Warwickshire Avon – The Fleeced Procrastinator

Tackle companies must constantly rattle their R&D department’s cage to come up with the new wonder bait to get the angler to part with even more of their hard earned cash. I just happened to be in Stratford-Upon-Avon newest tackle shop recently (Timothy’s Bridge Road, reasonably priced and very friendly I might add) when I spotted some large tins of Dynamite’s Frenzied Hempseed & Snails. The snails came in two sizes, standard and specimen.

Anyway according to the bumph ….

It is widely understood that freshwater snails make up a large part of a fishes diet. Taking this into account we have developed a bait which harnesses all the natural oils found in our Frenzied hemp and infused freshwater snails as a carrier for the attractors. These snails make for a fantastic hookbait option and the 14mm 'Specimen' versions make an ideal hookbait for carp, chub, barbel and all manner of specimen fish.Using the same process that we use to cook the hemp in the tins, our Hemp and Snails are as fresh and natural as they can be with absolutely no preservatives added.

All of the baits in the Frenzied range are cooked inside the packaging so that all of the oils and natural attractants are retained and ....

Ok, ok, enough of that….

So as a now as an impecunious angler and £3.99 down (that’s a couple of bottles of Fox’s Nob) would this provide an edge every specialist angler needs ?, I’ve used ‘free’ foraged snails and slugs in the past and especially for Chub it’s produced when other baits wouldn’t, so would this canned ‘natural’ bait be any more of an attraction…?

…. only one way to find out

My fishing time is extremely limited and this was an impulsive and harefooted 2 hour session at a feature riddled stretch of the Avon. I put in a couple of droppers of hemp in a swim right behind an island which was more or less static. The river is up a nadger at the minute, in-fact it looked ideal Perch conditions. With the rod sat on the rest within a few minutes small fish must have been attacking the bait as the tip was tapping all over the shop. I got a proper pull round and struck in to thin air. Upon retrieving the bait the both snails were gone, bugger. I rebaited and the same thing happened 10 minutes later. For the third cast I added 3 snails but this time the bite resulted in a fish on. A nice scrap in the flow but only a smallish Chub of about 3 lb.

With the light fading 3 more snails went on the hair but despite the knocks and tugs I left at my self imposed time limit (1 hour after dusk ) without another fish. I’ve enough hemp and snails for another session so I might give them another go when I get a chance. I might even visit one of my Barbel spots to see what they make of them.