocked, almost to the point of being overstocked. This is great news when we're just looking for a bit of fun with minimal effort. I often see fishermen in these parks with elaborate set-ups and some of those inventions we talked about earlier, yet they never seem to do any better than others in the same taxed puddle.

Back to Basics

Sometimes its best to just revert to basics. With the abundance of fish residing in these glorified puddles, you are guaranteed to have multiple fish swimming near your bait throughout the day. This negates the need to attract them from a distance with something that smells worse than dog fart. 

The next time you are headed to a fishing park, leave all of your expensive gear, smelly concoctions and inventions at home. All you need is a rod, a reel, a hook and some plain breadcrumbs. 

• Put the breadcrumbs in a bag or bucket and add a little water so you can squeeze fist-fulls of it together. 
• Tie the hook to the end of your line with nothing else, not even a weight. 
• Grab a fist-full of breadcrumbs and squeeze it around your hook. (If it's not tight enough, not wet enough or too wet, it will fly off when you cast. At just the right consistency, it will stay on and act as a weight). 
• Cast out and see what happens.

The End Result

Of course using this method, doesn't give us a whole lot of time to sit back and relax as we need to continuously re-bait due to fish picking at the bread. Re-baiting often will pay off. 

You'll find that you will most likely catch more fish than others around you. Thai fishermen never believe it when they are told it's just plain bread. They will smell and even taste it to learn the secret to your success. They use bread too but the difference is, theirs is surrounded by multiple hooks, beads, coils, floats and anything else they can get their hands on until the end of their line looks like something you'd put on a Christmas tree. 

My Take

I think using bread on a hook with nothing else allows it to sink a lot slower than it would with other contraptions attached. This gives it more exposure at all depths allowing inquisitive fish more time to decide on whether to chow down or not.

So the next time you go to a well stocked fishing park,give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised with the result.

Comments

Have you tried just using bread? If not, do you think it would work? What are some of your favorite 'basic fishing' methods? Hit 'comment' to leave your responses. Thanks for your time.