By Alain | No Comments
Last updated: Thursday, January 17, 2008

Sweetcorn
Description: Yellow seed 5 to 8mm in size.
Ideal for: Carp, tench, bream and barbel.
Where from: Supermarkets and fishing tackle shops.

Sweet and juicy, loved by most species of fish, cheap and readily available sweetcorn has rightly become one of our favourite baits. All species of fish love the succulent grains with carp, tench, bream, barbel being particularly fond and it is a selective bait that tends to sort out the bigger specimens which is great news for the big fish angler. The best sweetcorn is the tinned variety which is available in every supermaket and corner shop and is devastating straight out of the tin.

Simply drain off the sticky sugary juice and put the grains into a bait box and you’re ready to go. The grains will still be very sticky and can be rinsed in water to prevent getting all your kit messed up but many argue that this sugary stickiness is part of the attraction of the bait so simply keep a towel to hand and put up with it. Once opened the seeds will go off after a few days so if you want to keep any left over corn keep it in the freezer. When feeding large quantities of sweetcorn some anglers buy their corn frozen in bags to save money but always use the firmer juicier tinned grains on the hook.

Hooking Sweetcorn

Sweetcorn can be hooked in a variety of ways but perhaps the easiest and most common way is to simply impale it directly on the hook. When using a single grain simply push the point of a size 16 or 14 hook into the rounded end of the grain and turn it through the grain until the point comes through the side. Most of the hook should be hidden inside the grain but importantly the point must be visible. Some anglers use smaller hooks, size 20 and 18, and simply nick it under the skin of the grain believing the lighter hook offers a more natural presentation.

For bigger fish like specimen carp or barbel three or four grains can be threaded onto a size 8 or 6 hook but many specimen anglers prefer to hair rig the grains which gives the advantage of the hook being bare allowing better self hooking when fishing with bolt rigs. On the commercial match scene a lot of carp are caught, especially in the winter, by simply legering a single grain of corn on a hair rig with a small size 18 or 20 hook.

Colours and Flavours

As well as the traditional yellow corn you can buy from the supermarkets a number of bait companies now supply sweetcorn in all sorts of different flavours and colours. It was thought that fish became wary of yellow corn after it had been used too often on a venue so anglers started dying their corn to offer something different. Red corn has proved very successful for tench fishing while many barbel anglers swear by black corn fished over a bed of hemp.

Carp anglers started the practice of flavouring their sweetcorn and found it caught them more fish with strawberry and tutti-frutti being the favourite flavours. Although you can dye and flavour your own sweetcorn – simply add the flavour, colour and sweetcorn to a bag, shake it up and leave it overnight – most of the popular flavours and colours are available ready done in tins.

Top Sweetcorn Tips

1 – Keep the sweet, sticky juice from the tin and add it to your groundbait as it is full of flavour and is a great fish attractor.

2 – When fishing several grains of corn on a hair rig with a big hook add a floating artificial grain (or a piece of yellow rig foam cut to size) to counteract the weight of the hook and make the bait behave more naturally.

3 – If you are only getting knocks or missing bites try squeezing the middle out of the grain and just use the skin on the hook.