early season favourite deadbaits

OK guys as the title suggests what are your early season faves? I prefer to start off with small roach and silver fish.

Smelt for me to start with and good old Mackerel tail end / half fish or even the head section which is a excellent bait on some days
Joey Mackerel 3rd
Roach 4th
Bream 5th
Lamprey well lol I will have this on my second rod as it can be and often is the the most reliable bait

This time of year I buy a lot of bait in bulk I.E. Lamprey Big Smelt Mackerel tails and Joeys and Brown Trout so don't have a lot of room in the freezer but late on
I will buy baits like Blueys Pollan Roach just to ring the changes.

what ever I fetch home in the summer .
Don't know about early season I used all season
1, smelt
2, Eel
3, roach

you say early season
as you know the pike will still be chasing fish about
so I would say match the hatch .... on natural baits which they are actively taking
roach
perch
eels
lures...... work really well early in the season , so I would fish 1 rod on the float and 1 hard on the bottom , and cast a lure rod in between these .........

stubbo wrote:you say early season
as you know the pike will still be chasing fish about
so I would say match the hatch .... on natural baits which they are actively taking
roach
perch
eels
lures...... work really well early in the season , so I would fish 1 rod on the float and 1 hard on the bottom , and cast a lure rod in between these .........

yeah my thoughts too. I think I will stick with small silvers until it gets really cold. Unless I'm fishing a dirty water and I will use Lamprey.