Boilies

[GrahamM]

Shelf-life boilies have made it easier than ever to have a supply of the carp angler's favourite bait on hand. But most of the very keen carp anglers I speak to still prefer to make their own.

Simple question then - why?

 

[Andy Rooke]

if you are making your own bait you know what goes in to the mix strait away. you can use a well proven base mix and you can always your own things to the mix like robin red, and you can always put the egg shells in to the mix aswell, myself i would rather have someone else make them for you
rooky

 

[Andy Thatcher]

Exactly as Andy says. If you make your own you can set the attractors to the level you want, make other additions. I use proprietry baits most of the time so cannot claim to know what the ingredients are. I think I have an idea but do not know. I tend to have boilies made for me to my specifications and make hookbaits myself. I find this method allows me the flexibility that I need from my bait. For example if I want to use it as a long term food source or a one off attractor bait. Whilst there is an arguement for using ready mades as attractor baits I know I'd be sitting there thinking now if I had one of my made baits out there. There is one exception to this rule for me Richworths frozen Tutti Frutti's are an amazing attractor bait.
Cheers
Andy

 

[Paul Williams]

Andy,
I was going to bring up the old Richworth (frozen)Tutti Fruttis myself!! is this the greatest shop bought ready made of all time? it has certainly been one hell of a bait for me....i'm no full time carper but i'm always happy to grab a bag of tuttis and go....and i think i caught my PB on them....now that might sound strange but i equaled my PB and beat it with in a few hours one on maggot and one on TF and i can't remember which way round!!! (carp angler was with me so he may!)
Why has TF been so succsessful? because i am led to believe it ain't a particulary good food source........it works for me and it worked from the off last season on some uncaught ( i suspect) river carp, with no intense prebaiting and it produced that PB from a water where some guys only get half a dozen takes in a season!!

 

[Andy Rooke]

tutti fruttis are a classic boileie as are scopex. the bonus with making your own bait is that if you was to say make a kilo of Tails up protavit liver you could mix nearly all the bait to a sive of say 14mm bait and you could use whats left over from the mix to make 18mm baits to fish over the smaller onces, as you could also make misshaped baits, as mr thatcher says ATTRACTION LEVELS this is where many people go p.tong on the bait, when i made my own i would experiment on these levels of attraction, i found that the "less level of attraction" could produce.
rooky

 

[DAVE COOPER]

I can't see the point of home mades unless you are a full time carper. I only dabble at it so don't understand the ingredients side and don't spend enough time fishing boilies to experiment.

Only yesterday I decided to make my own Activ-8's, so spent ?17 on the mix and additive, 3hours in the kitchen as each boilie is hand rolled, got a bollicking from the missus for the smell and ended up with just a few hundred boilies.

For the part time carper ready mades have to be the best bet. For serious carpers, prepared to invest in the flavours and bait making equipment, then home mades probably are worth the effort.

 

[Guest]

Hi all, I use shelf-life, ready-mades(frozen) and my own boilies depending on where I'm fishing.

I'll use shelf-life/ready-made boilies when I'm fishing a water that I don't fish very often.
I'll find out the 'going' bait and buy some specifically for that venue.

If I'm fishing a water regularly then I'd make my own bait in large quantities and prebait.
I've got a selection of rolling tables, a compressor and an air-gun to make this process easier.

Years ago the only option was to make your own bait, then frozen ready-mades came along followed by shelf-life boilies, but the trend is now swinging back to frozen ready-mades, funny that!

One thing I've never had the confidence to do is to use air-dried frozen ready-mades or my own bait.

 

[Paul Williams]

Oh no two Dave Coopers, will the real Dave Cooper please stand up!!
Coop's put a few of those A8's in for me!!

 

[Nick Gardner]

I had an interesting conversation with a very large carp tackle centre in Denmark whos Carp expert said that the ready mades are worse in ingredients because of the mass producing machines that roll and boil the baites. I asked him this as I was just picking up a bag of Formula 1 from Nashy as I have had some luck on this already this year and saw above the readymades, a 1kg packet of Formula 1 base mix. I asked if this would be a better idea and he swore that by using the base mix and essential flavours bottle, you got a better bait. He wouldnt get any more money from me buying the base as I would be able to produce abit more bait than the readymades. I think I would still use the Nash air popups dipped in boilie dip and use the others for stringers or free offerings.

Cheers from a chilly Copenhagen,

Nick

 

[Andy Thatcher]

As far as I can tell frozen TF's are made out of Richworths basic bog standard 50/50 mix. It has always surprised me how well they work. I do find that a bait with a little more food content will catch more and longer if you are fishing a water regularly but if you are just doing a fleeting visit only one choice for me.
Cheers
Andy

 

[Guest]

Ooops!! I think I may have pushed the wrong button earlier!...I am the fake Dave Cooper!

I heard a rumer (from a very reliable source) that a particular bait manufacturer sent some bait out to their european distributer which had to be tested for content because of Foot & Mouth.
The bait was of a Liver base (that should give you a clue!) , but the lab that tested the bait (boilies) passed it on to the destributer because there wasn't any trace of any Liver what so ever, not even a flavour!!!....makes you think, doesn't it?!

Atb,

Gaffer.

 

[Paul Williams]

Gaffer,
Don't do that....we have enough trouble with one Cooperman!!!!
Yes it certainly does make you think!! think rip off!!! at least i know TF's work!!

 

[DAVE COOPER]

"Ooops!! I think I may have pushed the wrong button earlier!...I am the fake Dave Cooper!"

Thank Gawd For That! I thought I had turned into a handsome carp catching bloke with amnesia for minute! I would hate to have caught a fish like that mirror, Gaffer, and then forgotten I had.

Coop

 

[Iain Wishart]

Talking of boilies....has anybody bought frozen boilies from a bait rolling firm like the Bait Company?
The choice and prices seem reasonable...any recommend choice of bait?
And no...I ain't Dave Cooper either....he is becoming some sort of celebrity!!

 

[Andy Thatcher]

I use the Bait Company. Have been for a couple of years. They are reliable and will make the bait to your exact specs.
Regarding mixes that is down to the type of waters you fish and the way you fish them. That said as it is becoming warmer now I'd go for something fishy. Activ8, Nutra's BFM for example.

 

[John Tait]

Home-made every time, Graham - the base mix is to my own recipe, there is just me and my nephew using it, and it catches everywhere we use it.

It is basically a 50/50 milk protein/birdfood mix, BUT with a far higher level of one of the birdfoods than is normally used, plus 10% of another ingredient/atrractor which is normally (as far as I can make out) used at 25g per.kilo.

And yes, these levels are perfectly safe, as far as these two aprticular ingredients are concerned - it is merely the cost which keeps the levels of these ingredients low in commercially-produced baits.

And no, please don't ask !!

Jonty

 

[Andy Thatcher]

Jonty the bait baron ?

 

[Philip Inzani]

Going back to Grahams original question?I know its a gross over simplification but I think the general consensus is that Readymades are generally looked on as short term, low food value, high flavour level, high attract baits while baits you mix yourself are seen as lower flavour level food baits for longer term use. Trouble is I dont see it that simply. I could go on for ages here but basically I think a lot of this short term long term stuff is in the head of the angler rather than what is actually happening out there in the lake. I think its all too easy to have one blank and suddenly say "right the baits blown, time to change" This is what leads anglers into a bait making hell and they begin to think that bait is the be all and end all.?.5mls of this 3 drops of that but Ooooohhhhh dont put in 4 drops or the end of the world is nigh!!!
I have seen Carp sucking in stones, wood, bits of plastic and endless other crap that has to be far worse for it than picking up a bolie with 15mls of sweetener in it! I accept that in some mega stocked makes where anglers baits are part of the stable diet then we do have an obligation to ensure our baits are safe but then again what exactly is
safe ? Where are the guidelines to say what the safe levels are for each additive ? I wonder if people worried about it in the days of Kitekat specials ? It does make me laugh. Think about it, on one hand we are saying something like 10 drops of flavour "X " is excessive and it could harm those poor fish and in the same breath we are slinging out a bait with a hook attached with the sole intention of jamming it into the very same fishes gob!
IMO its the start of a downward spiral where we are taking the fun out of everything?.sorry I digress?..

Basically I dont want to be worrying about bait (bolies). I think there are loads of people out there who know a great deal more about bait ingredients than me so I just buy it off them! My current choice of bolies when I fish on rivers is quite simply the cheapest readymade I can find! If I fish a venue where I think the fish have been pressured and "pretty" baits (may) be viewed with suspicion then I use the Grange? the standard CSL recipe. I am not certain that it makes a huge difference over using a readymade as I have not done any proper trials so to speak but I do know that I feel more confident sitting behind a rod that has it on in these situations and I think that counts for a lot.

 

[Andy Thatcher]

Phil, of course you are right regarding the use of readymades as a long term bait. No problem. I have experimented between ready mades, by ready mades I mean your basic bag of boilies not frozen bait, and self made. The self made if made with a little common sense will out catch the ready made by a margin after 3-4 weeks. The ready mades won't blow, never come across a blown bait for carp by the way, they will continue to catch it is just the frozen/freshly made bait will out catch them. I prefer making, should be having bait made, with the attractor levels at a reduced level for example using 2mls instead of 5. This seems to me to speed up the acceptance of a bait as a food source. There is a bait I have used that this doesn't seem to work for me though and you picked it the Grange. I don't change for rivers as this method works for me. The bottom line is that you use what you find works. Back to that word confidence !

 

[David Whitmill]

I've bought some Nash Monster Pursuit ready mades and wondered if anyone knows what's in them? I assume they're made from Monster Pursuit base mix.
Are they as good as ones I could make myself if I bought the base mix and additives, obviously it would work out cheaper to make them myself.
Has anyone used Monster Pursuit and have any opinions on it?