Over the years I have followed the bait trend, eg what eveyone else was using.  However, as the bait industry has come on in leaps and bounds (over the past 20 years) and the fish have got wiser, I have moved on to the smaller company or even individual bait makers.  I have found that this can give you a bit of an edge.  Until other anglers on your lake start using the bait in question, (which can be a long time), they will not know what you are using.  Unless you let them in on this knowledge.  It also a good trick not to pick a local company, as there may be a good chance that other people could be using it.  This works very well, as we all know that fish will associate colour/shape/taste with danger.  I first noticed this some years ago, on a syndicate lake I had been fishing.  We were all struggling.  There was an intake of new members as some of the old members had left (due to the lake being hard).  When the new members started to fish in the spring time, they started to catch fish, where we did not.  After getting to know some of them, it turned out that they were using a small bait company’s.  This is when myself and my friend found another company, who also produced good quality bait, we started to catch.

My top tips on bait company is Spotted Fin they are taking the bait world by storm.

By enhancing standard bait with a Maple flavouring from a supermarket bakery aisle, I managed to catch fish everywhere I went using this bait.

It is always worth trying something a little different.  The internet is good at using relatively unknown bait company’s for your area ie if you live in the South and use a company that is based in the north, this could give you a good edge!

Hope the above helps

Richard