I've been struggling with good cheap baits that will stay on the hook. Corn is ok, but is easily picked off by turtles and really doesn't stay on that well. I tried making my own dough bait with mixed results. It's hard to find consistency which leaves you with a smelly bait that will stay on the hook. Either I make a bait the fish love, or I make something that they can't pick of the hook. Never the combination of both.

So, i thought perhaps I will remove myself from the equation. I have to give credit to Curt0407 for a great idea which worked well, but I'm still only coming up with catfish. Let's face it, they're kind of duds in putting up a fight.

My mind went to work. And I thought, "Marshmallows!" And as I was checking out, I thought, "Gummy bears!" So I bought them and then looked them up on the internet. Turns out they are legit.

Anyone had luck with either? I plan to dip them in cherry flavored fish oil or peanut butter.

Exactly what I was gonna link him to, love TAFishing.

Making your own baits is a tedious process. I use premade baits from Big Carp Tackle in OK. Mainline Response Boilies are a staple, as well as Tiger Nuts, although they require a bit of prep and flavoring if you want it, and Enterprise Popup Sweetcorn to tip off my boilies/tigers to give it a bit of a neutrally buoyant property. The popup corn is plastic so it's really hard for turtles to take it off.

I've had pretty consistent luck with making my own dough bait. 1 Cup all purpose flour, 1 cup cornmeal, 4 slices white bread crumbled, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, 2 tsp vanilla, 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, pinch of salt. Use a stand mixer and dough hook. Put all ingredients in the bowl and stir to mix, then mix with dough hook and slowly add water until it gets to your consistency. If you add too much water just add more flour. Stays on treble hook really well, have been able to reel in 2-3 times and cast back out. ON single hook it will come off as you reel in. Takes about 10 minutes to make, keeps in fridge a long time.

Are you fishing with a regular hook or a hair rig? And are you using a method mix or just using the bait as the only attractant? If you don�t know what either of those things are, send me a pm and I can help fill you in on some very effective techniques.

I have a hair rig. I bait the hair and put something on the hook to disguise it somewhat. I don't really do any method.

I will say, I had very little success with the gummy bears, but I went at a very bad time to try them out. It was still very bright and hot. BUT... they definitely stay on the hook.

The marshmallows seemed to dissolve almost instantly.

plastic corn works well and its my go to bait on a hair in the summer because of turtles . also i used old fashion oats and cream corn with some flavoring .wheter it be jello packs or cinnamon, chili powder, fajita mix etc packed around the weight . the extra flavor will draw them in quicker to your hook bait ... i use half a tub of oats to i whole can of cream corn as the base ,add flavor and mix good in a f gallon paint bucket . this will not pack til it has soaked in the cream corn ( about 20 minutes ) so be patient or make the night before . use a carolina rig and pack this around you weight . the water is not as ideal right now as it will be in cooler months so it still can be hard to get a bite at times ... if you pm me your adress i can send you some plastic corn to get you started . tight lines

ps i have caught on pack bait and jelly beans , pecans, crape myrtle buds, potatos chumks, apple chunks and no telling what else .heres one on jelly beans

ive always preferred "maize" or boilies for bait. We used to have a boilie making group and 8 of us would get together and make 150-200 lbs of boilies in a night. Kind of miss that. Now i would just buy boilies. for maize, get some deer corn, and boil it just until it is soft enough to get a bait needle through it (add flavoring to the water you are cooking it in). works beautifully on a hair rig. These baits will work, but they will work 10x better with method mix. i prefer to us panko bread crumbs and enough cream corn to make it pack into balls. super easy to make. dont waste your time trying to find a new bait that works. stick with the baits that are tried and tested and you will see alot more success IMO.



Jesse has been doing this for a long time. thats good advice, and a nice gesture. take him up on it. Then save up $40-50 and order some baits from bigcarptackle.com

ive had plenty of luck with mainline boilies, and they are cheap

https://www.bigcarptackle.com/mainline-b...l?category_id=5


These look good

https://www.bigcarptackle.com/super-cast-mielies-125ml.html?category_id=6

These are the inline method leads i always used

https://www.bigcarptackle.com/nnb-in-line-method-lead.html?category_id=221

Wow! Thank you guys. I actually ordered some plastic corn and have tried it. Do you soak it in anything to make it smell better or will they just bite it because they know what it is?

I may break down and just buy some boilies as suggested. The money I have spent trying to figure it out has likely been more than I would have just going with the flow.

I'm very grateful for the guidance!

I don�t have my carp gear anymore, or I�d invite you out to fish with me to reduce the learning curve. I developed a hobby for shooting, and wasn�t fishing much, so I sold off my carp kit. Wish I hadn�t. It was some of the most fun fishing.

I appreciate the thought as if we were going out tomorrow!

Interesting note, I'm having very little trouble catching catfish and was utilizing the hair along with one piece of bait on the hook. When I get a fruitless bite and do a bait check, the bait from the hair is the one they chose. It's hard to say which one is hooking my successes because I know it can become dislodged during the "struggle" if you want to call it that with 1/2 lb catfish.

This could be read as a criticism of the hair, but it is meant as entirely the opposite.

Are you using a bait stop? Hairs are meant to be used with pretty hard baits, and you should be putting a small piece of stick or a commercial bait stop through the loop to get the bait to stay on.

I did a tournament at grapevine a few years ago and caught 5 or 6 fish on one hair with 3 pieces of maize on it.

I use a broken toothpick typically, but today was experiment time to see where they were biting and to test whether the hair was "hooking them up."

Admittedly, not that scientific or reliable, but it did tell me something and something is better than nothing.