Champion Baits on Review

When I received a box of Champion-Baits pellets for review, I have to admit I was really looking forward to trying them out. I'd heard good reports - 'they are very effective and catch lots of fish', now I had the chance to try them for myself.

Straight off to my local water, I decided to fish with a Shimano pole with 6-8 elastic, 4lb main line, a size 14 barbless hook to 2.6lb hook-length and a small delicate .4grm float completed the rig.

First things first, I always extensively plumb the depth of my swim, finding a little shelf, a drop-off or underwater weeds, this helps me build a 'mental map' of the lake bed, which always improves my catch, wherever I fish.

I decided to fish a Soft Hooker pellet at dead depth out at seven metres, as I hooked the pellet, I noticed the texture of the pellet to be quite firm, not too soft. I always hook a pellet across the 'grain', this gives a stronger hook hold. Shipping out was no problem, straight out to 7 metres, lift the whole rig out of the water and lay it back down, watching the float as the droppers settle. Straight away I got a 'sail away' bite, which resulted in a small skimmer hooked through the top lip. Not bad - first put in and a fish! I fed the swim every put-in with a half a dozen green low oil feed pellets, they are quite hard - the noise as they hit the water must have sounded like a dinner gong, because second put-in resulted in another skimmer and then another and another!
OK - these soft hookers definitely catch bream, I had a run of fifteen or so skimmers, biggest going to around 1lb 8oz, nothing special, but a great indication of the baits' capabilities.

I decided to increase the feed pellets - hoping to attract some different species, bream are ok, but the slime is terrible! A small pastie-sized carp quickly made an appearance, followed by a tench, a couple of golden tench, more bream, a crucian, a few roach and then back to the bream. A cracking mixed bag, nothing big, just lots of bites, all to the soft hooker pellets, which were completely new to the water, can't be bad!

Maybe I just got lucky, so I tried a different water, just to validate my findings... this time I used a size 16 hook, I'd previously missed a lot of bites, so thought a hook change would help. Again first put in resulted in a skimmer, and again lots more followed, this time the biggest went to 2lb 8oz, again not a bad session.

Perhaps these hookers are just for bream, I thought to myself as I hit into another bite, but this time the elastic started to stretch and stretch, yep - a good carp had taken the bait and decided to take me all over the lake! Quickly I put all the sections onto the pole to 'follow' it around the lake, it's great to watch the elastic taking the strain! Eventually patience and the elastic did its job and I netted a mirror carp around the 8lb mark, not bad for size 16 hook. No, I didn't photograph it, by this time I'd packed the camera away, thinking I'd got enough pics, typical really!

I gave a tub of the hooker pellets and a bag of feed pellets to George Benson one of the fishery regulars, a second opinion is always welcome. Again bream showed first put-in for George, who went on to land 14 more fish during his session. George has since asked me to get him some pellets for his own use, so he's convinced!

To sum up - the very convenient soft hookers in conjunction with the green low oil feed pellets catch fish - and lots of them. First time on a water and bites all day, what more do you want? I'm going to try the expanders and the paste next time, should be good fun!

Many thanks to Champion Baits for kindly supplying us with a selection of their pellets.

For more information on Champion Baits please click to www.Champion-baits.co.uk you won't be disappointed.

Until next time, good fishing to you all

Kevin Miles