Unprecedented heat, combined with another busy summer for stay-at-home holidaymakers, has hit the bait trade hard.
Tackle shops have been running short of maggots, casters and other live baits, to the point where some customers are going home empty-handed. The problem stems from producers, who’ve been struggling to cope during the heatwave.
“Hot summers can be often be testing, but we’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said one bait farmer we spoke to.
“Extreme heat impacts on everything from production on site to refrigeration and transport. We’re doing our level best, though, and want to assure retailers out there that we’ll get through this spell and back to normal as soon as possible.”
Shops and venues have responded in different ways to try to avoid disappointing their customers. Partridge Lakes has imposed a limit of four pints of maggots per person, to avoid all available supplies being snapped up by match anglers. Elsewhere, fragile sea baits like ragworms have been spoiling in no time, leading to supplies running dry around some parts of the coast.
“With the crazy weather, it’s been very hard to predict what will happen from one week to the next,” said Sev Gostynki, owner of Devon’s Culm Valley Tackle. “Quality maggots and casters become harder to get consistently. One week they’ll be excellent, but the next they’re thin on the ground. Live baits in general don’t cope well with hot conditions. Keeping a good supply can be an issue, but this year has been off the scale.”
Perhaps tellingly, anglers are turning to shelf-life baits more than ever.
Culm Valley boss Sev has recently taken over So Simple Baits to meet high demand for pellets, groundbaits and other easy-to-keep offerings.
