Best pellets

[Neil Blood]

I used the last of my Sticky Baits Elip

Why pre drilled?
So many people have put the Hinders elips pellets down on here.
I've used then for 25+ years.
Yes, their shape changed a few years back from flat to cylindrical.
They are superb still.
Cut a little flat on 2 pellets and glue them back to back.
I remember drilling them myself 100 years ago and sitting there fishing with no bait on.....
Its not difficult to fish effectively without pre drilled pellets!
145 barbel this season, mostly on elips.
1 trip to the Trent for a few days and the rest on the Hampshire Avon.

Similar, but I use a small coarse file. You can put two flat sides on a single large elips pellet in seconds.

As an aside, I’ve also just found a pot of elliptical shaped elips in the bottom of my freezer, which has made my day

 

[Kevin Earley]

@Nigel Whittingham I take yout point, as with all posts on here it's only a matter of my own personal experience which I grant you is subjective. I have trialled both Halibut pellets and red Krill pellets same size alternating between upstream and downstream rods during the same sessions and found the red Krill to bring better results for the way I fish on predominantly the Middle Trent. Whether they are preferred due to colour or scent/taste I wouldn't even try to guess at. It could simply be a matter that Halibut has become overused on the stretches I fish and therefore the fish have become weary of them, who knows ?

I wouldn't exclude Halibut pellets if my standard approach with Krill & Robin Red pellets wasn't working. It's taken a number of years for me to learn that if something isn't working then make a change.

 

[Jim Brook]

Why pre drilled?
So many people have put the Hinders elips pellets down on here.
I've used then for 25+ years.
Yes, their shape changed a few years back from flat to cylindrical.
They are superb still.
Cut a little flat on 2 pellets and glue them back to back.
I remember drilling them myself 100 years ago and sitting there fishing with no bait on.....
Its not difficult to fish effectively without pre drilled pellets!
145 barbel this season, mostly on elips.
1 trip to the Trent for a few days and the rest on the Hampshire Avon.

I agree that a super glued pellet will stay on a lot longer I even glue the dynamite pre drilled ones when I want to use a single bait but more often its 2 elips back to back as John says they are brilliant pellets

 

[John McGough]

@Nigel Whittingham I take yout point, as with all posts on here it's only a matter of my own personal experience which I grant you is subjective. I have trialled both Halibut pellets and red Krill pellets same size alternating between upstream and downstream rods during the same sessions and found the red Krill to bring better results for the way I fish on predominantly the Middle Trent. Whether they are preferred due to colour or scent/taste I wouldn't even try to guess at. It could simply be a matter that Halibut has become overused on the stretches I fish and therefore the fish have become weary of them, who knows ?

I wouldn't exclude Halibut pellets if my standard approach with Krill & Robin Red pellets wasn't working. It's taken a number of years for me to learn that if something isn't working then make a change.

With regards to the red krill pellets be wary.
95% of the red krill pellets you will buy are just coated in red krill.
Throw a few in the edge and watch them turn from a nice dark red colour to a pale colour within 20 minutes

 

[Andrew Jackson]

Why pre drilled?
So many people have put the Hinders elips pellets down on here.
I've used then for 25+ years.
Yes, their shape changed a few years back from flat to cylindrical.
They are superb still.
Cut a little flat on 2 pellets and glue them back to back.
I remember drilling them myself 100 years ago and sitting there fishing with no bait on.....
Its not difficult to fish effectively without pre drilled pellets!
145 barbel this season, mostly on elips.
1 trip to the Trent for a few days and the rest on the Hampshire Avon.

I do agree John. I bought some and they were pre-drilled. I'm not too bothered either way really. In the past I have literally covered a 12mm elipse pellet in superglue to avoid it being whittled away by small fish and still caught big Barbel on it. I use other pellets fir no other reason than to avoid ordering online. I just pick them up when I go in a shop. Can't argue with your results John.

 

[Stuart Linton]

Talking of Krill, I'm sure someone told me that some krill additives like a certain krill powder I was given once is just a cheese powder. I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Paul Rogers]

Aren't they all made by either Coppens or Skrettings for the fish farm market? If so does it really matter which reseller you choose?
I guess that some resellers add a little extra flavour for their own USP. Does that actually make much difference? Only the fish know for sure.

May I come in and "throw a cat amoungst the pigeons". All pellets are made for the food industry, therefore by association; they shouldn't be used in any natural watercourse. The scientists who made them for fish feeding, did so to decrease sexual reproduction and to increase weight for profit. It has been stated that it is harmful to use pellets full stop. And on top of that much of the ingrediants come from third world countries and the fishmeals are contaminated with PCB'S (Forever Chemicals).
SO, may the slagging begin

 

[Andrew Jackson]

Now you've done it! You could argue about why we are feeding cyprinids high protein, oil rich food in the first place when their systems are not designed to cope with it.

 

[Connor Smith]

Another vote for the Severn valley ambush pellets. Actually all my fish this season have came on a 10mm ambush pellet (although it's not many fish)

 

[Ady Brayshaw]

I’ve used the 8mm 3ft twitch pellets for a couple of seasons now on the Trent. Caught loads on them, both the lamprey and herring, and D-liver. This season I’ve started using their redemption boilies, so I also got some matching pellets and have caught on those both times I’ve been out so far.

I did like the Dynamite Source pellets as well, and did well on them a few years ago.



I still have a partially used pot of the sonubaits spicy sausage hookbaits. They smell perfect and I was always super confident using them, but never had a single fish on them. No idea why!

That's the same experience I've had. The sonubaits spicy sausage not a single fish, but quite a few on the blood worm. The fish in my avatar was on one. I don't use pellet much these days.

 

[Jon Young]

Personally I think if your using halibut pellets then halibut pellets are halibut pellets no matter which brand you buy. Never noticed any difference in catch rates whatever brand I use. I tend to use robin red pellets the last few years but more often than not I’ll use a big chunk of meat anyway as I’m trying to single out the bigger fish and can get hammered by bream on pellets. I do like the cheesy garlic dynamite baits I think small pellets to use in pva mesh to go with my hook bait if I am using pellet cause they absolutely stink. Done well on them but be warned they will stink your house out if your making your bags up at home lol

 

[Jim Gregory]

My fishing buddy and I once vowed never to use sonubaits again , having both had very poor results on their eagerly awaited new baits aimed at the barbel angler..
This was about 8 it 9 yrs ago.
So we emptied all our pellets hemp n hali crush , oozing this and that stuff, after a very poor day on the wye.
Next day armed with good old dynamite baits we emptied it!!!.
2 seasons ago we had a challenge...
Buy each other a pot of wafters and a bag of boilles and fished a huge beach one rod on each other's tripod.
Guess what I got my mate???.
He had bugger all and I caught 11 barbell on raspberry plume boilies!!!!!

 

[Mark Evans 2]

Isn't it all in our heads that one brand will out fish the other?

Sonubaits Spicy Sausage, doesn't smell a million miles away from Dynamites Meat furter. And the AD own brand meaty ground bait smells pretty much the same as Meat Furter.

A Halibut pellet is a Halibut pellet, no matter what bag it came out from.

 

[Terry Simner]

I too view all 'Halibut Pellets' as a generic, basically a fish meal 'starter base'. And whilst that base can be used 'as is' and will catch you fish, I see it as there to be flavoured. That base is to be a carrier of flavour. I take a base pellet (a HP) and glug it with a flavour, then make a wrap of the same flavour.
The only significant variable I see in basic halibut pellets is softening rate, and I've found large variation in them through home testing (a glass of water is all you need). Obviously, the smaller pellet you use, the more important it is to know softening rate ....especially if you're using drilled small pellets and casting out infrequently (some drilled 8mm pellets are more or less dissolved in 30 mins.)
The hardest pellets I've found are/were Bait-Tech Krill, but these (I believe) were only ever available in 14mm. I've got stock and I still use them, but unfortunately they're no longer available. They're a strange one as they're red, called 'Krill', but don't smell much like any other commercial krill products. But then maybe with many products we are led to think ...the stronger they smell, the better quality they are.
When we say a bait's "flavour" we tend to go by/think of its smell, but smell and taste (no, I'm not gonna get into the "can fish smell?" question ) are different senses. Smell does influence taste ....but this is leading down a rabbit hole so ....
And carpers often push subtlety, so????
So ....dunno