Review - Online Baits UK

I used to get nearly all my bait from Geoff Baker's shop, in King's Lynn. Several guys I fish with did. 

Then Geoff closed down and when I was bemoaning the fact to Rob one day out fishing afterwards, he brought over his coolbag to show me the baits he'd got from an online company I'd never heard of.

They were lovely-looking baits, vaccuum packed with no frills. A quick google when I got home and I found Online Baits UK. Apart from sardines from Coles and the odd impulse buy in Morrisons, I now get nearly all my bait from them.

They're incredibly cheap when it comes to the staple baits like mackerel. Three good-sized joeys will set you back £1.30, for example, while herrings are slightly cheaper. Large blueys are going for £1.70 for three. You can easily pay twice as much.

They also have just about everything else you might want - including some monster lamprey and pollan.

Despite the slightly ramshackle way I fish, I try to get the best bait I can. Best usually equates to fresh with deadbaits.

I can vouch for how good this bait is. They send it by overnight courier - well packed in poly boxes, with little ice packs. It's always been frozen when it's arrived.

I've always been a big fan of mackerel as a staple bait I always have out on one or two of the rods. Online Baits joeys are fresh and still shiny. The blueys also come fresh and give off a lot of oil - even after several casts.


They've been out of stock on things once or twice when I've ordered. They'll either refund, send it when they've got it, or add it to the next order.

The website says £7 carriage but if you order more than £60 worth of bait, delivery's free. That's a lot less than some other firms' minimum order.

Another thing I like is you set up an account and can then order as you go along, maybe as a particular bait does well and you start to run low on it, then check-out when you hit the £60. When you log out, it saves your partially-completed order for you to amend or add to.

I can't fault them so far.  Click here to check them out.

While we're on the subject of baits...

Bait's a funny old subject. I swear by mackerel. One guy I fish with swears by smelt. Sometimes I catch more than he does. Sometimes I don't.

When blueys came out a few seasons back, they were all the rage for a bit. Now they're just another bait, which sometimes catches pike and other times doesn't.

Now you've got to have lamprey on the end or it's no cigar on the big river. That's the upshot of a lengthy phone call comparing results with someone who's been catching more than me of late.

My mate's only been using them on one of the three or four rods he routinely uses on the river. This is the rod the runs come to. 

I like lamprey. I get mine from somewhere that sometimes has the really big mofos, so I stock up when they do.

But they cost two or three times as much as most other fish. So I tend to ration myself and use them when it gets really hard when the rivers are out of sorts.

That trail of blood and gore oozing out of them's a real confidence booster - even if you have to hook them on carefully to ensure the points stay proud and find a good hold.

Sounds like a rummage in the freezer's going to be in order, along with a few new traces tied with Size Twos slightly further apart than my normal bait rig.Whether it'll make any difference is another thing.

There's a little tip in the picture. Trim the tail fins off your baits. It stops the tail masking the points of the top hook, and also stops the bait spinning on the retrieve, which means less kinked traces and tangles caused by line twist.