The wonder bait? Sweetcorn

The wonder bait? Sweetcorn Sweetcorn has been used as a fishing bait for many, many years and has been used with considerable success by thousands of anglers in that time. even catching some very big carp (Chris yates with record carp from Redmire).

It has also caught me 1000's of fish In fishing terms tinned sweetcorn is the most widely used because the sugared water in which it is immersed in the tin adds to the smell, flavour and general attractiveness to the fish.
In recent years fishing shops have started to stock sweetcorn of different colours and different added flavours in a bid to improve this already highly successful bait.




It catches loads of fish i would say the No1 Tench bait, they seem to love it and never tire of it. Carp too seem to be partial as well as the good old Roach, Rudd and even Chub O and Mr Bream.

it is a proven bait that has caught many, many fish in its time.
Secondly it is relatively cheap and easy to get from any grocery store, the fish are not going to worry if it is a store value pack so I would go for the cheapest. Thirdly it is versatile and can be fished in a variety of different ways on the hair on the hook and even as some thing you can add to your ground bait or method mix.

downsides to fishing with sweetcorn, Well not a lot only it can come off under the most violent of casts and small fish can peck it away but all in all a great all round bait and i must say i normaly have a tin in the car. Some people say it is more of a summer bait, but I think it depends on the water. On some waters it doesn't seem as effective in the colder months, yet on others it seems to work all year round. I still think in the day of the boilie sweetcorn has its place in any anglers tackle box.

I am a recent convert to corn.

I honestly couldn't get it to work at all until I was to a particular commercial lake and bagged up big time with small medium and quite good sized tench.

Since then, I always carry a can in my glove box or bait bag.

I always use the supermarket variety, had no luck on flavoured and it's much more expensive.

The humble sweetcorn... Gets my vote!

Strawberry sweetcorn is a top bait.

isnt that fox cortex lol, coated braid and great write up paul, i do occasionaly use corn and find out that it works pretty well

I never go anywhere with out a tin in my bag.....

my match fishing has vastly improved by using plastic corn or plastic pellet with the method. not very traditional but it takes away the angst of worrying if your hook is baited

Right lets see if I can finally get an answer to this (Im having no joy on other forums)

Sweetcorn the wonder blank for me so far. Save for one small Carp at a commercial ive never caught anything on sweetcorn so would anyone be kind enough to guide the newbie please

1) which is best, on the hook or on the hair?

2) What size hooks should I be using with corn? (currently using a 16 for on the hook fishing)

3) What rig should I be using?

4) Should I be using a groundbait / feeder with it?

Today I tried again with the corn, this time I had mulshed some corn in the blender and added fresh breadcrumb to the mix to stiffen it and hid the corn amongst it for casting out, using an inline feeder and about 8" trace to the hook from the swivel.
Absolutely nothing, not a line bite or a nibble.
So far the only thing ive had any sort of success with is maggots.

Simon, Sweetcorn is a great bait, and will catch plenty of fish. You can use it on the hook or on a hair, float fished or legered. I personally wouldn't mash it up but there's nothing wrong in doing so. I use hooks up to size 12 depending on how many grains I'm using. The problem with Sweetcorn (and other baits) is that on some waters it may have to use the modern term "blown" meaning it's been used for a very long time and the fish have grown fearful of it. On another water you may find the fish greedy for it and you'll bag up on the stuff. Try using it elsewhere and see what happens. Have another look at Stotty's opening post on this thread, it'll give you some answers to its use.

Or try coloured corn, red or something like that... Maize is pretty good alternative too, I've caught well on that when corn isn't catching. it is harder though and is better on the hair, but can be hooked.

I never go fishing without a few tins :D

i probably use corn more then any other bait. as a rule there are 3 ways i fish it but thats not to say i wont use it in other ways.

the first way i use it is the way i would suggest to you on the waters you are fishing, and to be honest its sounds pretty much like what you were doing. id get a little inline method and a good quality fishmeal groundbait (fishmeal and corn has always been a winning combo) i like to use the sonubaits range with the green koi pellet or hemp and hali crush (or a mix of the two) then i would shorten down your hooklength to around 3 inch. (this aids with hooking and gives more positive takes on the method) i would fish either 1 piece put on a hair lengthways or 2 bits sideways on a hair to a size 14 or size 12 hook, i like the guru hooks, i think the pattern is qm1, they are a lot like circle hooks and once they are in there they dont come out easy. i would then squeeze a relitvely small ball of grounbait (with no freebies in it, this is important) onto the feeder and rather than bury the bait like a lot of people do i push the hook into the groundbait but leave the bait sat ontop of it in plain view, i find this gets bites quicker and less bumps and knocks before it properly goes, once they are on they can pick that out of the ball on the drop, something you wouldnt get if the bait is buried. (ill take a photo at some point cos my explination isnt the best) one other thing with fishing the method tho is sit on your hands, you will get a lot of knocks where the fish are grubbing around your feeder, wait for a really obvious back drop or wait till your rod about goes in.

the second method i would use is one i tend to favour on rivers for bream. i fish a cage feeder (with the same groundbait but maybe some hemp, corn and caster in the mix) on a paternoster with the hooklength about a foot longer than my 8 inch drop on the feeder and ill fish 2 bits of corn on a hair again. this has scored me some big bags of bream over the years and that has also improved since i started using a hair instead of just hooking it on.

the third way would be for the bigger fish, id fish a normal carp set up with 3 or 4 bits of corn and one fake pop up corn to aid with the carp sucking it up. dont be put off by a long bait, 2 or 3lb carp can still suck it in relatively easy.

there are other ways to fish it, like just float fished but these are the 3 methods that work best for me and have accounted for some good catches over the years. hope this helps a bit. like i said i will get some photos up when i get the chance due to my poor explination.

great advice trash, would leave rep if i knew how

richcherr wrote:great advice trash, would leave rep if i knew how

done it for you