Try the ‘sticky feeder’ to boost your catch rates

We are all familiar with using soft pellets in a feeder, but there are occasions where this isn’t what the fish want to eat, or they’ve simply become wary from seeing it too many times. Dr. Paul Garner has rediscovered a forgotten ingredient that allows him to present almost any bait in a feeder, opening the door to a far wider range of species that can be targeted and caught on this highly effective method.

Bind your bait

Stickymag has been around for donkey’s years, and you will often find tubs of this powder in your local tackle shop. Several other companies make very similar binders. Alternatively, you can use Horlicks malted drink powder, although it isn’t quite as potent as the dedicated products. All these sweet powders react with water to form a powerful gum that sticks to anything that it touches.

Being water-soluble, the powders break down in 10 to 30 minutes once cast out, giving a steady release of bait. Initially, I was far too liberal with the amount of binder that I tried to use, resulting in a sticky mess. Just a tiny sprinkling of powder will hold the bait together.

For a damp bait such as casters, the moisture already present is ample to activate the binder, but with dry baits, such as maggots and hard micro pellets, lightly dampening the bait, ideally with an atomiser spray, is all that is required.

After 10 minutes the bait is ready to go, and can be formed into small balls of feed, or gently pressed into a feeder. I tend to make up small batches of bait as the day goes on, as this helps to keep baits like casters in tip-top condition.

YOU WILL NEED ONE OF THE BEST FEEDER REELS FOR ALL THE EXTRA FISH YOU ARE GOING TO CATCH.

Limitless potential

While the initial problem was very much about tench fishing, there are so many ways that this tactic can be used for other species. How about feeding sticky maggots through a mesh feeder for roach in winter?

With minor adjustments the caster and pellet feeder is a sure-fire winner for chub, too. I can even see a place for feeding hard micros on a Method feeder for carp, and how about adding some crushed hemp to any of these baits for even more attraction?

It will be fun to experiment more with these sticky baits, and I’m sure that you can think of ways of using this tactic in your own fishing. Stickymag has been around for so long that I am sure other people will be secretly using this tactic, but it’s exciting to stumble across something new that opens up so many different possibilities.

THE BEST FEEDER RODS ARE PERFECT FOR USING THE STICKY FEEDER.