Cheap and Free Coarse Fishing Baits

Maggots

Maggots are by far the most popular coarse fishing bait, sold by the pint and available from most fishing tackle shops. Maggots come in white, a variety of different colours (dyes) and casters (pupae)..... Maggots are becoming more costly at around £3 per pint, there are cheaper alternative baits that are available that can be very effectivem these include:-

Lobworms (Free)

Lobworms are acceptable to most fish including predators, lobworms can be collected from your garden, the best way to find them is to go out foraging after dark ideally on a warm night when the ground is moist. Scan the lawn with a torch, along with slug trails, you should come across lobworms lurking in the grass. Alternatively if you have a compost heap this will undoutebly hold lobworms as these make ideal homes for the worms.

Worms

Build Your Own Wormery
If you find lobworms a success at your local fishery you could always build your own wormery this can be done by making up a square wooden frame approximately 5ft long by 4ft wide by 2-3ft high depending on the amount of lobworms you wish to farm. Once you have created your frame you will need to line the sides and base with newspaper then much like a compost heap keep adding vegetable waste and small amounts of compost. The wormery should be placed within a shaded area and the top should be covered with a piece of wood or a sack. Keep the wormery moist and lobworms will make it their home and provide you with endless free fishing baits.

Caddis Larva (Free)

Caddis Larva can be found by pulling clumps of weed from a pond or waters edge.

Bread (£1)

Bread Bait Bread as a bait is popular with carp and most coarse fish and priced at less than a pound is a fairly cheap bait to fish with. There are various methods to use bread as a fishing bait including: crust hook bait, cutting bread cubes, flakes or by making a bread paste from a fresh uncut loaf.

How to make a bread paste
To make a bread paste remove the inside of a fresh uncut loaf, place the bread in a cloth and submerge in water, once the bread has soaked, squeeze the water out that leaves you with a firm bread paste that can be moulded around your hook bait.

Luncheon Meat ( 60p to a £1)

Luncheon meat can be very effective on certain waters by fishing cubes of luncheon meat on a hair rig. As with a lot of waters its a case of trialling different baits to find out what bait works best.

Sweetcorn (65p to a £1)

Sweetcorn is popular coarse fish and carp bait. I have always found the tinned sweetcorn (Green Giant) more effective than frozen sweetcorn, as the tinned corn has a much thicker skin which is far less likely to come off your line, fresh sweetcorn also seems to have a stronger flavour.