by Shaun Harrison;
A favourite method of mine, especially in Winter is frequent recasting with bright ‘in your face’ baits and personally I think none are more effective than the many varied Artificial Hookbaits which are now available.
Now I guess this may surprise a few anglers, after all I run a bait company and here I am advocating artificial baits, but anyone who has read my work over the years will realise by now that I tell it how it is! I see no point in pulling the wool over anybody’s eyes.
The simple fact of the matter is that I have used a lot of artificial hookbaits and to my mind they have many advantages over the most carefully prepared natural bait. By natural bait, I am of course, referring to real food items, because boilies can hardly be described at natural.
Many anglers seem quite happy with artificial corn which is now available in a few difference guises, although we really have Enterprise Tackle to thank for bringing the artificial baits to the fore. I rarely use the artificial corn myself – much preferring the artificial boilies which Enterprise also supply.
So what are the Five reasons I catch more Carp on artificial baits.
1) They stay on forever no matter how much casting is done: Frequent casting of conventional baits often requires frequent changing of hookbaits, which can then mean a lot of time rebalancing rigs. If a fish shows and you feel it warrants a cast, you can wind in a bait and recast immediately to showing fish. There are very few ‘proper’ food baits with which you can do this. More time fishing – less time messing around!
2) They are immune to nuisance fish attack: Like it or not, most so-called nuisance species are much more capable of realising that an artificial bait is not edible. I know we like to think of carp as being intelligent, but if the truth be known they are big daft things at times. Yes they seem able to detect tackle and know that they are being fished for, but this is true no matter what bait we offer. The fact is then, I get far less nuisance fish activity whilst using artificial baits. This means fewer messed up rigs and less chance to the hook picking up bottom debris as the bait is subjected to a game of blow football. More time fishing with effective presentations!
3) Their Colour doesn’t fade when left in Water: Not an awful lot to elaborate upon here. Most baits come back looking much more washed out than when you cast them. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – except when you want a bright bait!
4) They will take on whatever flavour you want them to have: I have used flavoured and unflavoured artificial baits over the years. I always used to feel more confident with flavoured ones, but these days I tend to not bother flavouring them. This allows me to use different flavoured bottom baits underneath them (snowman style) without the need to carry lots of variations. So what is the difference between a boosted flavour natural bait? I guess with most things the flavour washes off, but with artificial baits it doesn’t.
5) You don’t need potfuls of them to get results: This is one of the major attractions for me and reason enough to continue to utilise artificial hookbaits. I have always messed around with alternative hookbaits. 
It’s rare for me to try to match the hookbait to what I am feeding as a free bait. It’s so difficult to match them exactly once on a rig, with the weight of the hook, and the drag of the hooklink etc, that I rarely bother to try to simulate, much preferring to offer something different. I also believe you are less likely to put a carp off a certain bait by tripping them up on an alternative – worth bearing in mind if you are trying to establish a bait. Believe me, the more you get fish onto a bait the less important your hookbait is. Once you get them feeding hard they will slip up.
I can and do carry a vast range of alternative colours, sizes ant types of hookbait all in a few tiny pots. With natural bait you have to carry so much bulk because you need to cater for each cast, lost bait etc. Yes, give me a few film canisters of artificial baits to carry around any day, rather than a separate hookbait bag.
Tight Lines, Shaun
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