Rock Hard Boilies

I am an experienced angler and know about the Pharangal (excuse the spelling) teeth of Carp, Chub, Barbel etc. etc. being strong and able to crush hard snail shells etc.
But I am still not 100% sure that rock hard boilies are OK for the Carps digestion even if broken into smaller chunks by the Pharangal teeth. I recently threw away all of my shelf life boilies because they were rock hard I was not convinced that they were as safe as some people say they are. Can someone out there (preferably someone who has studied fish digestion) enlighten me. Like all real anglers; I think the Fish come first and I don't want to use something that may cause damage to the fish.

I havn't studied fish digestion so I will keep to the realms of observation. Maize Tigers large sharp shards of swan mussel shell and all manner of undigestable matter are passed quite easy by fish. How do we know? Because you find Them in the bottom of carp sacks. As commendable as your attitude is, what leads you to think they are not as safe as people think. Is this based on any facts or observations? Have you done any basic experimentation to see how quickly a rock hard bait rehydrates? If you want something to worry about, how about the potential ill effect on fishes livers caused by foods with a very high lipid content, you know the type of thing luncheon meat etc.

Dont worry about it...the carp can reduce a boillie into a crushed mess without blinking! I have seen them crush large rock hard pellets in seconds then blow out the bits (koi in a pond).

As andrew says, they swallow all mannor of things...if it does not digest (shell etc) it gets "coughed up"...same as owls do with bones etc etc.

OK I feel a bit better about it now thanks

What made me question rock hard boilies was after I tried to crush some with my own teeth and could'nt so I thought that if a human can't crush one of these rock hard 'stone like' boilies what chance has a carp got?.

But if as you say they regurgitate anything that they can't digest then it is not as bad as I suspected.

Interesting about the high fat (lipid) contents thing , has there been some evidence of harm ?

There were a number of fish losses a few years back because of high fat baits being eaten as a major part of their diet. This is why some waters insist on only low fat course pellets being used and not high oil trout pellets. Unfortunatly I canot be more specific than that, I only know this because I read part of the E.A's autopsy results that were reproduced in one of the mags.

Surely using Luncheon Meat is fine because not enough is used for it to become a major part of any fishes diet. I know the high oil Trout pellets are banned on a lot of waters (for good reason) but these were sometimes used by the bucket load, but I can't see a bait such as Luncheon meat being a problem as generally when using it you feed Hemp, Casters , Corn etc. (Unless you work in a luncheon meat factory) and there is no way that it can become a major part of a fishes diet.