Dead Bait Spinning
When most people think about spinning, they think about posh plugs, lures, feathers or spinners. There is another option and a very viable one at that. Dead bait spinning is a great option to catch fish and one you must explore.
What is it?
Well, you will be glad to know that it is not complex. All it means is using dead sand eel, small Pollock, joey Mackerel even squid and presenting them with the action of an injured individual. You get lots of attractive qualities. Scent, look, feel, colour and a vulnerable, easy meal. This combines to a deadly combination to help improve your catch rate and provide dinner for your family.
Due to the set up, you are also able to fish hard in gullies, banks and between ground as well as using balanced fishing tackle to target your species. This last point is one of my mottos - light balanced tackle - It will provide you with much better sport.
The Rig
A simple clean rig. A weight on your Main line at your desired breaking strain to a swivel (use a weight carrier to prevent line abrasion). I like the torpedo weights and spinning weights, they prevent line twist. A trace as long as you can handle to a hook to match your target species. ( Don’t be scared to use a large hook for Bass and most predators, look at the size of their open mouths! )
Thread the hook through the mouth of your dead bait, then the hook point should come out of the belly. A few turns of bait elastic to secure it and off you go.
Fishing method
Treat this like any other lure. Cast from boats, kayaks, shore or rock and retrieve at a moderate pace. Then try changing the retrieve rate and style until you find what works. If you get interest, keep reeling at the same pace and wait until your rod goes heavy, then strike and play the fish in.
Please comment on this post if you would like to add anything to this set up, or you disagree with my opinion!
Image thanks to: Sirenbrian
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November 7, 2025 at 18:35
Thanks for nice blog.I have one question about bass fishing.Can i try fishing at winter time???
November 7, 2025 at 19:36
There are less around, but they are the larger fish generally. If you are new to Bass fishing and running out of hope it might be better to wait till May to start Bassing again.
August 10, 2025 at 14:23
Nice, been catching a few of these but because I wasn’t sure how to rig them just threw them back in. Not any more
August 3, 2025 at 17:49
A quick way of catching sand eels for me, at least is to take out my Kayak and paddle around one or two of our local piers trailing an eight to 12 pound BS hand line over the side with a lightish coarse ledger weight on the end and five to ten tiny treble hooks tied straight to the line about about 20mm apart. Just keep stopping, say every 10 to 20 strokes and jerk the line in quickly and you inevitably snag a few sand eels almost every pull. Put them into a dry bag semi full of water on deck and take em home and freeze some for later and use some fresh straightaway. If you haven’t got a local pier. just follow the diving gulls, works just as well and you sometimes snag the odd Mackerel too.
June 15, 2025 at 16:00
Excellent advice!
Thanks for sharing, around here a lot of people disregard sandeel unless they are alive & used for freelining, a very effective method in itself!.
Nonetheless, I’ve had some cracking sport fishing a frozen sandeel from a lure rod, I always cut the tail & head off first…..some say it helps release blood etc, using an Aberdeen hook I feed the sandeel onto the hook tail end first
bringing it round and out about 1/3rd of the way along the body
At this point pulling the whole hook through and inserting it back in so it ends up at the end works well but either is fine as it’s then lassoed with bait elastic from the start of the hook bend right up the snood so it stays put!
June 15, 2025 at 21:22
Thank you very much for sharing you method. I think this is a well overlooked method in sea angling these days: lots of shiny lures, things that rattle and pop….
Pike anglers do a lot of dead bait spinning and get fantastic results. Sometime we just want to make things difficult for our selves!!!
November 11, 2025 at 21:32
That’s a nice tip thanks. I’m all keen to go and try it now. I’m sure the smell of the bait helps with shy fish too.
September 4, 2025 at 13:18
Excellent post. Kept me reading right until the end. Keep up the good work, i like your style of writing.
September 8, 2025 at 10:23
Thank you for your comment. Hopefully there should be more fishing articles coming soon.
August 25, 2025 at 20:29
What a thought provoker! We use this method for pike so why not Bass. Thankyou
Good to see a blog on fishing, would be interested on your views on mine.
September 8, 2025 at 10:25
Thats is a lovely Bass fishing blog you have there. Thank you for sharing.
July 17, 2025 at 10:44
thanks for the article. in the near future I’ll try it in practice.
June 10, 2025 at 09:15
very useful blog
June 10, 2025 at 11:45
Thanks for your comment. How is your tackle site working for you??
If you would like to write an article to promote your site, let me know.
May 19, 2025 at 18:45
will give it a try, now where is the fishing report. try my new website. check out the fishing map
May 14, 2025 at 07:11
great,,,thanks…visit me back
May 2, 2025 at 19:27
Some great advice, nice blog!
March 18, 2025 at 13:56
Great read and a great method when used right in the summer!
March 11, 2025 at 16:09
Thanks. Great article. I thought I have to spin the fishing rod when casting. Wanna put it to test.
February 24, 2025 at 21:43
Waiting for summer to test your method, thank you for sharing it with ME (and with the rest of the World!)
February 9, 2025 at 18:01
Great read. Top blog website by the way. Good to see some dedicated information on Sea Fishing.
January 20, 2025 at 20:01
Great article, lots of intersting things to digest. Very informative