Tips for Bread Punch Fishing - With Ade Kiddell

In this Fishing Bait Guide, Ade Kiddell provides match and coarse anglers with some tips for getting the most out of your bread punch baits when fishing canal and commercial carp fisheries.

The weather can play a big part in fishing as all anglers know, for me, the key lies in adapting to the conditions and fishing accordingly. Often the water can be very clear and a more delicate approach with bait and tackle is required. 

How do you use bread for carp fishing?

Something I learnt very early in my fishing career is the effectiveness of bread as bait in clear and cold conditions. A very simple and easy method is to use a bread punch, simply using a commercially available punch to cut our bread discs from easily available sliced bread.

I have used bread punch in all sorts of situations when coarse and carp fishing on rivers, lakes and canals but my local canal set me a completely different challenge, in the UK a canal is often only a few metres wide and maybe 1 to 1.5 metres deep, here in Europe canals can often be hundreds of metres wide and up to 10 metres in depth, built to carry commercial shipping with boats up to 5000 tonnes often passing as you fish.

Fishing with Bread

So in the UK, a small float of up to half a gram is perfect for the shallow depth but the canal I was going to target was almost 6 meters deep and a minimum of 2-gram float but may be to 5 grams would be needed.

How does a bread punch work?

Anglers use bread punches to punch out small discs of bread to use as hooks, usually sizes 18 through 22. It is common for anglers to roll the bread slice hard and flat to ensure it will stay on the hook longer.

How do you make bread punch?

The next problem comes in feeding the swim for punch fishing. Ideally, I will use a food processor to liquidise a few loaves of bread, this will be introduced by hand or pole cup as and when required. That’s easy in a shallow UK canal, but would simply not work in strong flows or deep water. So to my liquidised bread, I added some plain white crumb to make the mix much stickier and heavier, ideally, when introduced into the swim it will almost reach the bottom before breaking into a cloud of fine bread particles, encouraging inquisitive fish to feed.

Top 10 Tips For Bread Punch Fishing

1. Carry a selection of sizes of bread punches
2. Make sure your feed sinks nicely before breaking up
3. Slowly add water until it's perfect
4. Use fresh sliced bread 
5. Keep bread in an air-tight bag until ready to use.
6. Use as delicate a rig as possible to avoid missed bites 
7. Look for areas where the public feed the ducks
8. The fish get used to a bread diet and can be real hotspots
9. Try punch in commercial carp fisheries
10. Bread is a brilliant bait in the winter

Best Rigs for Bread Fishing

I had heard my local ship canal had been producing some quality roach, so with the rigs sorted and bread feed mix ready I set about the challenge. The first session produced some small roaches but I knew I should have done better, I fished rigs that were a bit too heavy, so I set up some more pole rigs this time in 2 and 2.5-gram but also pencil-style floats which would hopefully show bites better.

The next session was much better, it took about an hour to get the fish lined up but after that, I had a good net of roaches with some specimen fish amongst them. 

Best Bread Punch Size:  8mm

The next few sessions were equally rewarding. The problem comes when a big barge passes as the canal can flow like a raging river, unfortunately, all the hard work building a swim with careful feeding can be washed away in seconds. Luckily the fish seem to return and a simple re-feed of the swim will line them up again.

If you have never tried bread punch then give it a go it works everywhere and can be fished with a running line, pole or feeder. Bread will catch on the coldest of days when many baits don’t get a bite.