Making Own Bait

[Tommy Bee]

Its not easy producing a good boilie and getting the key things right - digestibility (not too rich), attraction (effectiveness), rollability and texture - but there is something people miss -

if you are hand rolling small amounts, you do not have the same concerns about rollability as somebody putting the paste through machinery and can get away with sometimes better recipes in my opinion POTENTIALLY - (I'm not an expert I am only just making my own fully in the past year, a bit overdue)
hand rolling certainly gives you easier scope to play with textures

I don't believe in using masses anyway - don't get me wrong I keep some old favourite fantastic readymades and like JB, but entirely making your own is (indeed like Ian kinda said as well):
much more fun..

I absolutely grilled AI for many hours and found it useful*, as base mixes are closely guarded trade secrets -

*I gathered a quite good framework of what basemixes should be about from decades of little snippets of info all over the place anyway, and talking directly to experienced individuals to get little bites of info here and there(!)

I'll tell you who is brilliant to talk to by email - Steve Mitchell of CCMoore-

I quite like JB but I foumnd him a bit too vague and he misled me on something which led to quite a hefty amount of wasted money, I didn't mind that as wasting cash is a big realistic part of the journey of a proper thinking angler who is willing to experiment -
anyway although I rate him highly and keep a mix on the go and bought up lots of a not too distant discontinued flavour, I'm personally steering away from him a bit and don't follow his 'shopfront' anymore

 

[Lewis Baldwin]

Afternoon all,

Barbel will eat almost anything you put Infront of them as will carp.

Over a long term, baiting campaign will a highly nutritious, well balanced bait have a better effect, I'd say so yes.

On a normal day, just going fishing will it make a difference, doubtful.

Over the course of a season will a good quality freezer bait outfish a good quality shelf life bait, unlikely IMO.

Bait manufacturing has come a hell of a long way in the last 20-30 years and the difference between shelf life and freezer can be minimal depending upon which brand you prefer.

Barbel will eat processed meat from a tin, carp will eat manufactured bread and dog biscuits all day on occasions. Both of which will outfish EVERY high protein, high quality freezer bait on their day.

I've not used freezer baits for years. The only reason my catch rates have dropped is I have less time than I used to and there are less barbel than there used to be.

I Would be confident that if I put ANY boilie Infront of a hungry/feeding barbel and presented it well it would get eaten.

Thanks

Lewis

 

[Kevin Brown]

Afternoon all,

Barbel will eat almost anything you put Infront of them as will carp.

Over a long term, baiting campaign will a highly nutritious, well balanced bait have a better effect, I'd say so yes.

On a normal day, just going fishing will it make a difference, doubtful.

Over the course of a season will a good quality freezer bait outfish a good quality shelf life bait, unlikely IMO.

Bait manufacturing has come a hell of a long way in the last 20-30 years and the difference between shelf life and freezer can be minimal depending upon which brand you prefer.

Barbel will eat processed meat from a tin, carp will eat manufactured bread and dog biscuits all day on occasions. Both of which will outfish EVERY high protein, high quality freezer bait on their day.

I've not used freezer baits for years. The only reason my catch rates have dropped is I have less time than I used to and there are less barbel than there used to be.

I Would be confident that if I put ANY boilie Infront of a hungry/feeding barbel and presented it well it would get eaten.

Thanks

Lewis

I don’t agree barbel or carp will eat anything you put in front of them , on some rare days maybe , but usually they’ll have a preference for certain baits on certain days which is probably linked to time of year as well , ask any match man and the baits they use depends on time of year . And they change their baits all the time .

Which is were pre baiting with a good HNV bait comes into its own , you condition them to prefer that food source over others wether it’s buried in silt or not , that’s just there dinner plate and completely normal to them .
Fishing with shelf life baits (boilies) is very hit n miss in my experience, some days they work well , some they don’t , I suspect on an average over the year it will be just average to what everyone else’s catches on that stretch or lake.
Get them going on a decent bait they want all the time and the fishing is easy , especially the more free safe food you can give them , ie no lines rigs etc in the water , just good quality bait .
I’ve witnessed this a few times for both barbel and carp , not so easy on day ticket venues, so it’s definitely venue dependent.