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Old bait

Ian Grant said:
Mark, considering the gunge and other crap Barbel, and all fish must ingest whilst feeding, i doubt very much if your months old bait in the freezer will do them any harm at all, I often end up with half full bags of unused bait in my freezer, and sometimes stop making bait until I've waded through it all, either for fishing with or pre baiting, use it up mate ! ;)
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Exactly. It's not necessary to apply human considerations to fish, they aren't going to look at a sell by date and if it doesn't seem right to them they are unlikely to eat it. I had a large batch of elips that lasted me years and were catching at the same rate throughout. The worst thing with baits being in the freezer for a long period is they tend to lose flavour and smell but can still be crumbed up. I think most anglers are inclined to relate too much to their own sense of smell or suitability where some baits are concerned and maybe this can lead to excessive flavouring in home made baits and also to binning perfectly good baits as well.
 
I’ve honestly never considered it
I don’t use masses of bait so don’t have a lot to carry over season to season and hookbaits are generally glugged
Put it this way I’ll be using some Teme Severn boilies this season and they always catch and I darent think how old they are
Similar thing with some discontinued Dynamite boilies that are worth their weight in gold on our water
 
Use by and sell by dates are more for us, could be wrong but doesn’t it have to be shown on all food sources?
Personally I’ve never worried about it in my bank side efforts the fish decide if it’s ok.
 
Back in the days of the dinosaur used to buy ingredients from the likes of Rod Hutchinson, Cotswold and Geoff Kemp. Keep a lot of these for years and had good results. Kept a couple of bags of Hutchy fish and crab mix (forget the name but something like Superfish) and used it for barbel over 5+ years (same bags and bigger too) with good results. Was concerned when I couldn't get any more as it was discontinued.

Not wishing to stir things up but anyone remember the craze for 'rot baits' in carping?
 
One of the best "natural" baits for barbel in the river Lot is half a peeled, cooked crevette (prawn). I have tried raw prawn as bait and they work, but if I wrap any left over cooked prawns in clingfilm and leave them in the fridge for a few days they "mature" and, when used as bait, the barbel find them very quickly.

But I do hate baiting up with the things as they develop a clingy slime! Monster crab boilies have a similar pong and are much easier to use!
 
Bob Gill said:
Back in the days of the dinosaur used to buy ingredients from the likes of Rod Hutchinson, Cotswold and Geoff Kemp. Keep a lot of these for years and had good results. Kept a couple of bags of Hutchy fish and crab mix (forget the name but something like Superfish) and used it for barbel over 5+ years (same bags and bigger too) with good results. Was concerned when I couldn't get any more as it was discontinued.

Not wishing to stir things up but anyone remember the craze for 'rot baits' in carping?
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I bought a 10kg tub of the original Active8 base mix and it literally lasted years, totally effective throughout. Without doubt, the best bait I have ever used for barbel by a fair bit. Not sure you can get the original any more which is a great same.
 
Alex Gowney said:
I bought a 10kg tub of the original Active8 base mix and it literally lasted years, totally effective throughout. Without doubt, the best bait I have ever used for barbel by a fair bit. Not sure you can get the original any more which is a great same.
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Still have some Active 8 and Active Maple 8 basemix in the freezer. Both great baits.
 
Bob Gill said:
Still have some Active 8 and Active Maple 8 basemix in the freezer. Both great baits.
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Maple 8 was an awesome bait and accounted for a few of my PBs, always seemed to pick out the bigger fish over Active 8.

Previous threads stated it was discontinued due to lack of Carp angler interest in it, real shame.
 
Most of the bait I've got left hasn't been very successful for me, so the temptation to use it isn't there.
 
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