ouch that must hurt...

[mark]

been pondering whether to share this one or not. So if you\'re a bit squeamish, p\'raps best not read any further.

Whilst in scotland a couple of weeks back, was talking to a local who \'makes\' his own bait. Now the priciples of this sound pretty good, but his execution (I chose that word carefully!) might leave a bit to be desired. Getting fresh peeler is a bit of a problem, keeping mussel on a hook is a bit of a problem too, so his solution was this. He\'d get down the beach and gather whatever small crabs he could find (peeling or not) and a good pile of mussels. The other ingredients varied (lug/rag/cockles/fish), but the one last constant was either tubegauze finger bandage or bits of fish net stocking.

back in his shed, he has an old blender, into which he would drop his crabs (still alive!) followd by mashed up mussels (shell and all) and whizz it all to a paste - apperntly the ground up shells of both the crab and mussel bound the whole mess together. The resultinmg paste would sewn up in sausage shapes from the stockings or tubegauze, which would then be used or frozen until needed. Easy to attach to a hook, don\'t fall to bits as soon as they hit the water and could be a cocktail of anything.

They looked and worked brill, but dropping live crabs in a blender - what a way to go!

[Edited on 15/11/2003 by mark]

[codstopper]

yeah a noisy death for the crabs...

ive known people use that type of method prior to a fishing comp, a couple of tides before using a pair of tights, crammed with old fish from the fish quay, anchored with stones in the bottom and thrown to sea under the hours of darkness. then fish that same place during the comp and take fish.......and they maybe won...

some use your friends method fishing deep water marks, when only a small cast is needed, and they attatch it to the weight or use it as a weight, always gets the hook back, using a syringe is the better way to pack it in, freeze it into 5oz denomonations then away you go.

[Red5]

I think there was a company based in the North east who had an advert in the Sea Angler a while back with something along those lines. They also use a similar thing in Norway so I believe!