Keeping Pellets

I have a dustbin full of old pellets; some were only bought 6 months ago, others are up to 3? years old. they are a mixture of halibut, plain trout, and specialist pellet. At this rate some will not used for another 3 years, though others would be unlikely to last beyond about July.

I have a suspicion that I would be best dumping the lot and starting again in the summer.

Dive to the bottom of the bin and see what the old ones are like.

I imagine the oil in the pellets would keep for quite a while, especially if they have been kept in a cold place.

Maybe the old ones could be mushed up into some sort of groundbait or paste?

If there kept dry they should last for years.

if you want to start over donate them to the junior days of your local club.

I've had mine for ages as well Mark, they've been frozen, defrosted, frozen again, I can't see any signs of decomposition, so I personally wouldnt dump them unless its a confidence thing, in which case get shut!

I'm hoping to use mine up this spring with a fair bit of prebaiting!

When storing pellet you should turn the container over every few weeks other wise all the oil collects in the pellet at the bottom. (I was told that buy guys that reat Trour and Carp for a living)

I wouldnt have confidence using 3 year old pellets but i wouldnt throw them away. Id use them in a mix of 50/50 with newer pellets.

I've got boilies three yrs old!! still as crap as the day they were lifted off the shelf.

I'd keep the pellets, even if it was for three months prebaiting on the river.

pulverise the old pellets, sieve, and add to groundbait....Wallah!

Apparently, old pellets can cause fish livers to degrade.

Check out Anglers mail, bottom of page 28-29.

I'd feed them to Andy Nellist's suit!

Jonny, It was the AM article that prompted this. Just checked out the dustbin. About 15lb of 4mm dating back to 2002 (remainder of 25kg bag) plus some 21mm and 14mm same era. The rest are new ones bought recently apart from tiny bags of odds and sods. Think I'll bin the old stuff and manage the stocks a bit better. The big pellets (14mm and 21mm) are difficult to drill due to their age, usually crumbling.

Mark,

Dump the bloody lot of them and start catching on real baits again :-0)

Alternatively, dry them out a bit, unless already dried, and grind them up to a fine crumb and use as groundbait additives.

Unless stored very carefully, pellets which have been exposed to the air should really be disposed of after 3 months, certainly no more than 6. The presence of rancid lipids (which you probably won't be able to detect by smell) can lead to steatitis and ceroidosis of the liver, plus there's the possible presence of mycotoxins.
Although the liver damage mentioned may not immediately kill the fish, at times of stress (such as spawning, Winter, low flow/oxygen in Summer etc.) the liver will not be able to meet the energy demand.
At least one major US zoo had significant problems with ceroidosis in fish in a conservation programme as a result of this until they altered the storage conditions and ceased stockpiling foodstuffs. Costs more to buy in smaller amounts, but better for the fish.

If the shelf life is that short (and I can see the truth in what you are stating) just how old are the pellets we buy when they've already been stored in the tackle shops?

Are there differences in different types of pellets?

Should we even be using certain high-oil types of pellets, especially in such a hphazard way?

If bought in sealed bags, the shelf life should be as printed on the packet as long as they stay unopened (really good pellets would be nitrogen-packaged or vacuum-sealed, but this is expensive). The amount of oxygen in a bag, even if packaged in air should not be enough to cause serious oxidisation within a reasonable timeframe. If they are purchased by weight from storage bins (as happens in my local retailer), it's really a case of hoping that they have enough turnover so that the lipids in the pellets never get the chance to go rancid before being used.
There is a huge range of pellets available for aquaculture, halibut, trout and carp pellets are just a few from many, the composition will determine how quickly they deteriorate under given conditions (fish and crustacean oils become rancid particularly quickly). There are some really potent feeds produced for shrimp farming, but I wouldn't suggest people trying them in our low temperatures on omnivorous Cyprinids.
In moderation most things are fine, but it might be interesting for a lab to do a necropsy on fish from some of the rivers that get really hammered with pellets. The trouble is that if a fish is more than a couple of hours dead there's not much use sending it off, and by the time most dead fish are found they are well beyond that (plus of course the costs involved).