The ongoing Discussion Over Bait Boats

Fishing bait boats have been around in the angling scene for a number of years now. Their use is now becoming quite widespread, even though many anglers see them just a a gimmick. They not only enable you to place baits accurately at extreme range, but can also be useful sometimes at closer range when fishing close to features below (and above) the water, that would be difficult to fish conventionally.

Make sure you check the club and water rules to ensure that you are permitted to use a bait boat on the water you are fishing.  Baitboats are not allowed to be used on all fisheries. You also need to be mindful of the wildlife in the area, and be courteous to other anglers. The technology of your baitboat may not always be acceptable to other anglers.

What does the angling technics bait boat have to offer?
In a swim that can easily be fished conventionally with a method rig or swimfeeder, the baitboat enables us to drop both the groundbait and the hookbait at exactly the same spot time after time. You won’t be attracting the fish away from your swim with the piles of groundbait you leave by missed casts. How many times do you not quite get the cast right and refill the feeder to try again? You attarct the fish away from your swim with piles of misplaved groundbait every time you do that.

If you are not having to cast your groundbait. then you may be able use much lighter tackle. You may not need such heavy terminal tackle in order to achieve casting distance, and there is no need to use such a heavy rod, and line. You are able to use extremely light tackle at extreme ranges, that would otherwise not be posible. The advantages are obvious.
If your baitboat is well designed, you will also create less distubance in the swim.

Bait boats have been the subject of much discussion.The angling technics microcat bait boat seems to have a large following of enthusiastic anglers. There is a body of anglers who believe that their use should be completely banned from our waters, amd that they are only needed by unskilled anglers. There will always be misuse of baitboats by some anglers by using them to place baits into totally unacceptable positions from where it may be impossible to land a fish in a manner that would be generally acceptable and damage free. I have seen anglers adopting a brute force technique, where in order to land a fish they have to apply maximum pressure on the fish to get wuickly clear of snags. This is hardly the sort of finesse that good skilled anglers should be using as a technique. Our first aim should always be to return fish to the water in good condition and without trauma.

I believe that the debate will continue for a while until the angling community realises that like all new innovations, bait boats are probably here to stay. The task is for us all to agree on what is and is not acceptable use of the technology. When bait boats are used in a sensible manner, they are a useful asset to the sport.