If Maple 8 came back would you buy it ?

[Guy Leeder]

Hi men,

Guy , I used to drive down to the mainline owners bungerlow in Essex and pick up great big bags of the origional grange bait . Before that I used to roll my own Grange as a confidence thing , making sure of the right levels of everything going in , but after chatting to them at length I switched over to their rolled versions . It was a real game changer of a bait , but once they could not get the components to keep the bait 100% the same active8 and the follow on baits were used more . I can quiet confidently say if the very early grange was available I'd be using that still.

I now use a lot of stuff from DNA baits , but if you look into where they are supplied from , along with other bait companies you can pick up great ingredients as they come on the market . Other smaller bait companies are getting their baits rolled by bigger firms and repackaging them which can give a false impression . In amongst the smaller bait firms can be real gems , a bit like The Bait Asylem which feature on some carp videos by Kevin Ellis on Vimeo , where they roll in house and have some interesting baits , but are under the radar . Nice to see some firms showing their base mixes ingredients etc like DNA or the Fen spice range from Custom Baits , which are all barbel friendly . I'm sure the bigger bait firms do produce baits you can have confidence in , if the capture reports in the mags and Facebook are to believed .

Hatter

Sign of the times Mark, definitely.

I'm sure there are some reasonable baits out there from some of the big boys, but i just couldn't put myself in a position to use one of their baits when i know something better (however marginal) is available... and pay 3 or 4 quid a kilo more. Not for me.

Some good points raised..and there are still bait makers/companies that are doing it for the passion rather than purely as a business exercise - and it's that balance that is needed for me.

Some of the baits from yesteryear - the grange, maple8 et al - were excellent baits...but as you point out things change and their business is a long way from what it was.

 

[Mark Anderson]

Hi men ,

I fished with boilies for a while when I was fishing for barbel but always felt that they never eat enough of them to search them out in preference to any other bait . We used to sight fish all the time , testing out baits , and other than an healthy reaction to one particular combo im sure most would have been taken in the baited area . I wanted the baits to be saturated in liquids using the natural currents to help fish find and feed on them . We never cast out without a paste wrap , or soaked hookbait , especially in the winter or cold conditions , trying to get as much liquid attraction in the swim as possible . Same as my carp baits , my hookbaits , although the same attraction package as my freebies , are hand rolled with de-fatted soluble powders skined around a hookbait . Nothing revolutionary , but the hard work has been done by a bait comany supplying it ready to roll .

Great reaction to a bait ? - Chocolate Orange , not one barbel anglers would normally pick , but put me in a corner , id fish with pellets all day long so easy to roll . Interesting subject though.


Hatter