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Shrink wrapping hookbait

J

Joe Winstanley

Senior Member & Supporter
Looking ahead to a weeks carping in France later in the yeas and it appears that crayfish are present in the lake. I know tights can be pretty effective for protecting boilies, but aware that many anglers these days are shrink wrapping their boilies.

Does anyone find shrink wrap more effective? Any brands considered better than others for the job?

ps - any advice on a decent boilie mix for a short trip would be appreciated - bit out of touch with carp baits.

Cheers in advance.
 
My carping days are a distant memory. However, I try to keep tabs on stuff, though I may fail at times. I've not heard of anyone using shrink wrap, at least not what I think of as shrink wrap. Fox Arma Mesh is the stuff I've heard of being used in such situations.
 
I used both the Gardner and the korda carp fishing a lake with crays (Korda in the CV - they were savage - one morning after casting out three double palstic corn hook baits, i reeled in one solitary mangled kernal the enxt day).

i found the gardner one more rubbery, the korda one more plastic-y - though the korda does have holes in it to allow for leakage from the bait.

i ended up using the just the korda. I was fishing stiff rigs with the bait on a d to avoid the crays mucking around with it too much. I attached the (hardened) bait to a micro ring swivel, blobbed the floss after tying the boilie stop on. i then used two bits of the korda shrink wrap at 90 degrees to each other with the swivel through a central hole in each and shrinked it down before glugging them.

sounds complicated but it is possibly just badly explained. half an hour sitting by the lake gave me a big opt full of hook baits. they generally came back slightly nibbled, but had fish on them when in that state.

i'd also bait little and often when fishing with crays about.
 
I know a number of guys just used rubber beads on the hair (white beads fromt eh fox sea range seemed particularly favoured - one chap even catching on them as a single in the middle of winter). Others glugged wooden balls.

another point that really helped, was fishing on the silt, and avoiding fishing on gravel, which i tend to do anyway when carp fishing.
 
Joe
Have had some experience of crays in France at Boux. Some good advice in the posts above. We used fox shrink but it ran out pretty quickly so we went to tights, double wrapping, blobbing with a lighter to seal the ragged ends. Plastic baits were fairly untroubled so we used them too.
Back leads were a no no. Had a few instances of tightening up to a fish only for the mainline to part after Mr cray had nipped it between the back lead and lead. We sussed what was happening when seeing the little bustards zip wiring down the mainline when winding in.
Oh and they loved pulling the bait stops out of the baits too. Best to tie them on with floss and blob or super glue the tags.
Good luck!
 
Thanks Gents,

Plenty to think about there...interesting point about the silt, almost counterintuitive as I usually try and find clear patches of gravel for carp.
 
Glugged wooden beads sorted out the crays on the kennet. You can buy 20 and 30 mm hard wood beads online to match your boilies, drill small holes into the balls and push paste into the holes. Never tried dying/colouring them but that might be worth trying too at least you have something out there fishing for you. As mentioned earlier crays are cute removing small bait stops try the fox ones that go inside and superglue them .The lads on one of our pits fish into the silt to avoid them too
 
Joe Winstanley said:
Thanks Gents,

Plenty to think about there...interesting point about the silt, almost counterintuitive as I usually try and find clear patches of gravel for carp.
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I rarely fish on t he gravel these days for carp - the main time being in high pressure when they are more likely to be higher in the water column, or in warmer weather with a single on top of a bar they may be using to try and get a bonus take through the afternoons.

If i am putting some bait in through the spring/summer/winter id much prefer to fish in the silt, thats where most of the natural food (there and in amongst the weed) will be after all. ideally a smooth firmer area of silt.
 
Chris Jones said:
My carping days are a distant memory. However, I try to keep tabs on stuff, though I may fail at times. I've not heard of anyone using shrink wrap, at least not what I think of as shrink wrap. Fox Arma Mesh is the stuff I've heard of being used in such situations.
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No idea about carping but my own experience of using Armamesh when Barbel fishing on the Colne was that even a hard hookbait would only last 30-45mins max when the crays were around. They'd nip away at the mesh and even when double layering it the little b******** would still get through. Oddly and defying all logic, luncheon meat seemed to last longer than a boilie or pellet.
 
The shrink wrap was much more effective than the mesh for me.

One other thing was using particle and soaked boiles so they go really soft. I'd imagine what happens was the crays would attack the soft boiles and break them up, increasing attraction. Either way i seemed to get less trouble when doing it.

Once you get carp regularly visiting a spot the crays do shy away.

Other option is tiger or brazil nuts (if allowed). if they are really bad id have some unflavoured rubber tigers too. I know guys who fish these as singles and have massive confidence in them!
 
As has been said by others wooden balls. Hobby craft or similar used to sell um upto about 20 mm. They take flavour and colour really well via the freeze thaw method - bit of dye and flavour as a glug then in and out the freezer as few times. If you cut one open you'll see for yourself. Drill a hole through um first.

Hair stops are a no no, as is tubing, rubber beads and the like.

What I did at korda (Lake not munga on the dance floor at 14.342 wraps), was use lead wire as a hair stop then push it into the drilled hole so that way the back to fronts couldn't grip owt.

Best thing to do with signals is boil um up for 5 - 10 mins, crack the claw and meat out then pan fry in garlic butter
 
If you do need shrink wrap go to RS electrical or similar as you can buy a roll of clear low temperature shrink in a variety of diameters for 7/8 of duck all. Must be low temp for ease of shrinkage. Think trouser snake in ice water
 
Korda was where I experienced them too Steve (Stumpy?).

first session there, Dougal suggested sticking a rod in a corner where he had seen a fish show that morning. Chucked one done there and with nothing doing reeled it in that afternoon to position for the night.
Reeled in a big lump of silk weed and as I grabbed it a huge lobster claw poked out of the weed and started waving around. 😂
 
Tim Harris said:
Korda was where I experienced them too Steve (Stumpy?).

first session there, Dougal suggested sticking a rod in a corner where he had seen a fish show that morning. Chucked one done there and with nothing doing reeled it in that afternoon to position for the night.
Reeled in a big lump of silk weed and as I grabbed it a huge lobster claw poked out of the weed and started waving around. 😂
Click to expand...
Yes tis I fellow group member
 
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