DIY Modern Baits

By Lee Fletcher​

Modern baits. What are these? To my mind, they are basically boilees in all their various forms and associated pastes, which are in reality, either the uncooked form of a boilee mixture or pastes made in forms that would probably not be useful in a boiled form. Supermarket type pastes would fit this category.

These types of baits are very complex and complicated to those who have not grown up amid this “bait revolution". For this very reason, bait dealers now sell a massive range of ready-made boilees and pastes aimed directly at certain anglers with limited knowledge in this field. I see this trend continuing as the gulf widens further between those who know about modern bait making intimately and those that know very little. Also, due to many anglers “getting used to" the ease of purchasing their various baits in a ready-made form, this trend will continue. Especially so, when the angling press is dotted with big fish being caught on a “known" commercially obtained bait. What has gone before in carp fishing, is now set to be repeated in the barbel fishing world. The major difference is of course, in the beginning of the carp bait boom, everyone had to make their own bait either from ingredients sold by the bait companies or from their ready-made base mixes. The swinging trend today, is for bait dealers to make further inroads into ready-made baits and it will become increasingly difficult to obtain the raw materials for modern bait making as in the years of the carp fishing boom of the eighties. That is fine for those who don’t want to make their own baits, but what about the requirements of those that do or the anglers that find the expense of bait dealers products to be to much for their pockets?

It is towards this latter group of anglers that this thread is intended.

Before continuing, some things worth mentioning. Long standing bait dealers ALL sell quality baits and additives. Although fairly expensive, their products are the end result of many years’ experience in this field. John Baker for example, is one of our countries most experienced in all aspects of carp orientated baits. John is also capable of making up flavours from base chemicals as well. Bill Cottam of Nutrabaits has an enviable list of base mixes available to anglers. All of Bills mixes are proven fish catches and are of the highest quality available. Kev Nash, Martin Locke, Rod Hutchinson, to name a few, all sell products that are known to catch fish year after year.

Also, it should NEVER be assumed that modern baits are the last word in fish catching. Meat, particles, maggots, casters, sweetcorn, worms, all catches fish and always will. Bait, although an important pat of the angler’s armoury, will never be an adequate substitute for angling skills.

What now follows, is revelations concerning my own experience in this field. Recipe’s, methods and ingredient suppliers are my own that I have gleaned over long years by myself painstakingly finding them. It could be that some of my ingredients for example might be available cheaper elsewhere, are all given and listed in good faith as being the very best quality obtainable at the best prices that I could find at the time when I used to sell bait to anglers.

To begin with, it should be remembered that there are certain basic fundamentals concerning bait making.
To many course ingredients included in a base mix of dry powders will make the bait either hard or impossible to roll. Certain ingredients added at too higher proportions will make the finished bait float. For example; Brewers Yeast, Sodium Cassinate, Crab Meal, Shrimp Meal if used over a safe unit of say 1oz per 16oz mix, will probably make a boiled bait float. Sodium Cassinate can sometimes be added at slightly higher levels if included in a protein bait due to the density of some milk proteins such as Casein.

Basically, ingredients such as Semolina, Soya Flour (full fat), Rearing Milk Powder, are included to assist the rolling capacity of the finished bait whilst balancing up the protein content of other ingredients that are higher in protein content. A good bait, should be one that is easy to roll and work with and one with a balanced nutritional food source that works in harmony with the fish’s natural diet.

Here then, are the exact recipes of base mixes that I used to offer to anglers. Be aware, that if the basic principles of these mixes are followed, they can all be altered slightly to suit differing requirements.

THE LIVER BIRDFOOD.

3ozs of Liver Powder.
2ozs of Lambs Milk (rearing powder)
1/2 oz of Brewers Yeast.
1oz of Robin Red.
2ozs of Red Factor.
1oz of PTX
8oz of Yellow Semolina.
8oz of Soya Flour (full fat)
1,1/2 oz of Whole Egg Powder.
1/2oz of Hemoglobin Powder (human grade dried pigs blood)
Two heaped teaspoons of Chinese Five Spice.
1 level teaspoon of Pure Garlic Powder (NOT Garlic salt)

The Egg Powder and Blood Powder are the mixes binders and can be substituted for 1oz of Egg Albumen if required. The actual cost per 1 kilo of mix is around £1.50 or near enough by buying the ingredients in bulk from my own suppliers. My own Liver flavour added at just 2ml proved highly effective as did Kev Nash’s Malay Spice flavour at 4ml per 1lb. To this, add 15ml of Minamino, and you are on to a winner.

THE FISH MIX.

1oz of Mackerel Meal.
1oz of Caplin Meal.
4oz of Cod Meal.
1oz of sardine and Anchovey Meal.
1/2 oz of Seaweed Meal/Powder.
1/2 oz of Molasses Meal.
2,1/2 oz of Lambs Milk.
1/4 oz of Hemoglobin Powder.
1,1/2 oz of Whole Egg Powder.
12oz of Yellow Semolina.
4 grams of Green Lipped Mussel Powder.

Once again, the Blood and Egg Powders can be substituted for 1oz of Egg Albumen to bind.
This mix is far more effective if only a fish oil is added at 10ml per 1lb of dry base mix. Flavours have a tendency to confuse the effective natural signal of this bait. I will list a range of fish oils available later but I have found that Salmon Oil is highly effective in this mix. 10ml of any fish oil is ALL that is required.
The cost per 1 kilo of this mix is approximately £1.50.

THE BIRDFOOD/FISH MIX.

2oz of Cod meal.
1,1/2 oz of Sardine and Anchovey Meal.
1,1/2 oz of Caplin Meal.
1/2 oz of Seaweed Meal/Powder.
1/2 oz of Brewers Yeast.
2,1/2 oz of Lambs Milk.
2,1/2 oz of Redfactor.
1/2 oz of Robin Red.
1oz of PTX.
1,1/2 oz of Whole Egg Powder.
1/4 oz of Hemoglobin Powder.
10oz of Yellow Semolina.

Egg Albumen can be used to substitute the Blood/Egg powders if required. Many flavour types can be added to this mix. The ones I recommend are either spice, meat, fish or fruit types. Alternatively, 10ml of fish oil together with 4 grams of Green Lipped Mussel powder would make for a far better natural bait.

THE YELLOW BIRDFOOD or CHEESE BOILEE/PASTE BAIT.

8oz of Soya Flour (full fat)
8oz of Yellow Semolina
2oz of Ground Rice
1oz of Lambs Milk
4oz of Redfactor
1oz of Egg Albumen

For a Cheese base mix, add 4oz of Danish cheese powder (supplier given later) to the weight unit listed above. Plus a cheese flavour at 4-5 ml per 1lb of dry base mix. This mix without the cheese powder added has great possibilities for a wide variety of flavours/additives and can be coloured with food dyes if required. The cost of 1 kilo is around the £1 mark.
In order to be able to keep costs down, it is a very good idea if anglers club together to buy the required ingredients in bulk. This is what I call a “Bait Collective". By creating some headed paper, the collective can order any of these ingredients from all the suppliers I shall list later. Say for example the group comes from Bedford, just call yourselves “The Bedford Bait Collective" and list on the headed paper a contact number and address. Just like any headed paper really. When ordering, you will have to pay all suppliers “pro forma". Cash/cheque up front. No one will allow credit but all will allow anyone to buy on a cash up front basis.

Once the ingredients have been purchased, the finished base mixes can be made up in any garage or shed. This can be done in bulk by simply converting the ounces in the recipes to pound units. To assist making up the base mixes, an electric cement mixer is invaluable but utilising a plastic dustbin and mixing by hand can make them. If using a mixer, once the ingredients have been loaded, a lid from a plastic dustbin can be held over the mixer whilst running so as to keep the dust down. I fix mine by tying on the lid with a bungee rope. Once enough bait has been made for the collective, every ones bait can either be stored in plastic buckets or plastic sacks for individual use.

SUPPLIERS.

Fish Meals and Fish Oils. Those types available are;
Crab Meal
Anchovy Meal
Capelin Meal
Cod meal
Shrimp Meal
Super Soluble Meal
Plus other meal types in season all available in either 5 or 25 kilo bags.
Fish meals are VAT zero rated.
Fish Oils;

Blended Fish Oil
Herring Oil
Mackerel Oil
Sardine Oil
Capelin Oil
Veterinary Cod Liver Oil
Dogfish Liver Oil
Salmon Fish Feeding Oil
30%PUFA Feed Inducing Oil
Salmon Oil
Winterised Pilchard Oil
Winterised Grade Salmon Oil

All oils are available in either 5 litre or 25 litre containers. The Address for both meals and oils is;
Isaac Spencer & Co Fleetwood (1920) Ltd or formally, United Fish Industries (UK) Ltd at Wyre Dock, Fleetwood, FY7 6PX. Tel 01253 873443.

BIRDFOODS.

John.E.Haiths Park Street, Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire. DN35 7NF. Tel; 01472 357515. Haiths do a delivery free service with orders over 10kgs.

SEMOLINA, EGG ALBUMEN, WHOLE EGG POWDER, SPICES, GARLIC POWDER, DANISH CHEESE POWDER and much, much more from;

Sleaford Quality Foods. Woodbridge Road, East Road Industrial Estate, Sleaford, Lincs. NG34 7JX. Tel no 01529 305000.
Sleaford Quality Foods have a cash day open to all on Thursdays even though they are a very large company. Prices vary according to world markets. Simply phone them up and they will tell you prices for stock items required. They also deliver around the country for an extra carriage cost. Be aware though, Semolina is only available in 25kilo bags at around £15 per sack. Spices are available in 500 gram tubs x 6 per spice at around £9 per tray of spices (damned cheap!) Egg Albumen and Egg Powder is available in 5 kilo units. Cheese powder is only available in 25 kilo sacks. Prices vary according to world yields and markets.

MILK PROTEINS, LIVER POWDER, GREEN LIPPED MUSSEL POWDER.
These are in reality pharmaceutical products and I purchase mine from;

Walton Pharmaceuticals. PO Box 76, East Horsley, Surrey. KT24 5YW. Tel; 01483 280001. The guy you want to speak to is Michael Bailiss. Michael is one of the nicest chaps you will ever encounter and goes some length to get you the very best possible price for products required. Infact, once he gets to know you, he asks you to pay monthly!!

BREWERS YEAST.

Overseal Foods Ltd, Park Road, Overseal, Swadlincote, Derbyshire, DE12 6JX. Tel; 01283 222006

SOYA FLOUR.

Main importers are the British Arcady Co Ltd. In reality, 25 kilo bags of full fat soya are available everywhere. Good health food shops and co operatives can obtain it for you for around £18 per 25 kilo sack.

HEMOGLOBIN POWDER.

Agricultural and Chemical Products Ltd. Unit 2, Zone D, Chelmsford Road Industrial Estate, Great Dunmow, Essex, CM6 1XG. Tel; 01371 875721.

FLAVOURS.

Although I have dealt with various companies that sell flavours, my best advice is simply don’t go there. Most flavour companies have a minimum order of 50 litres per flavour (the good ones that is) and even those that I have dealt with have a 25 litre per flavour minimum order. To obtain a range of say 10 really good flavours, you are going to need £20,000 just to get going. Here, one is going to have to rely on the ones on offer from the bait companies. My only recommendations concerning bait company flavours is to say that they all do some good ones and my choice would be either Kev Nash’s oil types or some of the range that Solar do.

SEAWEED POWDER/MEALS AND REARING MILK POWDERS.

Any good farm or agricultural suppliers will sell these and the same are based all around the country trading under various names with shops open to all.

So there you have a start then. Although perhaps not “War and Peace" at this stage but something that is going to get there as this gargantuan goes along. Ask any questions concerning bait on this thread and I will answer every question that I can. If I cant, there are many here I’m sure that will.

Be assured though, if any want affordable bait of high quality whilst knowing exactly what it contains, you now have no excuses. Get busy guys and get catching!

Lee Fletcher