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One For The Bait Buffs?

John Cook

John Cook

Senior Member
Evening All,

I like to roll my own boilies and am thinking about trying to put together a long term mix, i am thinking of purchasing a quality base mix probably fishmeal rightly or wrongly just due to a confidence thing.
What i want to know is what are the best liquid and powder additives to go with? What really turns on mr. barbel? there are so many things available to add to base mixes is becoming very hard to know which way to go.....Would you say that you are better off with or without the legendary Robin Red in your mix????? Any info or thoughts? PM if you prefer.

Be Lucky.:)
 
Additives - lots to go at & could write reams. Watch the forthcoming cold weather may be adding emulsifiers to oils keeping them low. Make the bait quite porous too using birdseeds like CLO, RR & even the addition of wheat germ for added digestibility in the colder climbs. Also, through choice but better fishmeal ingredients think LT94 & predigested for better assimilatory qualities aswell as soluble peptide leakage. Think about hardness & how long your keeping the bait in the water. Think about making special pastes for wrapping. Flavours - keep to low levels & lots of fishy classics to go with. Use some soluble bait additives such as found in cc moores extensive catalogue.

It is not as if we use that much bait so one could afford better ingredients for how much we apply. But a poor bait put in a good location is far better than an expensive bait all singing & dancing in a poorly applied location.

Easy to go full circle on this as I have done with respect to barbel angling
 
Thank you lads, Any thoughts on natural extracts as apposed to artificial flavours? lo30 liquid liver etc?
 
How about a mix of the two. Low dose of the artificial & more heavy on the natural. LO30 good for glugging & apparently cannot be overdosed. Thing with the naturals, be minded to limit boiling times or to redose on the surface & freeze to allow to permeate the bait deeper. Upon defrosting leakage more controlled & the amino acids/peptides leach in their better state more readily.

For some of my mixes its a low dose on the artificial, medium dose on one or two oils higher on the naturals.
 
John what company would you recommend for a good synthetic fishy flavour to use at low levels?
 
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Can't go wrong with CC Moores - order it & it arrives. Maybe very slightly more expensive but given the freshness & prime condition it's worth it compared to fannying around making ones mind up...

Cheers, Jon

PS I have sent you a PM
 
CC Moore absolutely excellent for bait ingredients - and also for supplying frozen baits too. As Jon already said, you order it, it turns up when they say it will. I've been ordering stuff for foreign carp trips and particles for a while off them, and you build up a nice online discount over time.

This season I've got back into bait making again. I've taken a standard base mix of theirs and altered it slightly, results have been great. It's very satifying and confidence inspiring to know 'your' bait caught that.

Slightly annoyingly, this slightly altered version of theirs always out fishes my own concoctions in 'Bait company makes really good bait compared to amatuer's bait shock'.

But I will get there and it's great fun along the way. If slightly smelly..and you get some funny looks turning up for work with red hands.

John Baker's barbel book is pretty good which I just managed to get hold of thanks to this forum.
 
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I used to love tinkering with bait. I had two successful mixes, one a fishmeal, one a non-fishmeal.

The fishmeal contained robin red at the oft-quoted 5%, and relatively high levels of GLM. I had to stop making this bait as something in it - I suspect the GLM powder - would make me feel rotten after rolling a batch. That and out of sympathy for my wife, who it turns out doesn't enjoy the aroma!

The non-fishmeal contained cheese powder as a taste enhancer and black pepper essential oil at a high dose to aid attraction.

Happy days. Had to give it up as it got to the stage where I spent more time, energy and money on bait than actually fishing with it.



Another vote for CC Moore.

PS, I'm no bait buff...
 
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Darren,

was that cheese and black pepper oil on a milk protein base mix?
 
Liquidise out of date prawns from the freezer. Liquidise the black eyed beans that have been in the freezer for 4 years. Add eggywegs, nan plau fish sauce, fresh crushed garlic (home grown), chopped chillis (home grown). and enough white crumb to make a dryish dough. Put half back in the freezer as paste, make the rest into marbles and boil. House smells the way I like it, wife and daughter gone.
Hope this helps
Shaun of the singles.
 
Shaun Morris said:
Liquidise out of date prawns from the freezer. Liquidise the black eyed beans that have been in the freezer for 4 years. Add eggywegs, nan plau fish sauce, fresh crushed garlic (home grown), chopped chillis (home grown). and enough white crumb to make a dryish dough. Put half back in the freezer as paste, make the rest into marbles and boil. House smells the way I like it, wife and daughter gone.
Hope this helps
Shaun of the singles.
Click to expand...
sounds like my local Thai place....:D...........:eek:
 
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