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Pellet Quality

Rich Parsons

Rich Parsons

Senior Member
Hi all,
I've been having problems with 14mm splitting when I drill them out.
I'm using a fox drill and doing it at home ready for the bank and drilling them straight through long ways. I have had this with two different bait company's pellets from two different shop so I'm not sure if its the bait or the hot weather with been having.
Has any one had this problem and have any way/method of stopping it from happening.

Rich
 
If you heat up the drill with a lighter it reduces the risk of splitting even more, obviously use the thinnest bit you can get away with.
Slow and steady wins the race with pellets
 
Hi Kris,
I've never had a problem to this extent in probably 11 or 12 years of boris bashing.
I do like your lighter idea :)

Rich
 
Rich, i've had this problem myself in the past and found the best way to stop them splitting was to drill half way from each end. I now also use a battery drill with a small bit and this also seems to be better than doing it by hand and much quicker too. You can soon knock up a load of hook baits at home prior to going fishing with this method.

Hope this helps.
 
I superglue mine but back when I did drill them I used to use a Dremmel high speed drill. Any bit will do, I think I used to use a 0.8mm but I got hold of some new but obsolete diamond tip bits and burrs discarded from the dental department when our local hospital closed the old dental department.
There were always a proportion of them which split and some batches were worse than others even from the same manufacturer. although its counter-intuitive I found the hard ones were easier to drill than the soft ones and the old elips pellets from bfw were generally excellent.
 
Hi all,
One of my mates back home drills his with a dremmell type drill and he also says he gets less waste, I guess for the most part it's some thing that has to be put up with for now.

Rich
 
Why not buy pre-drilled pellets or if you've already got loads in, just tie a bait band to the end of your hair?

You'll also find, apart from banding your baits being easier, the baits take longer to breakdown.
 
Hi Colin,
I don't like pellet bands mostly because a lot of the venues I fish have very high crayfish populations and they wouldn't last five minutes against them.

Rich
 
i got a cheap rechargable dremmil like drill from aldi for six quid.....now this goes through the toughest pellet like a hot knife through butter. never had one slit on me yet. 2mm hole straight through. ten mins with the drill does enough hook baits for a good session ,or you can even take it with ya once youve charged it up. :)
 
Are you getting a lot of debris build up on the blades Rich? Possibly due to the hot weather releasing the oils and making it sticky? I find it's best to drill a few mm at a time when this happens, clean the drill bit then do a few more - it's the excess build up on the drill causing the pellets to split.
 
Andrew Boyne said:
Are you getting a lot of debris build up on the blades Rich? Possibly due to the hot weather releasing the oils and making it sticky? I find it's best to drill a few mm at a time when this happens, clean the drill bit then do a few more - it's the excess build up on the drill causing the pellets to split.
Click to expand...

Absolutely right Andrew. Twist drills with spiral flutes rely on the slots in the drill to carry the waste from the drilling process upwards and away. The released oils in this weather turn that waste into a dense mass which clogs the slots rather than travelling up and spilling out the top as a semi powder would. The result is a waste build up and compaction which puts pressure on a pellet already weakened by the oil release....crack :(

I have not bothered drilling my pellets for a long time, but If I needed to do a lot I would pop them in the freezer for an hour or two, then drill them wearing a glove to protect my pinkies in the process. Should work fine :)

Cheers, Dave.
 
I have been lassoooooing nearly everything for around 15 years. It is so easy to do, sod all that drilling nonsense and bits of plastic and loops.:)

Hold on, i do still use little boilies sometimes and wouldn't recommend trying to round these up with the lassooooo.:)
 
Some good feedback so far. For drilling baits I found that the fresher, the less brittle. Concur with drilling from both sides & especially on pulling out the drill to clean the end. Not used pellets fora couple of seasons now but used to use a fine MCF bait drill that I could roll quickly between thumb & fore finger.

One thing for sure, there is nothing more frustrating when you know the fish are feeding & one cannot bait the hair as pellet after pellet is breaking; or lack of confidence that the pellet is not likely to stay on the hair for long.

Cheers, Jon

PS Alternatives with glueing & banding good alternatives but I am sure you already considered this. I like the lasso idea.
 
I bought a Korum drill recently but it took so long drilling 14mm pellets by hand I gave up and switched to my vintage Black & Decker on the fastest speed (2400 rpm) and the smallest drill bit I had in the box (1.5mm). Even then, those hard Dynamite bait pellets take a little time to drill through!

As you near exiting the pellet, reduce the pressure to avoid blowing a hole. That said, the only way I found to stop this completely was to stack the pellet on top of another and drill into the top of the next one. Drilling by hand with the Korum drill caused a hole to be blown in the pellet nearly every time :(

I drilled a small bait box full of Dynamite 14mm pellets and also the large Barbel Busters which should last me for the next few trips.
 
As Colin said, why would you not just buy pre drilled? If I use a pellet hookbait, then I just buy a bag of Dynamite pellets it says a third of the bag is pre drilled but I have found everyone in the bag to be pre drilled. At 3 quid a go they aren’t as cheap as the bulk pellet I would buy but they do the job as hookbaits.
 
Hi all,
Thanks for the replies.
I think I'm going to invest in a cheap dremmel like drill if nothing else just to save my finger :)

Rich
 
I always glue pellets... even the small 8mm ones although I've come close to gluing my fingers together on those ones.
 
Rich Parsons said:
Hi all,
Thanks for the replies.
I think I'm going to invest in a cheap dremmel like drill if nothing else just to save my finger :)

Rich
Click to expand...

I know it goes without saying really Rich, but take care doing this with a power drill. If the pellet brakes suddenly you can end up with a drilled finger...and that HURTS :D
 
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