Casters > Reviews > What The Flip Are They.....

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Advantages:	Catch you bigger fish
Disadvantages:	Fragile and take a lot of looking after if you're going to store them correctly, keeping them fresh

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yes

Full review

It is now getting very late, but hey, I’ve got just enough energy left to write this short op on these things that a lot of you will have never heard of. I’m sure by now that my current choice of topics is becoming quite clear. For me, this is the extremely easy route, allowing me to write a few detailed ops on some stuff that I know a lot about. It’s nice to have a break from some of the more technical stuff.

Anyway, casters are the chrysalis stage that maggots go through before they reach the point where they turn in to those damn annoying flies. By fishing with these, you’ll actually be doing the world a favour.

Casters are well known (by some) as a quality fish catching bait. By that I don’t necessarily mean BIG, but they just tend to be particularly liked by the larger individuals of certain species. I’m mainly thinking of the silvery roach. The difference between fishing a maggot and a caster can sometimes be quite suprising. Put on a maggot, and you’ll get a piddley little thing. Put on the caster and yippee, you’ve got yourself a bigger one. I’m not saying that it will always work, but if you get everything right, then you can enjoy an excellent days fishing.

For some reason, I’ve actually found them to work best from autumn through to spring. During the summer months the fish always seem to go totally crazy, and using the casters really seems to make little difference to the size of the fish I catch. During these months, the water is obviously a little cooler though, so the fish aren’t darting around all over the place, snapping up every free morsel they see.

There are obviously many places where they will work, but the limited facilities I have (i.e. no canals or rivers containing fish) in Cornwall mean that I can really talk about their effectiveness on lakes.

I’d strongly recommend pole fishing this one cos I suppose it is kind of delicate bait sometimes. If you haven’t got a pole though then don’t worry, you just have to modify a few little bits of what I have to say. I’ll give you a few suggestions in a minute actually.

The way you fish them would normally depend on what you want to catch. Normally, it’d be Roach or Bream (but then, just about every other fish does like em too so you might catch anything really).
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ROACH

Autumn – spring:

For these little (I mean big) Roach, I’d normally use the casters with a lot of groundbait. To start the session, I’d feed 4 tennis ball size balls (here I go again Moose) of the groundbait (something like Van Den Eynde ‘Superlake’), in a tight a circle as I could get them on the target area, normally at about 8 metres from the bank (for me). I’d then leave it to settle for a while (about half an hour), and fish another line to pick up a few fish from somewhere else to pass the time. This will allow the fish to gain a bit of confidence, meaning that when you start catching them they won’t be so easily scared away.

I’d then perhaps introduce 1 more tennis sized ball of groundbait and from that point on I’d actually loose feed relatively little, but feed a walnut size ball of groundbait every couple of fish perhaps (or every 10 minutes if its going slow). The groundbait can contain all of the feed particles you need. Just add a few handfuls of the casters to the mix (at least 1kg – groundbait not casters). Casters are really excellent for adding to groundbait, simple because they don’t move and will therefore, not break the balls up.

They’re best with an 18 or 20 hook. The way you hook them often depends on how well the fish are feeding. To start with, you’ll often need to bury the hook entirely inside the caster shell. This sometimes gets a bit fidgety, but soon becomes easy with a little practise. Piercing the top of the shell (the broader end) is easy, and pushing it inside is also not hard. To get the whole thing in though (this sounds really dodgey!!), you have to push the top of the hook down with the end of your thumb. Normally, once inside, it will hold pretty well. Still be careful with it though because if it pops out it (oh my God, what the flip is this guy on about?!) will look a bit funny to the fish. If they’re feeding more readily, you can just hook it much like a maggot, but with a bit of a deeper hold. As long as the hook point is showing you’ll be ok (for this last one anyway. If the hook is inside the caster then just leave the whole thing there, just remember to strike a little bit harder to pull it out). Just keep it looking natural (no guts spilling out all over the place).]

I normally fish with something like a 4 or 5 elastic at this time of year, as its nice and soft which prevents you from bumping fish (missing fish because you’re not hooking them properly). It also suits the finer lines well (1 – 1 ½ lb) and the hook sizes.

I’d normally fish about 4 inches over-depth to start with, and just see how you get on. Increase that if the float is drifting all over the place, but if the fish do start coming off the bottom, then shallow up and follow them. If they do start coming high up, take more notice of the advice below than the stuff you’ve just read.

Summer

In the summer months, the water is normally going to be warm. The fish will be feeding high in the water, and if they’re not, it never takes long to get them there. Loose feed comes in very useful here, and the approach is just about the exact opposite of above. No groundbait is usually needed at all as the sinking casters are usually taken by fish just underneath the surface. That’s just where you want them. If you can keep the feed trickling in (20 casters every minute should be ok), they’ll just be dashing about snapping up everything including your bait. Bites are often VERY quick (so a pole definitely helps).

Using a short rig, made up of the same sort of components as above (hook and line size), but I’d normally step up to a 6 elastic as they tend to fight harder and attack more aggressively. I’ve found that by using an unbelievably light float, you will definitely pick out bigger fish. I often will only have 2 no. 10 shot down the line. This allows the caster on your hook to sink at basically the same speed as the others that you’re feeding via catapult (ALWAYS keep the feed tight and in one area, not spread around all over the lake), so it looks more natural. It’s the easiest and probably most fun way of fishing I know.
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BREAM

Bream are often only really caught in the warmer months on caster. They can be caught all year round, but I’ve found worm to be better in the winter.

The approach for these varies slightly from the winter Roach method. Introducing the groundbait at the start is strongly recommended, but maybe 6 balls instead of the 4 (again packed with crispy caster goodness – something like Van Den Eynde ‘Supercup’ always works well). After the initial introduction, it is now far better to loose feed the caster via catapult or even polepot to keep it tight. I think that it is best to introduce them on a less frequent basis but in larger quantities. My thinking behind it is that the fish will not be drawn up in the water by the constant stream of food falling from above, and also, the casters are less likely to be eaten by Roach or Rudd on the way down. This gives you a nice bed of casters for the Bream to feed over.

Tackle would be roughly the same as before. The hook size has to match the bait, so unless you’re using multiple hookbaits, the 18 and 20 will be fine. Bream do sometimes like a bigger bait though, so putting 2 casters on a 16 hook can be good. Line could also be stepped up to something between 1 ½ and 2lb.
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STORING CASTERS

If you return home with a tub full of them, and then just forget about them, they’re gonna stink like poohy stuff next time you open them up. It really depends on how long you want to keep them for, on how you store them. Whatever you do though, they need to be kept cool in the fridge (so that’s no.1 important thing). If you’re not going to be keeping them for too long, then they’ll be ok just stored in water (obviously in the fridge, and I recommend changing it every couple of days – the water). This obviously keeps them airtight (which is no.2 important thing). If you’re keeping them for any longer than a week, I haven’t done it myself but a friend of mine has been using those water purification tablets that you can get from petshops. Putting those in the water with the casters, I’ve seen him keep them in perfect condition for more than 6 weeks (which is flippin amazing!!)

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I think I’ve told you all you need to know really (phew, I can rest my fingers!!). You’ll catch all sorts of fish on casters. Basically, just being maggots in disguise, the things you catch will be much the same. The more natural buoyancy of the casters though, really does sort out the bigger fish.