UK Coarse
The Bait Room · Particles / seeds
Cooked hempseed. A holding bait for roach, a bed for barbel, and the reason tares still exist.
Hemp is a small, oily seed you cook until it splits. Fish graze it. It holds roach on a river or canal, and it is a classic barbel bed with pellets or meat over the top.
It is not usually the hookbait, except when they get preoccupied — then a single grain of hemp or a tare does the job. Preparing it properly matters: too hard and it's useless; cooked to mush and it clags.
From the graph
Technique
Hemp and tares
Feed, then sometimes the hookbait
Technique
Trotting a river
Feed, then a tare
Technique
Barbel fishing
The trickle
Technique
Rolling meat
A trickle with it
Technique
Stick float
Feed, then a tare
Technique
River feeder
A pinch with the maggots
Technique
Avon float
A buoyant, thick-topped river float for heavier water than a stick will hold. Chub, barbel on a trot, and a crease with some pace — after 16 June.
Technique
Maggot feeder
A pinch with the maggots
Technique
Cage / open-end feeder
A pinch in the mix
River roach and barbel after 16 June. Canal better-stamp days. Tench and carp particle beds on stillwaters that allow it.
Summer hemp-and-tares is a British tradition. It still has a place in autumn. Less of a winter bait.
Loose-fed. In a feeder. Hook a grain when they're preoccupied, or a tare over hemp feed.
Soak, then simmer until the seed splits and shows a white shoot. Don't boil it to soup. Cool and keep. Tinned hemp exists if you don't want the saucepan.
Feeding
A pint of cooked hemp is a lot of seeds. Start smaller than you think.
Every run-through on a river. Every minute on a catching silver line.
Tares, maggots, pellets on barbel, corn.
Hemp and tares. Hemp under a stick float. Hemp and meat for barbel.
Little and often on a stick float or waggler. A bed for barbel. A pinch in a pole pot.
Raw hemp. A bucket in a small canal peg. Hooking hemp on a size 10.
If they won't have the grain, keep feeding hemp and hook maggot or a tare. If nothing graze, you're not on fish.
Beginner tip
Buy a tin of cooked hemp if you don't want to simmer seeds. Feed a pinch, hook maggot over it.
Advanced tip
When they boil on hemp, a single grain or a tare is one of the most satisfying roach baits there is.