horse food for groundbait

[Robert Ferguson]

Has anyone ever used horse food for groundbait, I am talking for general fishing i.e. roach, perch, tench, carp etc, the food i'm talking about is supa-beet, codlivit and pasture mix. I know some one who can give me some for free and was wondering if anyone had used it.

Cheers Rab.

 

[The Monk]

Ive used molasses in baits from Petsworld, apparently they use it on horses???

 

[Risque Manoofus]

I dont know the actual mix you mention Rab BUT,,, I did try some large black pellets that were some sort of beetfor horses and they annihalated my liquidiser. They actuaLLY shattered the contaliner and almost burnt the motor out into the bargain.

SO BEWARE /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

Any of the dog mixers, complete dog or cat feeds, layers pellet, rabbit food, allliquidise down to decent groundbaits. It depends on what you want top use it for.

The dog mixers make a very spongy explosive type of mix that is good for an active feeder mix base.

The complete dog feed ie, Pascoes, Peiro, work well for a decent groundbait on their own as does rabbit food.

Liquidised rabbit food 50/50 with liquidised pond pellets is a very good mix I use myself a lot.

 

[Nigel Connor(ACA ,SAA)]

How satisfied are we that we should be feeding this sort of stuff to fish from the fish safety point of view given the growing debate as to the wisdom of certain types of pellet?

 

[Maggie]

I think I remember reading in one of my hubbies Carp books from the late 70s/early 80sabout using codlivit in boilie mixes for Carp and I think it was a well known ingredient then, I might be wrong.

 

[Dave German]

Several pepole use pasture mix to bulk out bream groundbait, bit like vitalin apparently, guys at the dutch festivals have been using it, sugar beet swells according to the carp boys, but pasture mix is all cereal & mollasses.

 

[john conway (CSG - ACA)]

I use to keep horses, I tried, as Dave G says, using pasture mix to bulk up some ground bait, but I can't say that it was any more successful than using Vitalin. If you are going to use sugar beet you must soak for 24 hrs before using it. Sugar beet shreads are much better than the pellets, but the pellets will break down they just take a wee bit loager to soak. I don't have horses now so I use scalded ewe nuts as acarrier for micro pelletson the Ribble and they seem to work OK.

 

[Risque Manoofus]

I think Im far more confident and my conscience is clean in knowing exactly what Im putting into the water Nigel rather than trust someone I dont know at all making some mix for commercial profit and me paying them the best part of 4 quid a kilo for it.

I remember someone being trusted to feed our cattle and make a profit. They started feeding them granulated feed made from dead sheep and God knows what else and look were that got us.

 

[Robert Ferguson]

Just like to say thanks guys for the responses. Hi Risque Manoofus, thanks for the advice on the black pellets (supabeet), but my friend told me to soak it first, it turns into a nice moist mixture, looks good to mix with bread crumbs or the like. As far as the other mixes are concerned, I looked into the ingredients and they are all made up of maize, wheat, barley and stuff like that, so they should not harm any fish

 

[MJ]

Hi Robert,

I have used various animal feed pellets as part of my bulk feed for bream in the past. I once used the 'molassed sugar beet' pellets, which I think you are talking about, and they cost me £2.50 for a 20 kilo sack from an animal feeds mill. I saw the exact same pellets selling in a tackle shop a couple of weeks ago, just repackaged as "revolutionary new carp feed" for almost £4 a kilo!

The animal feed I have had best results with is 'ewenuts' like John mentioned (I think the brand name was Ewebol). The pelletsare very dry and take on flavours well. In the water they break down quickly to just a mush. Looks a lot like brown crumb does on the lake bed, and when fish feed over it, they kick up a nice cloud.

My most successful spod mix for big bream wasa 12kilo bucket, filled half with Ewebol andhalf with 4, 8 and 10mm coarse feed pellets (bought in bulk from the same feed mill) and then I added some salmon / halibut oil and let the pellets soak it in for a few days. The ewebol pellets took on the oil great, and also seem to absorb some of the oil out of the fish feed pellets. I chucked in a couple of tins of shop-bought sweetcorn just beforespodding it in, and fished maize on the hook. Was great for bream, barbel like it too, and I would imagine carp will go daft for it.

 

[john conway (CSG - ACA)]

MJ, I also get my Cod-liver Oil, Garlic Powder, and Seaweed powder from the same place our Lass buys her ewe nuts and goat mix from. It's all at a fraction of the price you pay in the tackle shop; however, you have to buy in bulk. Like you've already said MJ Barbel and Chub also like it.On the river I prefer to catapult balls in rather than spod, it somehow seems quicker and I don't have to carry a spod rod. Getting the right mix of scalded ewe nuts to micro pellets can be a bit fiddly, get it wrong and your balls explode in mid air. OK that’s a nice opening for someone /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

 

[Robert Ferguson]

Hi MJ,

It is the same, supabeet is just another name for it, thanks again for your responses everybody, will probably give them a try and see how I get on, f you get the stuff for nothing, then why not try i.

Cheers Robert.

 

[barbelbonce]

Horses eat grass, so horse food should be perfect for grass carp....................discuss.

 

[Bob "chubber"Lancaster (ACA)]

and catching sea horses

 

[neilcod]

ive never used hores food for ground bait but i have used my next door neighbours cat soaked in sun flower oil works a treat honest i never tell porks/forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

 

[coelacanth]

<blockquote class=quoteheader>Nigel(ACA ,SAA) wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>How satisfied are we that we should be feeding this sort of stuff to fish from the fish safety point of view given the growing debate as to the wisdom of certain types of pellet?</blockquote>


The main problem as highlighted in the angling press is with pellets containing high levels of oil of animal origin, especially fish oils. The oils can oxidise and cause problems with the liver and other viscera, and you can also simply get high levels of fat deposition within the body cavity and around the organs.Those foods of vegetable origin which are safe to be stored in the long term for animal or human consumption can also be assumed to be safe for fish (although some may need further processing before they can be digested by fish). Moderation should always be used though.

 

[EC]

John, how do you prepare your ewe nuts exactly?

When I use micro pellets, the type I use will bind after adding a sprinkle of water and allowing to stand for 5 minutes, therefore don't need a carrier as such. I can put them in thro a feeder or squeeze them hard and use a catapult. They will also serve as a carrier themselves for, not too many, bigger pellets, corn maize etc.

I find with micro's when using them dry for loosefeedthat they sometimes dry out and float, as such generally tend to sprinkle a bit of water or oil onto them.

 

[john conway (CSG - ACA)]

Eddie

I just cover however many I'm using, normally about 1/2kg to 1kg with boiling water and as soon as its cool if you rub it with your hands it breaks down into a damp crumb that will form into a ball firm enough to catapult. It generally takes me about 1-1/2hrs from leaving home to get to the river bank, therefore I canscald the ewe nutsjust before I leave home. At the river bank I'll addthe micro pellets as I'm making the ballsread to catapult into the river. By this time you can add a wee bit of river water if the mix is a wee bit dry.

 

[EC]

Cheers John, did you useewe's when you were chasing bream as well mate?

 

[john conway (CSG - ACA)]

No Eddie, for the bream on the Lune I used 50/50 brown crumb and baby chick mash, molasses, hemp and corn in place of micro pellets. However, now I’d be quite happy to use scalded ewe nuts in place of the 50/50 brown crumb and baby chick mash if it was just as cost effective. At that time I was buying my brown crumb, chick mash, hemp and cornin bulk and putting in about 5kg per session. We even went though a phase of taking it in turns to bait up for four or five days prior to fishing and then we’d take about 10kg per baiting session.