THERE can be few baits that have made a greater impact in recent years than the wafter.
These buoyant baits have caught me thousands of fish in winter and summer on the feeder at a range of venues.
The way they sit and behave on the bottom gives me something completely different to offer the fish. In many instances, they’re the only thing I’ll use on the hook!
But they’re not the be-all and end-all. In some situations, they can actually be the worst thing to use as a hookbait.
In situations like this, a plain old hard pellet straight from the packet can be miles better, so it’s important to know when to reach for the wafters and when to leave them in the bait bag.
Doubled-up pellets
On venues where lots of pellets are fed, carp become tuned into them and will ignore a wafter over one or two banded hard pellets.
Wafter colours
When fishing wafters, the first thing to decide on is colour. In clear water, white/yellow is best, in coloured it’s pink/orange.
Choose your size
For big carp a 10mm bait works, but if I was expecting a mixed bag of skimmers, F1s and the odd carp, 6mm or 4mm would be better.
Fix bayonets
I use a bayonet spike for speed. I’ll fix the spike in a small loop on the end of the hair so that it helps the wafter behave as it should.
