I change what I carry more between summer and autumn than at any other point in the year. Some of that is the fish wanting different things, some of it is practical, because a bait that behaves nicely in July can be useless in a cold coloured river in November.
This is what stays, what goes, and what comes back in.
Worms move to the front
If I could only take one bait through autumn it would be lobworms. Almost everything eats them, they work in coloured water because they move and smell, and rising water genuinely washes worms into rivers so the fish are expecting them.
Perch, chub, tench, bream and barbel all respond to worm in autumn, and chopped worm in the feed is one of the most reliable ways to hold a shoal in cold water. They are the most useful single item in the bag.
Maggots stay, casters get more important
Maggots are always useful but they bring every small fish in the water. Casters do the same job with a bias towards a better stamp of fish, which matters more in autumn when you are trying to sort out the roach and skimmers you actually want.
Dead maggots deserve a mention on their own. In autumn silt, live maggots burrow out of sight within minutes. Dead ones stay where you put them and keep working. Freeze a pint and use them in the feed.
Meat and cheese come back
Luncheon meat is a coloured water bait and autumn is when it earns its keep. Big cubes for barbel and chub, smaller ones for carp on the drop. It stays on the hook in current, which a lot of soft baits do not.
Cheese paste is a specifically autumn and winter thing. Strong scent, holds together in flow, and big chub love it. I make a batch in September and it lasts most of the season in the freezer.
Boilies: drop the oil as it gets colder
Through October a rich, high-oil food bait is exactly right for carp piling on weight. Past that, it stops being right.
Oils thicken as water temperature falls and become far less soluble, so the bait that was leaking attraction beautifully in autumn does very little in December. From late autumn I move to lower oil, higher solubility baits and I break them up more.
This is a real effect and it is the commonest bait mistake I see going into winter.
Particles: hemp holds, tigers wane
Hemp remains excellent right through autumn. It holds fish in a swim without filling them, and roach in particular respond to it.
Tiger nuts and larger particles are more of a warm water bait. They are hard work for a fish to digest in cold conditions and I use progressively less of them as the season goes on.
Deadbaits arrive
From September the freezer bag changes. Mackerel, smelt, herring and sardine for pike, and small coarse deadbaits for zander and big perch.
Two practical points. Keep them properly frozen and use a cool bag, because a half-thawed deadbait that has been in a warm car is unpleasant and less effective. And never move coarse deadbaits between waters. Buy them or take them from the water you are fishing.
Bread stays year round
Bread is the most underrated bait in British fishing and it is at its best in autumn and winter. Flake for chub and roach, punch for canal and river roach, liquidised as a feed. It costs nothing and on its day it beats everything.
What comes out of the bag
Surface baits. Floating dog biscuits, floating crust for carp, anything that relies on fish looking up. Once the water cools the fish stop feeding at the surface and this becomes a waste of space.
Big particle mixes for the reasons above. And most flavoured summer pellets, which I replace with a plainer, oilier halibut pellet.
The practical stuff
Autumn bait needs more care than summer bait, oddly. Worms need somewhere frost free. Maggots slow right down in the cold, which is useful for keeping them but means they need warming in your hand before they wriggle enticingly on the hook.
And carry less than you think. Cold fish eat less. I have wasted a lot of bait over the years feeding autumn swims as if it were June.
Dan Whitfield started fishing aged seven on the canal at the end of his road and never really stopped. He spent his twenties and thirties on the match circuit – club level rather than national – before deciding he’d rather catch one decent fish than a net of small ones.
These days he mostly fishes the River Trent for barbel (personal best 14lb 2oz), the Oxford Canal for roach and skimmers in winter, and the occasional gravel pit when tench are spawning and the surface fishing is too good to miss. He’s a former club secretary and still helps with junior coaching at his local angling club in Nottingham.
At The River Bend, Dan writes the coarse species guides, river fishing technique articles, and the match and pole content.
Covers: Barbel, bream, roach, tench, carp (coarse context), river fishing, canal fishing, feeder, float, match/pole