Team Korda - The Golden Grains

Sweetcorn, what a classic. There aren’t many species of fish that won’t eat those little golden grains and carp are certainly no exception. When Simon Scott claims ‘it’s the best carp bait of all time’ then you have to take note.

There is a lot more to the use of sweetcorn than you will initially suspect, and over the years it’s uses have become wide spread. We are going to cover some of corns different uses, that perhaps, you hadn’t considered.

Corn is wonderful as a stand-alone bait, it works all year round and has done so for many years. It is probably the all-time classic of baits. No one can put a finger on exactly what it is about the stuff that the carp like so much, but it’s certainly something they struggle to avoid. The combination of colour, taste, texture and size and the all season ease of consumption have joined forces to create a carp-catching phenomenon. It goes a lot further than just a handful around the rig though, why not try some of these little edges too?

Tip Your Hookbaits

This is a very popular tactic these days, across all of Europe and some of the most prolific big carp catches all imply this tactic. It is a fantastic way of getting the carp to pick your hookbait over free offerings as one of the biggest issues when applying a lot of bait, is getting a quick bite. By tipping your hookbait with a coloured grain of plastic corn you are immediately enhancing its appeal. When the carp arrive to feed, they will notice the item of colour and this often induces a speedy pick-up. This tactic can also work well when using single hookbaits, rather than cast a dull hookbait out in the hope that they find it, why not create a flavoursome yet eye-catching alternative?

Beat The Crays

Crayfish are becoming an ever-more apparent issue in many of our waters. They have spread like wildfire in some cases and keeping a hookbait in position can become a real issue. Crayfish nibble at the baits until there’s nothing left, leaving us with a major issue. Particle type baits are a great way of slowing down their demolition process, couple this with a hookbait consisting of two grains of Fake Corn and you have a crayfish-proof system. 

Make It PVA Friendly

 Sweetcorn can be transformed into a pva friendly bait with ease, and so can other particles in fact. Generally, any bait that is submerged in water during storage will cause you major problems when trying to use within PVA bags – not anymore. Simply drain the majority of the liquid away from your tin of corn and then apply it to a bait tub. Once you have transferred the corn, it’s time to add a decent helping of salt. Give the whole lot a good mix around until the whole of the corn is covered in salt. Leave it to rest for a few minutes, which will allow the salt time to break down amongst the water. The water, if there is any, will now be salty and salt water is PVA friendly. Job done.

Balance A Bait

Plastic sweetcorn can be used to counterbalance the weight of a sinking hookbait. Tiger nuts are a great example, simply tip your nut with a grain of buoyant corn, it will then sink quite quickly, however, by gradually shaving away at the nut you will be able to get it sinking nice and slowly. You end up with an eye-catching, critically balanced hookbait, which the carp are sure to find hard to resist. This tactic, being a firm favourite of Tom Stokes.

Get GOO’ing

The GOO can be added to almost anything you like, it’s a fantastic way of enhancing the appeal of any bait, be it your free offerings or your hookbaits. The goo adds a variety of different levels of attraction to whatever it touches; colour, smell and taste.

Blend It

Liquidised corn is a brilliant hookbait that can be used in a variety of situations. Blending it down to slop will act as a devasting mix for spoding over zigs, with a trimmed yellow pop up or piece of foam as your hookbait. Or simply adding liquidised corn to your mix, will create a lovely cloud in the water column, adding a maximum attraction with no filling value. It is rarely used in this format, but anglers such as Jonny Old swear by it.

Adding Naturals

Tom Dove is a huge advocate of using corn, often as a stand alone bait in weedy situations. With the corn being light in weight, it flutters down onto the weed, and by fishing a small yellow pop up on a chod rig, you can guarantee presentation in the weed, a perfect trap and one that worked so well for Dovey whilst filming season 5 of Thinking Tackle (Great British syndicate) In the same film, Dovey began adding chopped worm to his corn, adding loads of attraction and pulling power to his spot.

Not only is it arguably the greatest carp bait of all time, it’s probably the cheapest. You can buy kilos from the frozen section of any supermarket for just a few quid. And given its high attract value, you really don’t need loads to get bites!

One of the oldest tricks in the trade, but still as effective as ever!