Ergo wrote:
: Phil.L wrote:
:: Simon Atkinson wrote:
::: had a great day out fishing last friday, got talking to a couple of
::: matchmen who were practising for a weekend match but got the feeling
::: they were a little bit single minded, I was approached by one and
::: the conversation went something like this
: snip
:
:: I agree, a lot of anglers feel the need to go to extremes of
:: purchasing high priced and highly flavoured baits, when in reality a
:: good starchy type of bait is adequate.
:: look at bread, it's cheap, nearly all coarse fish will readily take
:: it, it can be floated, legered, liquidised and even punched onto tiny
:: hooks, and theres very little in it but wheat!
:: some of my fav baits: bread, corn, hemp, groats, wheat, cornflakes(!)
:: and oats as a ground bait base mix.
:: i do use pellets, but not at this time of year, i tend to use them
:: only in the height of summer when carp/tench/barbel etc are feeding
:: vociferously, but even then, bread still takes some beating.
:
: While bread is OK, I find that the red maggot or worm take some
: beating as an all year round bait.

I think it depends where you live.
I'm from Lancashire and its cold up here even now, we've had temps of -2
during the night a few times and its only going to get colder.
I'm not an expert on fish, but i know that maggot/worm/meat etc are high
protein and require more time to digest than carbohydrates(bread), most fish
cannot digest food at very low temperatures, and many of the waters i fish
are quite shallow (4ft or less) and once they are chilled overnight, they
take a very long time to warm up.
Having said that, theres a fishery nearby with sturgeon, (big buggers too,
up to twenty pound and five feet long!)which feed on big slabs of meat and
paste all year round!
i think its because they are from deep cold rivers in USSR!