Maggots are one of Terry Hofgartner’s favourite baits to use when carp fishing, especially during the colder months when they start to come into their own once the water temperature start to drop, as he explains… Using the ‘germs’ really can turn a bad session around, as at certain times of the year carp can become preoccupied on natural food items – live creatures such as snails, eggs or larvae etc. The best way to imitate this is by using maggots. I like to think of it as live baiting for carp – If I was going out pike fishing I know which I would rather use, live baits all day long!
There are pros and cons to using maggots, but over the years I like to think that I have eliminated most of the cons out of my angling. Not every venue lends itself to fishing maggots. Obviously if the venue holds plenty of small species, such as bream, tench and silver fish, this is going to be a problem – but a problem that can be overcome. As I touched on before, during the colder months most of the smaller nuisance fish shut down and become less of a problem.
This rig coupled with a small PVA bag is an awesome quick-bite tactic, especially around the Winter or early Spring when feeding times are few and far between. It’s also a good method to employ when fishing over big beds of bait later on in the year.
When I am fishing a venue with a good stock of big carp and not too many nuisance fish around, I won’t hold back on the bait – often baiting with all manner of different sized baits, crushed boilies, whole boilies, hemp, pellets, casters and maggots.
When baiting in this way I always use the smallest item I am baiting with on the hair because old and wise carp will be thinking my hook is attached to one of the boilies or pellets it’s been avoiding, when little does he know that the next mouthful of maggots will probably be his downfall and see my hook end up in its bottom lip!
Rigs for fishing maggots do not need to be anything sophisticated. Take a look at the series of images and step sequence above to see how to tie a rig that has caught me a lot of fish over the years…
Continue reading this article at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on Facebook here at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on our Twitter fishing site here at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on our Twitter hunting site here at this LINK…..
.