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Mike’s Diary

Fantastic Summer

Posted in Mike’s Diary on 09th September 2013

The past few months have been absolutely fantastic, both from a personal fishing point of view and for Essential Baits. We’ve been busy pumping out the baits as fast as we can and have managed to keep the lead times fairly short. This isn’t easy when making bait fresh to order but most of our customers seem to appreciate that the best is always worth waiting for, so a big thank you from all the Essential team for your welcome support.

Bait choice can’t be easy for many anglers and let’s be fair, there are lots of new bait companies cropping up who simply haven’t got the experience needed to put together a decent bait! At the other end of the scale there’s so much mass produced rubbish out there these days it’s sometimes difficult sorting out the ‘wheat from the chaff’. Fortunately for us, we’ve stood the test of time and are still setting the standards in quality, nutrition and of course results, so thankfully none of the above interferes with our commitment and dedication to supply our customers with the best baits available anywhere on the planet!

It’s been such a busy summer I hardly know where to start. It was Deb’s 50^th back in June and we had a mega social that seemed to last for weeks! I went to Ashmead as a guest with Pete Springate and then there was the infamous ‘tortoise wind-up’ (see catch reports). My old mate Jon Mac came down to spend a few days at my lake with me and Pete. Loads of socials, loads of fish and loads of good memories from an unforgettable summer.

Since July I’ve been doing a bit on one of my no publicity syndicate venues with very pleasing results. In fact on my very first night back for over 2-years I managed to bank 4 fish up to 35lb 4oz just to prove the B5 hasn’t lost its touch!! In fact, just like on so many other waters it’s used, the B5 has completely out-fished everything else and is the reason why I have 100% confidence on every single venue I take it. Talking of which, I’ve only just this minute returned from a quick overnighter on another venue last night where the bait yielded another 3 fish to 27lb 4oz.

I’ve got a real buzz about my fishing at the moment and after 4 or 5 years of not being able to fish a great deal due to other life commitments, I’m now starting to make up for lost time! Roll on autumn!!!

Backlead use

Back leads can be very advantageous in certain circumstances, particularly on venues that receive lots of pressure from anglers and you need to pin your line down to the lake bed. On such venues, any fish that bump into your lines, can often mean the kiss of death. To avoid this, it's best to pin your lines down. Yes, this can be acheived by using slack lines, but the big disadvantage there is that you will also lose vital bite indication. By dropping on a back lead, you can pin your lines down, yet still keep them semi-tight to register bites. They also minimise the chances of you catching your other lines whilst playing fish back to the bank.

The problem with most back leads however is that in the event of hooking a fish, they don't slide down the line very well, but we can assure you there's no chance of that happening with these!