At BobCo we’ve cut the price of our huge fresh maggots to just £1 per pint for winter 2019 to help promote fishing in the cold. So here’s a selection of things to try with maggots this January and February!
Fine lines
Fishing light hooklengths definitely gets more bites where maggots are concerned, especially for fish such as F1s, roach, skimmer bream and ide. An 0.10mm (2lb) hooklength is ideal on a stillwater fishery and it gives you a fighting chance of landing bigger fish too. Some top anglers now favour fluorocarbon for light hooklengths as it’s virtually invisible in water.
BobCo recommends: Drennan Supplex
Hook your baits right
Maggots have a bad habit of sometimes folding over the hook point, causing lost fish. Always make sure you just nick the skin of the maggot onto the hook, so its just virtually hanging on. And a great tip if you’re fishing double maggot is to hook the first conventionally, but hook the second through the opposite end, the thin point. This means more hook point is exposed.
Pot choice
A sprinkle type pot is great on the pole for introducing a bit of bait at a time. Sometimes feeding five maggots every few minutes is better than putting 15 in at once. Fish often respond to loose bait entering on a little and often basis.
BobCo recommends: Guru Pole Pots
Hook choice
Don’t always use a tiny hook for maggots. A size 18 will often suffice for silverfish and F1s. A slightly bigger hook helps to avoid really small fish and keeps fish losses to a minimum. Consider scaling down to a 20 if the fish are small or the fishing is extremely difficult.
BobCo recommends: Guru F1 Maggot hook
Wag and mag
The waggler and maggot is a timeless classic which still works when fish are slightly out of pole range. You want a fine mainline of about 2-3lb and an insert waggler, with minimal shot down the line, say three spread out number 10 shot. Conditions have to be good for this however as if the wind is in your face you might not be able to catapult maggots out there. If you can feed it, don’t worry about spreading the maggots out a bit via catapult as it creates a wide fed area which allows lots of fish to feed.
BobCo recommends: Drennan Crystal Green
Fishing overdepth
While you might fish pellets for carp at dead depth so you can see a bite immediately, you can plumb up to fish maggots slightly overdepth. This is because fish grab hold of them for longer than pellets and fishing overdepth allows the bait to be anchored a bit. If you’re fishing for skimmer bream for example, you could lay anything between 1 and 6ins of hooklength on the bottom, depending how bad the tow is.