hemp and vitalin

Good evening fellow anglers.

firstly if you can help with my question please skip the waffle and see the last paragraph,i just fancied a little type!

Due to the modern day expense carp fishing is engulfed by,marketing and fancy packaging,from over priced featureless seas holding 15 fish,to triplets of bivvys scattered around 1 acre puddles,and most importantly for me,the fierce competition for the best baits the fish will eat,whether it be quantity or quality,i tend to shy away from taking the sport too seriously.

i love catching carp,fish that are of respectable size for an individual water will always keep me happy.

for this reasoni have chosen a small local club in west sussex that are in control of large sections of river.a small river that holds fish up to 36lb.

this year i have heard from numerous people that it isnt fishing well throughout,which is unusual given the many various features the water offers these superb fish.i managed to have fish up to 22lb during the first season and a half,without having to dump in too much bait!i tried pre-baiting 200 baits before a session over a few days before id go,and had reasonable results,but no whackers.i have spoken to one guy who pre baited around 50 kg of bait over a month before the season started and he has hauled big style where most are struggling.half of this was hemp and half was chops and was on a tidal stretch where alot will get washed over a large area.

interesting that its been so dead this season,usually excessive heat slows the fish down eventually,so would of thought a warm april,and a wet summer may have produce,but ive had reports of lakes all over france that have been unusually quiet too.how has everyone got on compared to last season?

my question is,having never been into using massive loads of bait,can i buy hemp in a state where it doesnt need to be frozen,as someone whomentioned it to me,said id have to boil and thenfreeze it!?i dont have a freezer big enough,just an ice box!if this is the only way to keep it,would vitalin be a suitable alternative as a pre baiting material?i guess i could shaped it so itmay actually hold bottom quite well.but ive only used it once as a kid,my friends old man gave it to him,i know nothing about any prep or glucose that may be needed.also,where is the best place to buy hemp?tried scats but they didnt have the right stuff.yes i am trying my best to do this on the cheap=-)

many thanks guys and girls hope you havnt fallen asleep after all that!tight lines and wrap up warm!

rory

Most animal feed suppliers will stock hemp, but it does need preparation, and possibly freezing, unless you do fresh batches just when you need them!

Maize is cheaper than hemp, although it still needs preparation it does not have to be frozen. Cost wise it's dead cheap, say 6-8 quid for 25kg, this combined with vitalin would be a cheaper alternative than hemp, also consider ewe nuts, again dead cheap!

Crafty can see your point about the carp scene,it can be a little bemusing at times.
I have used all manner of pet foods including rabbit food,chicken feed and vitalin,they all work as feed .
Can I ask how much you would be paying for vialin as in some places I have seen it was two pound a kilo and in others I have seen two kilos for a pound so shop around first.
There was an article recently in coarse fisherman were vitalin was being used for river carp(very effective) he reckons and so do I with my limited river carp experience.He was adding a few broken boilies of the hookbait also to the mix but doing the same with any hookbait would work just as well .
I could send you the article if you like just drop us a line and I would stick in the post ,good luck anyway.

cheers guys much appreciated!

Scats do vitalin 10 pound for 15kg,now i just need to find where to get some maize from.EddieC,im guessing its a question of boiling it for a few minutes?and you dont have to worry about storing it after preperation?tempted to give tigers a go as hookbaits,and one rod boilies.

cheers for the offer of the article Gav,if its got the whole preperation guide to vitalin in,then that would be very handy.can you PM me on here your address?then i can send you stamped envelope?if not ill have a look online im sure theres something in the archives if i look hard enough!

im pretty gutted at present as this mild blip would be an ideal time to start piling it in,but the bonus pay i was meant to get is currently on hold due to staff being away,so fingers crossed!

saw 4 small carp on the top last week in one group,i havnt seen a single fish on the surface since the beginning of july!

quietly confident that doing this sort of pre baiting will increase my chances of better fish quite a bit,the main rivers average size from what people have told me is about 15lb,and my short sessions have produced mainly fish of about 11lb,a few smaller,a few bigger including a 15 and 22.but my biggy was off the top,its getting better fish to feed confidently on the bottom that i want to achieve,even if i only manage a few upper doubles i will be well happy!

hopefully i can start my mission next week,i think i should just presume im gonna get a bit more dosh,spend 30 kwid on bait and a tenner on a few bits down the tackle shop,and go!its easy enough to fish with moderate results,but ive already had so many decent low doubles in a huge range of conditions and circumstances,that i wanna better myself.most people could fish the smaller sections of river and catch a few fish tommorow,i may resort to doing the same!

i was luck enough to have 2 holidays this year,my football team are playing crap,im getting itchy feet for a proper go at the river again!

tight lines everyone

Where abouts do you live Crafty? any where near Chesterfield? i sell hemp, vitalin, maze, brown crumb, checkout my web site www.gone2seed.co.uk then give me a bell, i should be able to help you./forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

If you live near Newark then i can easily meet you, or lincoln way then i could meet you saturday./forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

steady wilson your nearly as funny as your alias!i live in brighton lol what a clonker!

got the vitalin for 8 kwid 15kg,and the whole maize for just under a tenner,25kg.

eddie,how do you have to prepare the maize?and i can keep it say in a cool dry place once this is done,for a week say?

tempted to chuck in a few tigers,i used them once as a kid,boil for half hour and leave to soak for 12 ish?

thanks for all your help guys,i may have time to do a bit of themaize later so if anyone could help this eve would be cool.

tight lines

Soak your maze, then put it in a pressure cooker then just boil it for 15/20 mins. Then you can freeze so much or keep it in cold water in a seeled tub.


"<u>steady wilson your nearly as funny as your alias!i live in brighton lol what a clonker!"</u>
I dont get you?? what you mean??

trying to sell me stuff when im hundreds of miles away!and i meant your nearly as funny as the man himself,wilson!and if you dont reckognise the quotes then you dont warrent being called wilson 3 /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

cheers for the help mate,nice carp by the way!you checked out my pb from the river?i dont think ill ever better that achievement,22lb off the top,in the dark,in a flood under the rod tip!wanna master the more convential methods now!

tight lines buddy

Yes mate i have just checked ya pic, very nice fish. I looked in your profile to see where you was from but its blank. I aint going down Brighton delivering lol.
Any way mate good luck and tight lines./forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

soak for how long?and you mean use the biggest availablesaucer to boil,i dont need to pressure cook and boil surely?im 23 i dont have a pressure cooker anyway! lol i could use my giant noodle wok tho(ooooh errrrr)

as for the vitalin,is there much wrong with taking the dry mix down the river in a bucket,adding a bit of condensed milk as suggested,and a bit ofriver water to mould into cricket balls and just lob it in?coz i fish under the rod tip 90% of the time because i dont like contending with flow,plus its a very narrow river so carp will like slack spot sclose in.obviously it wont be bonded as well if itsnot frozen/left to stand but im guessing i can still do it this way?

enjoy the weather peeps,love it!

a good way to make vitalin river proof (so it doesn't roll away) is to make it up in a bucket and then jam another bucket on top of it to squash it and compact it all.

Take out the top bucket and let it set for a short period (til it cools is usually enough) and you're left with a big disc shaped cake. (think of a victoria sponge) which you can then break off lumps to throw in.

He is alive??!!

cheers rik.about8 kilos of maize has gone in since yesterday lunch.i was amazed returning tonight that there were atleast 5 carp tails up on the stuff!

dont get me wrong,this river has alot of carp in it,but it has been slow over the summer and ive not really fished since catching my pb!nor seen many fish for that matter!i caught that off the top and have yet to master convential methods in these awkward conditions.

i noticed watching these fish feed tonight that one or two smaller carp were tails up constantly,while 2 muchbigger fishwere patroling the area a bit more,then when they moved in,the smaller two fish moved off for a minute,but they did not really get down and nosh it up quite the same.

this means that the better fish,once use to the bait will hopefully be more plentifull than the smaller ones,as from what i sawtonight they obviously have territorial supremacy.was very pleased to see no bream or signs of silver fish on the maize,for this reason i may leave out vitalin completely,infact i am confident of using the stuff as hookbait after what ive seen tonight!

my main concern for those of you that are into the science,is river temperatures-do they drop anywhere close to the level they do on stillwaters?just im scared of over feeding the area if we have some hard frosts over the coming weeks,i initially was going for 3 weeks pre-baiting before actually fishing,but the carpare on it after 24 hours!i wanna give it time so the better fish get more confident though.

obvously it deepends where the water comes from,the source is spring fed,surely river carp having to be moreactive than stillwater fish,so therefore have to feed harder even in winterto compensate this?

would much appreciate a quick line from anyone who has any info on this as i do not want to waste hours pre-baiting for nothing!ta!

thanks for thosewho have helpedme on the prepairing of bait,jeesh the maize swells up twice its size,works out at nearer 50kgs not the bag weight of 25!

tights lines

rory