Do any on here still roll their own boillies ??

I was in my garage the other day clearing out a little used corner and came upon all my old boilly rolling kit from my '79/92 stint carp fishing days and it occurred to me that all the guys I see carp fishing these days seem to use nothing but ready mades.
Anyone here buck that trend or are the commercially manufactured ones far superior?.

These days I rarely use boilies as I find that usually maize or sweetcorn outfishes them hands down. If I do use them they are my home made ones, bagged up in small quantities and kept in the freezer. The ones available in the shops out here are either very poor quality or very expensive.

I'd still prefer a stack of two or three maize grains though.

I did until I discovered Glynn Gomershall, the magician ex of john baker baits would make me freezer baits to my or other companies recipes for cheaper than I could make myself.

Graham

But i dont inhale

Sorry about that. TBH i have hardly ever used boilies but the thought that occurs to me is this - What is the advantage of fishing a neat spherical bait? With luncheon meat it is invariably cubed neatly too. All very nice for humans who like neat and tidy appearances but for fish?. With meat i have experimented with a rough cut edge using blunt end of a knife. Why not irregular shape boilies?. There would be more surface area of bait in contact with the water which gives more chance for scents/tastes to leak into the water around the bait. It may also behave more enticingly in the water and less like a fast sinking marble?

Don't make my own now but when I did it was always an all day session rolling perhaps 50kg, drying was the biggest problem took the whole garage up for a few days, never included any flavours in any baits rolled preferring to use the bag and refreeze method.

---------- Post added at 18:07 ---------- Previous post was at 18:04 ----------

chub_on_the_block said:

Why not irregular shape boilies?.

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Often did make baits up that were not round just whatever shape they were when pulled off a lump of made up base mix, mostly used them in the margins, whether it made any difference I don't know but it never seemed to bother the fish that they were different to what they were used to picking up.

I think more people roll there own now than ever before.
With basemixes and additives readily available, its easier than ever.

I still make my own to an old Duncan Kay recipe which does not use eggs only water to bind the ingredients, at least I know my bait will be totally unique when fishing a pressured water & when they do switch on to it I have had some spectacular catches. Also in paste form it is a brilliant bait under a float for roach.

I have a few big buckets of dry mix kicking around because I got it cheap. One fine day I'll get round to making it up. However, I'll have to scrounge some rolling tables from a mate. Chances are that I'll make some perfectly round boilies and a good number of odd shapes to go with them.

Yep chops and boilie shapes, eggs are the curse of a good boilie and so too is boiling!
Most people prefer to buy ready mades. I think this is because a lot of anglers these days lead busy lives and don't plan their trip too far ahead and will simply pick up a bag of boilies in the shop on the way. Many new anglers are also far too willing to jump onto the bandwagon and buy whatever is believed to be fashionably 'best' - without considering there is no such thing!

The discerning angler however (and cheap skate Yorkshiremen like me) will make his own for obvious reasons.

Any commercially bought shelf lifes that don't contain eggs? not many that I know of personally yet a simple flavoured doe recipe is all you need, left to air dry (no need to boil) will catch fish as sure as any other... with a little personalised twist of course :wh

laguna said:

Yep chops and boilie shapes, eggs are the curse of a good boilie and so too is boiling!
:wh

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Why is that then ?

We use to roll up to 5 tons of boilies a week, for a well known Boilie firm and they all used Eggs and were boiled.

Thousands of fish were caught on these boilies and I still use boilies made in a traditional way, I did try another way of hardening boilies but could see no advantage.

So please explain how not using Eggs and Boiling can catch you more fish ?

Bob

Make my own. Having once lived in a house thirty years or so ago in whose little kitchen some of the early boilies were regularly made, I got to know good boilies but never used them except for the time in 1985 when my boilie-maker friend, Kevin, handed me a dozen that were destined for his "Black Water" monsters and told me to try them on the Kennet near Newbury for barbel, fishing that I was doing three days or evenings a week at the time. And I caught a fish, a 6- or -7-pounder, marvelled at my good fortune or luck, then promptly never used boilies for barbel again until the early 2000s. Never made the connection, nor the one with pellets, yet I had been using trout pellet paste with great success for barbel since the mid 1970s. Mental blindspot. Bonkers.

I only need very small quantities of boilies for my barbel and small-river carping, have just two or three A1 recipes, so have a boilie-making session perhaps only three times a year, with some being dried and stored and the others going fresh into the freezer. In such small numbers, boilies and their making are a bit of non-culinary domestic science fun.

flightliner said:

I was in my garage the other day clearing out a little used corner and came upon all my old boilly rolling kit from my '79/92 stint carp fishing days and it occurred to me that all the guys I see carp fishing these days seem to use nothing but ready mades.
Anyone here buck that trend or are the commercially manufactured ones far superior?.

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I've made my own in the past but can't be doing with the hassle these days, besides you can customise them with paste wraps or glugs. Laguna SAC Juice, Marmite and Peanut butter are three of my favourite enhancers, either smeared neat around a boilie or included in a paste mix.

Which is best readymade's or homemade, both have their days, maybe a slight edge to homemade ones. Though if I'm looking to feed a few kilos in session, all my loose offerings will be ready made ones currently I'm using Baitcraft T1's and at £6 a kg I don't think they're particularly expensive.

Specialised hookbaits are the only homemade boilies I'd make now.

Bob Hornegold said:

So please explain how not using Eggs and Boiling can catch you more fish ?

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Don't get me wrong, boiled boilies bound with eggs catch fish and eggs are nutritious and high in protein but boiled eggs aren't soluble in water, they lock in the flavours and nutrients. The boiling process itself denatures proteins and amino acids which, given that fish detect these as a food source I rather think it is better taking advantage of their natural abilities than to make up the difference with artificial flavours or otherwise rely on sight alone.

Boiling is important but only as far as anti-nutrients are concerned whereas soaking and hydrolysis is paramount in bait preparations. Something not many people really consider or understand too well. Even our groundbaits have undergone hydrolysis prior to bagging as I believe a simple damp ball of powdered particles made up with lake water isn't long enough. My opinion of course but it does depend on what ingredients are used, many particles don't need to be boiled like hemp for example as they don't contain phytates, the only real reason for boiling is to help split the kernel and release oils. Legumes on the other hand definitely need to be boiled but I bet there's many that simply crush them and think they're safe to use as is.

My binder of choice being wheat gluten which although isn't water soluble; has a much higher porosity than boiled eggs plus is allows the soluble ingredients to leech better, can be frozen and has a better shelf life without the inclusion of eggs.

chub_on_the_block said:

But i dont inhale

Sorry about that. TBH i have hardly ever used boilies but the thought that occurs to me is this - What is the advantage of fishing a neat spherical bait? With luncheon meat it is invariably cubed neatly too. All very nice for humans who like neat and tidy appearances but for fish?. With meat i have experimented with a rough cut edge using blunt end of a knife. Why not irregular shape boilies?. There would be more surface area of bait in contact with the water which gives more chance for scents/tastes to leak into the water around the bait. It may also behave more enticingly in the water and less like a fast sinking marble?

Click to expand...

The main advantage of using neat spherical boilies comes into play when the angler is catapulting boilees a long way accurately (or throwing a long way using a throwing stick). Try keeping your baits landing in a tight area at distance using irregular shaped baits and you will see why uniform sized 'spherical' boilees can often give the angler an advantage when loose feeding accurately at range.

Hookbaits are a different thing completely of course; and irregular shapes may give the angler (and very possibly the fish too) more confidence.

Back in the 80s/90s I used to make all my own boilees but I haven't made any boilees for about 15 years now and if I want irregular shapes for my hookbait I just use doctored boilees or paste coated baits which I can shape how I like.

Keith