Tom Scholey reveals how he boosts his bait to persuade the most impressive fish in the shoal into falling for the trap
IT’S NO secret that casters are one of the most effective baits for big roach.
Boasting a crunchy shell and a gooey centre, their slightly tough exterior doesn’t much appeal to smaller fish, but that leaves them fully intact for their bigger brothers and sisters to gorge upon.
Visit any venue where roach are regularly targeted and you can guarantee that casters will frequently be getting rained in – indeed, gallons of ‘shells’ can go in by hand or catapult on a busy day.
As with all fish, the bigger that roach get, the more intelligent they become, soon wising up to the tricks that we anglers try to pull off. Having been caught many times in the past, they eventually realise that the casters are associated with danger, and so become reluctant to eat them.
Catch the occasional big roach in among the smaller ones and it’s understandable to perhaps think that you’d caught all the sizeable specimens from the shoal– but Tom Scholey knows that’s not the case.
The silverfish expert believes that a lot of big roach are often still resident in the swim, but unwilling to feed as they sense the risk.
Most anglers would switch to other baits, but Tom sticks to his guns and instead changes the appearance of his casters.
“There’s no doubt that casters are the number one bait for big roach, so it makes no sense at all to take them out of the equation,” he explained.
“Instead, I coat them in an additive that changes their flavour and leaves a cloud in the water that big roach won’t be used to seeing. I had an inkling that it would work when I first tried it, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would boost my catches as much as it has.”
Simple solution
Roach are suckers for bait trickling through the water column. It stimulates competition, and as soon as one fish feeds, the rest want to follow suit and get in on the action.
Bites are likely to come thick and fast, but not only that – Tom has seen the stamp of fish that he catches go through the roof.
“Once the powdered additive in included, the fish follow the cloud it creates down to the bottom. It helps to concentrate fish in one area, rather than spreading them all through the water layers,” he revealed.
“It reduces the waiting time for a bite and because the bait tastes and looks different,the big roach don�
