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Making your own bait.

Terry Harman said:
Everything you need is here and not expensive at all

www.britishaquafeeds.com

British Aqua Feeds

British Aqua Feeds is a major Bulk Feed Supplier to the UK, offering a range of Aquatic Feeds and Bait ingredients, Powders, Liquids, Oils & Additives
www.britishaquafeeds.com
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I’ve been looking at their base mixes and the pricing is good. Nice they are transparent with ingredients too.

The “Fire and Ice” is the one I may go for but 10Kg is a lot to order if it’s not to my likening.
 
BAF sell hemp as well , it’s only 30 mins away from me , might pick 10k up and see what the quality is like
 
The Carp Chronicles podcast is worth a listen to anyone contemplating making there own baits/base mixes from scratch.
Lee Fletcher, years ago on here, put some base mixes to try that I made up and put to good effect on the Dove at the time.
The only thing I do when I make hookbait mixes up is I steam them rather than boil them.
 
Ordered a few bits off the AA baits website. Made quite a saving over JBs stuff, so we'll see how I get on. Spicy Crab and Garlic anyone ??
 
David Wass said:
The Carp Chronicles podcast is worth a listen to anyone contemplating making there own baits/base mixes from scratch.
Lee Fletcher, years ago on here, put some base mixes to try that I made up and put to good effect on the Dove at the time.
The only thing I do when I make hookbait mixes up is I steam them rather than boil them.
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Great heads-up. Just listened to the first one and half way thru the second and very interesting.

Love the tip about soaking rocks in liquids to get flavour in the swim. Very simple but effective.
 
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Gavin Burt said:
Great heads-up. Just listened to the first one and half way thru the second and very interesting.

Love the tip about soaking rocks in liquids to get flavour in the swim. Very simple but effective.
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Gavin Burt said:
Great heads-up. Just listened to the first one and half way thru the second and very interesting.

Love the tip about soaking rocks in liquids to get flavour in the swim. Very simple but effective.
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There are a lot to listen to, the Scientific Baits ones with Dean Towey are a good starting point.
 
David Wass said:
There are a lot to listen to, the Scientific Baits ones with Dean Towey are a good starting point.
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I’ve listened to x4 of them already as currently on hols in Portugal.

Really really, useful and loads of good tips.

I must admit I was a bit lost with the BAF one as didn’t understand half the stuff they were referring to !!!
 
Simon Archer said:
Thanks for all the tips and recipes folks, very kind to divulge them. But that's not quite what I had in mind. To me, that is just using someone else's recipe to roll boilies. I'd want to make my own mix up from scratch, including mixing different flavours together. Hence the 6 pick and mix flavours I'd put in JBs basket. The 6 I'd chosen would give me a combination of spicy, sweet, fishy. Out of those, I'd put them together to create my own flavour profile.
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I feel the same way when people talk about making there own bait but using a ready made basemix, it really isn't the same. I've been making bait on and off for years Simon and I'd like to think I know a thing or 2 about making basemixes up from scratch. There's a lot to go through but if you ever want some info or advice on anything feel free to message me any time.

The best thing you can do is just play about with it though and enjoy it. Some of the first mixes I made I wouldnt dream of making today but they caught fish, worked well and more importantly I really enjoyed it. At the end of the day they eat sweetcorn and the nutrition of sweetcorn is terrible, we can't even digest it.
Anyway, first off I'd start with working things out in a ratio that adds up to 1kg and writing the recipe up in grams and what's really important aswell as the nutrition is making sure theres enough binders in there to allow it to roll and gel together.
200g of semolina and 200g of soya meal work perfect for this and allows a further 600g of ingredients to bep added to make up the nutrition/rest of the boilie.
People slag semolina off but used at a low amount alongside soya meal is very valuable to a bait but adding more will make it more rubbery and not so good of a boilie but it is used in a lot higher amounts in your standard commercial boilies.

Have a play around using ingredients that barbel like such fishmeals, milk proteins, liver, yeasts and spices.

Don't go high on the flavours as there chemicals and to much can put the fish off but remember hydrolastates and liquid foods are different to flavours and can be used at higher levels.


Here's a bait I was making for barbel I did really well on for years but just stopped making it due to time and just finding it easier to buy readymades. Feel free to use it/change a few things. 👍

Garlic essential oil 3 drops
Squid hydro 30ml
Liver hydro 30ml
6 eggs

Semolina 150g
Soya 150g
Salmon meal 200g
Lt94 150g
Pre digested fishmeal 100g
CLO 100g
Krill meal 50g
Kelp 50g
Garlic 25g
Chilli powder 25g

Really simple and worked a treat 👍
I know the semolina and soya levels are lower than I originally recommended but I gave you them recommendations as a starting point for beginning to roll your own. Hope it goes well pal 👍
 
I used to put a couple of drops of n butyric acid in a mix. Beware though cause it stinks of vomit and will stink your kitchen out if your making them in there. First bottle me and my mate bought when we decided to have a go at making our own bait had a cracked top that we hadn’t noticed in the shop and leaked a bit onto the back seat of my car. Wasn’t pleasant
 
Jon Young said:
I used to put a couple of drops of n butyric acid in a mix. Beware though cause it stinks of vomit and will stink your kitchen out if your making them in there. First bottle me and my mate bought when we decided to have a go at making our own bait had a cracked top that we hadn’t noticed in the shop and leaked a bit onto the back seat of my car. Wasn’t pleasant
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That's yet another reason for buying frozen bait.
 
Connor Smith said:
I feel the same way when people talk about making there own bait but using a ready made basemix, it really isn't the same. I've been making bait on and off for years Simon and I'd like to think I know a thing or 2 about making basemixes up from scratch. There's a lot to go through but if you ever want some info or advice on anything feel free to message me any time.

The best thing you can do is just play about with it though and enjoy it. Some of the first mixes I made I wouldnt dream of making today but they caught fish, worked well and more importantly I really enjoyed it. At the end of the day they eat sweetcorn and the nutrition of sweetcorn is terrible, we can't even digest it.
Anyway, first off I'd start with working things out in a ratio that adds up to 1kg and writing the recipe up in grams and what's really important aswell as the nutrition is making sure theres enough binders in there to allow it to roll and gel together.
200g of semolina and 200g of soya meal work perfect for this and allows a further 600g of ingredients to bep added to make up the nutrition/rest of the boilie.
People slag semolina off but used at a low amount alongside soya meal is very valuable to a bait but adding more will make it more rubbery and not so good of a boilie but it is used in a lot higher amounts in your standard commercial boilies.

Have a play around using ingredients that barbel like such fishmeals, milk proteins, liver, yeasts and spices.

Don't go high on the flavours as there chemicals and to much can put the fish off but remember hydrolastates and liquid foods are different to flavours and can be used at higher levels.


Here's a bait I was making for barbel I did really well on for years but just stopped making it due to time and just finding it easier to buy readymades. Feel free to use it/change a few things. 👍

Garlic essential oil 3 drops
Squid hydro 30ml
Liver hydro 30ml
6 eggs

Semolina 150g
Soya 150g
Salmon meal 200g
Lt94 150g
Pre digested fishmeal 100g
CLO 100g
Krill meal 50g
Kelp 50g
Garlic 25g
Chilli powder 25g

Really simple and worked a treat 👍
I know the semolina and soya levels are lower than I originally recommended but I gave you them recommendations as a starting point for beginning to roll your own. Hope it goes well pal 👍
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Here's a 100g test mix I've put together. Not rolled any yet as I'm waiting for nearer the season.

IMG_0944.JPG
Pretty simple TBH, nothing too in depth to start with.

As it stands at the moment I'm just trying to not get too involved in buying loads of ingredients, just a fishmeal base mix, then add one or two other things to just "jazz" it up a bit. I've got Liver and Krill extracts to add to a mix as well.


I've been watching lots of YouTube videos about making your own boilies. One guy really explains the process well.
 
Is that Solar Squid and Octopus?
 
Good luck with it mate. I have to be honest and say I never had as much fun making bait than when I was buying ingredients to put together your own recipes. They all caught fish and those with a bit of liver and krill did well.
I wouldn't be surprised if AA Baits Squid and Octopus is the same as Solar's, which was also a great inclusion. Despite what bait companies would have you believe there is little in the way of exclusivity across base mixes and flavours.
 
Simon Archer said:
Here's a 100g test mix I've put together. Not rolled any yet as I'm waiting for nearer the season.

View attachment 29495
Pretty simple TBH, nothing too in depth to start with.

As it stands at the moment I'm just trying to not get too involved in buying loads of ingredients, just a fishmeal base mix, then add one or two other things to just "jazz" it up a bit. I've got Liver and Krill extracts to add to a mix as well.


I've been watching lots of YouTube videos about making your own boilies. One guy really explains the process well.
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What's the 80g of base?
 
I used SOLAR S&O back in the nineties and I see it’s making some sort of comeback despite it being unavailable in it’s original form any more
It caught fish but it wasn’t a game changer like these companies are making out
Just another marketing gimmick bait companies are using bringing old flavours back
Back then the more of a particular bait went in the more it caught , probably the same today .
 
Kevin Brown said:
I used SOLAR S&O back in the nineties and I see it’s making some sort of comeback despite it being unavailable in it’s original form any more
It caught fish but it wasn’t a game changer like these companies are making out
Just another marketing gimmick bait companies are using bringing old flavours back
Back then the more of a particular bait went in the more it caught , probably the same today .
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Ive made my own bait on/off since the late 70's and would put Solar S &O in the top 5 flavours I have ever come across.

Whether the current versions are anything like as good as the original I have no idea.

As I said early on in this thread, these days Im pretty sure I can't make bait that is better than the frozen stuff I currently buy /use and I certainly cant do it cheaper.
 
Tim Marks said:
Ive made my own bait on/off since the late 70's and would put Solar S &O in the top 5 flavours I have ever come across.

Whether the current versions are anything like as good as the original I have no idea.

As I said early on in this thread, these days Im pretty sure I can't make bait that is better than the frozen stuff I currently buy /use and I certainly cant do it cheaper.
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I go back further than that , caught carp on cat food , par boiled potatoes etc
Barbel baits back then was sausage meat mixed with breadcrumbs or rusk
Started with Hutchys base mix , mingle fruit , black magic etc which were a pig to roll
Baits that stand out for me are Geoff Kemps , Mainlines Grange CSL , Duncan Kay’s Red Karpi Nutrabaits Big fish mix with a fruit flavour
Premier Baits I caught lots on
Solar Quench and S&O with ester blend 12 meh

I’m retired now and lots of time , but still couldn’t be a@sed to gather all those ingredients together and faff about like that , I used to do it with milk proteins but then maybe 5/6 different ingredients.

An happy medium for me is a ready to roll base mix then I mix 2/3 flavours ( of my choosing ) to make it unique to me
Like I said , only got back into it last year after prompting from Rich , then I had the chance to compare with off the shelf stuff and the difference was clear , but also using bait that was freshly rolled made a difference.

At the end of the day we all do things we are confident in and feel make a difference, but for me I just don’t trust a lot of these bait companies and the latest tactic of bringing out old flavours out just reinforces that view .
 
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