Cereals within ground baits, if you have ever mixed or formulated your own ground bait you may have used one of these cereals to activate the mix when fishing throughout the warmer months if not then now is the time to try them, there are many different types of cereals available within the super markets that will make your ground bait work in the water delivering fine particles of food to the surface from the bottom or clouding the water with a fine mist of minute particles that can prove irresistible to tiny fish, as long as you follow some simple steps and keep within the general guidelines you will be mixing a ground bait that will do just what you want it to.

Surface feeders, mixing a good ground bait for surface feeding fish can be difficult, if you mix the ground bait so that it stays in the surface layers or on the surface it is quickly blown away or dragged away by any tow you are far better to mix a ground bait that will go to the bottom and then slowly dissolve sending a constant cascade of particles to the surface keeping the fish in and around the general area of your swim, this method of fishing is something that has been used to great effect throughout the years but is often forgotten being lost for many years until an angler reinvents it somewhere else ! anglers then thinking that it is something new, there are many ways to make this ground bait but I will start with the most common and one that I have found to work well for most surface feeders depending on your chosen hook bait, if you are going to use small pieces of bread on your hook then it is a good idea to make your base mix from a fresh brown uncut loaf, firstly cut into thick slices and roughly chop in a food processor, separate the small pieces of crust from the bread crumb using a maggot riddle, liquidise the crumb to a fine consistency and leave the small pieces of crust to one side, add some bran to the fine crumb and about six to twelve table spoons of horlicks, mix thoroughly with a little water until it binds together when squeezed and leave to one side, when you have decided which cereal that you would like to use as your floating particle bait (remember this must be a cereal with good floating properties like sugar puffs, corn flakes or rice crispies) place them in a food processor with a little olive oil and give them a few pulses to reduce their size, do not grind them up too fine or they will not work add this mix to your fine pieces of crust and mix thoroughly, you should end up with two different mixes one that will go straight to the bottom and one that will float, place each mix into a clean polythene bag and put in the fridge until needed, when you get to the waterside and are ready to put your ground bait in remove the amount that you need from each bag leaving the rest sealed to one side mix the two together form into balls with wet hands immerse them in water for a few seconds and squeeze them tightly, it is a good idea to make sure that some of the balls break down a little slower so that you have a constant stream of particle bait coming to the surface either squeeze the balls that you wish to break down slower a little harder or add more of the sinking mix over the top skinning off and squeezing once more this will slow the break down process as the water has to get through the sinking ground bait first to release the floating particles, it is also advisable to add things like floating casters or desiccated coconut to the mix the more floating particles the better, use a small surface controller on fine tackle with a long hook length and small pieces of bread with fine wire hooks for Rudd and Roach and grease your hook length with some fly treatment every few casts, this will ensure that your line stays above the water and does not spook feeding fish, it is also advisable to set up a light waggler rig for fishing mid water or a bomb rig with a long hook length just in case you wish to explore the bottom at any point as this often brings a bonus fish, if you are going to fish with maggots then make sure that you prepare some for floating as explained in the maggot section, you can also add some grilled hemp to the mix as it floats well and brings with it lots of oil, remember to keep topping up the swim with a few balls of ground bait when the particles stop coming to the top or when the surface activity of the fish stops, it is best to fish this method some distance from the bank so that you don't spook the feeding fish and in hot calm conditions when you can see the particles coming to the top and the wind or tow will not blow them from the area in which you are fishing.

Cereals for cloud, ground cereals make a brilliant cloud mix that will hang in the water for ages and fill your swim with minute particles of food which is good for small fish using squat and pinkies,  sugar puffs are great for making this mix as they contain lots of sugar which will attract the Roach, first grind your chosen cereal into a fine powder add a little brown crumb and some fine maize meal and mix thoroughly, take this mix dry in a plastic bag to your chosen venue half fill a bait container and then flood with water, leave the ground bait to absorb all of the water so that it is sloppy but not runny before filling your pole pot, if you want the mix to disperse straight away add more water as you put it in, you can also add things like dried milk powder to form a bigger cloud and icing sugar for extra sweetness, in the winter flavour your mixes with savoury type flavours like meat bases or worm extracts there is one thing that you can buy for fishing the worm in winter but it smells like a skunk trappers socks and is very potent and that is dried blood meal, it can be purchased from all good seed merchants but be warned  again it is very potent and must be used carefully, these mixes will work just as well as commercial type ground baits but at a fraction of the cost.

Cereal baits tethered floating method, here's a little something that you may find interesting especially if you are keen on catching some specimen Rudd or Roach, it is something that I used to good effect many years ago on a large gravel pit where the Rudd were huge but seldom caught, this is a method that is used in conjunction with a scaled down surface rig using fine wire hooks and very light tackle you will obviously need to be fishing a water with no snags and have plenty of room to play the fish not exactly text book Rudd water as these fish favour pools adorned with lilies and overhanging trees, you really need to use a boat to place the feeding net although you should be able to throw it in at short distances but you must and I stress must get it back at the end of the day either by snagging it with strong tackle and reeling it in or by using a boat, all you will need is a fine hair net or fruit net, some polystyrene for a floating aid, some 10 - 15 pound line and a small weight to use as an anchor, simply fill the net with your chosen bait i.e. bits of bread, floating casters, cereal baits or something else, use enough polystyrene to float the net full of bait, find the exact depth and use a heavy piece of line or chord to anchor it to the bottom in the desired spot, then simply fish to it with your floating bait, hopefully the fish will become accustomed to the net and bait feeding on its contents but the bigger fish always stay to the outsides of the swim feeding on the floating spillage as the smaller fish feed being more wary of this intrusive piece of equipment.

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