fishing double baits

[britcarpalltheway]

it has always been a major thing to me that my hookbait should look and behave in exactly the same manner as my free offerings, even down to the same weight. i was talking to another forum member about this the other day and his words went pretty much along the lines of "your obsessed and your lucky the men in white coats havnt caught up with you yet". well heres a little trick for you anyway, when fishing double baits, put two free offerings together by pushing them both onto a short piece of dry spaghetti, creating the same look as your hookbait. repeat this as many times as you like until you have the required amount of freebies. these double hookbaits will fly fairly straight out of a throwing stick but not out of a catapult, so the answer is to put a few into a wide pva stocking and catapult the finished stocking out. this idea works especially well with the snowman presentation

[cowley]

I like to use double baits. I'm not convinced that over a bed of double baits would make much difference and I do have angling friends who like to mimick the free offerings, and therefore fish almost exclusively single baits.
If the fish get their heads down, it probably doesn't make much odds, but on hard waters presentation does become an issue, so I do take Si's point. He fishes some hard venues with success, so he's definitely worth listening to on this, he is giving up how his mind ticks here.
I have had great success on double baits over the years. Obviously, different strategies are required on some waters, sometimes different can give you an edge. On one water I fish, I like to fish two chops on a very long hair so that the hook baits actually seperate on the hair. It looks odd but when fished over a scattered bed of baits so that the fish are moving about picking up here and there, it can be a killer approach.

Great post Si, that should get us thinking!

[tryzard]

I've had a lot of success using double baits, but I always fish them over singles because i actually want the hookbait to be different. The same applies to a snowman bait.

I can see the logic behind it but it's a bit limited in application. I've never seen anybody firing out boilies spaghettied to a piece of plastic corn for example!

And what do you do if you want to change to a single bait, or change the size of your boilie, or use a chop? Your hookbait won't then mimic the free offerings and you can't take them out again.

[britcarpalltheway]

I've had a lot of success using double baits, but I always fish them over singles because i actually want the hookbait to be different. The same applies to a snowman bait.

I can see the logic behind it but it's a bit limited in application. I've never seen anybody firing out boilies spaghettied to a piece of plastic corn for example!

And what do you do if you want to change to a single bait, or change the size of your boilie, or use a chop? Your hookbait won't then mimic the free offerings and you can't take them out again.

as far as you wanting to have your hookbaits looking different, thats fine and that is what i used to think also. since i have tried to match my hookbaits to my freebies my catch rate has risen dramatically with excellent results at times.
i dont see it as being limited because if you want to change to a single bait, whats stopping you also feeding some singles in as free offerings aswell. carp are used to seeing lots of different food sources around your area but they are not used to seeing loads of one type and one single bait that looks, feels and tastes different.

[tryzard]

Just shows that there's no definitive answer in most things carpy. My catch rate has risen dramatically since I started using double boilies fished over singles!

I couldn't agree more with the second part of your post, but doesn't that rather contradict the first line of your original post as your hookbait will then only match some of your freebies - in which case you may as well fish doubles over singles. And what do you feed if you want to add a piece of plastic corn to the hookbait?

[britcarpalltheway]

Just shows that there's no definitive answer in most things carpy. My catch rate has risen dramatically since I started using double boilies fished over singles!

I couldn't agree more with the second part of your post, but doesn't that rather contradict the first line of your original post as your hookbait will then only match some of your freebies - in which case you may as well fish doubles over singles. And what do you feed if you want to add a piece of plastic corn to the hookbait?

no there isnt a definitive answer to anything carpy but past experience tells you alot, and my past experience has taught me that matching the majority of your freebies exactly to your hookbait works and i have proved that myself time and time again but at the end of the day you have got to do what you think works best.
as far as fake corn is concerned, quite obviously this is not a method that would accomodate using plastic fantastic but you can use a trimmed down pop up instead

[tryzard]

Like many things, the way you fish is all about your own experience and what you feel confident with, without being afraid to experiment when things aren't going quite right. It's whatever floats your (bait) boat!

I may go and buy a pack of spaghetti just in case. I can always use it with a nice pasta sauce if all else fails, so it won't go to waste!

[moorsey]

I agree that the double bait freebies definitely works ( I used the spaghetti trick with bottom baits and snowmen) in 1998 to great success but I have also had great success with fishing a totally different (size colour and flavour) hook bait to the freebies. My own take on baiting up for carp is that if you can confuse them by using a patch of different flavours, sizes and colours the feeding will continue for longer because there won't be a single "signal" that can be associated with danger after being caught.

[SteveW1805]

I agree that the double bait freebies definitely works ( I used the spaghetti trick with bottom baits and snowmen) in 1998 to great success but I have also had great success with fishing a totally different (size colour and flavour) hook bait to the freebies. My own take on baiting up for carp is that if you can confuse them by using a patch of different flavours, sizes and colours the feeding will continue for longer because there won't be a single "signal" that can be associated with danger after being caught.

IMHO - Awesome.