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ARTIFICIAL BAITS PART 1

Over the last couple of years when reading both English and Spanish sea fishing magazines I have noticed the massive increase in artificial baits available. These range from sensible alternatives to ideas that are verging on the ridiculous.
For the last few months whenever I have been out fishing I have tried some of these alternatives and with interesting results. The first one I came across was the Berkly Power Worms.

These are acrylic rag worms and available in differing flavours and lengths. The ones I got were motor oil flavour which does have rather an acrid smell but I was assured this a good attractor of fish. So after a major oil spillage there should be thousands of fish present………mmmmmmmm. They are available for different uses so make sure you buy the inshore variety for shore fishing. I threaded a baiting needle through the worm which was not easy then fed my line through the hollow baiting needle and attached the hook. A bigger hook than I would normally use but again this is much bigger bait so a size two hook was used. This presentation ended up looking like I had threaded a worm onto and over the hook in the normal manner. The first time I tried them was at night in a fairly rocky environment. I had bites immediately, big bites, they had to be big fish to get these eight inch monsters in their mouths! I have since found some four inch power worms which are more realistic for the Mediterranean. The beauty of this type of bait is that it lasts for hours and is relatively cheap because of this fact whereas live worms, if changed regularly, can mount up in cost for a day or nights fishing. After several bites I then got a monster pull on the rod and whatever it was dived into the rocks and had the strength to hold me there. I tried everything, letting it have slack line in the hope it would free itself. This works normally, but not this time, the hook pulled out and nothing. Not to be put off I tried the power worms off and on over the next six months at regular intervals and at last caught a decent Dorada. This was in deep water, amongst rocks again but this time I was situated well above the water and in daylight where I could see where to cast the bait to. Letting the bait land in a sandy patch and again a decent size Painted Wrasse, so they do work. I will try them for a longer period and maybe get some better results.
The next ones I tried were the Fishbites Fish'n Strips. These are brightly coloured strips of very strong mesh centred fibres impregnated with scent, mine are crab flavour, originating from the USA. An friend brought me these over from England where they has used them to much success down on the south coast so I knew before using them that they do work. Well they do in the south of England. I have tried these for hours and had no success. This is a shame because a couple of strips will last for days. Maybe I will try some cut down as a great problem with the fish around here is

they have very small mouths and do not generally, unless very hungry, take lunges at large baits. These again come in different useage packs, recommended for surf, coastal and estuary use. Worth a try. If you have success let me know as without us all trying these different ideas we will never move forward.