Sweet or fruity boilies for barbel,your views please?

My feelings swing to spicy,meaty,fishy baits but a decent angler i know does quite well on Richworth tutti-fruities,and ive heard from someone in the past esterberry was pretty good also,baits are confusing for what works for one is useless for another.

the angler that you know may be doing well on tuttis because he is using something different to everyone else,fish type boilies are very simalar to pellets in makeup and smell,its given me something to think about anyway

I think you've touched on another angling myth Alan. There are a huge number of variables to consider: the base mix of the boilie, the make up of the flavour, what the flavour tastes like to a fish, what the boilie is being fished over, confidence of the angler, etc.

If tutti frutti was the only flavour available for boilies I suspect that we would catch loads of barbel on them. Used against a savoury flavour, we might not be able to measure the difference over a season's fishing. Whether a savoury flavour would give an edge or not would probably take years to decide.

Conventional wisdom is that flavours are labels that enable fish to identify and home in on particular boilie recipes. Barbel love both fishmeal and seed based recipies and there is still a debate on whether milk protiens give an edge over time that makes the expense worthwhile.

My own view is that most conventional boilies will catch barbel reliably, as will pellets and live baits such as maggots, caster and worms. Which is best depends on the presentation and conditions, not an added flavour.

The family and i walked down a stretch of the Gt.Ouse over the weekend and i just had to sneak a box of mixed boilies(5 varieties),i fed these into some spots and a few of them had fish feeding when we returned,these baits were fishmeal and fruit boilies and the barbel and chub couldnt give two hoots which they picked up(ive mentioned this in another thread on source boilies),im beginning to think that as long as they are a quality bait the fish will respond if fed properly and no silly mistakes are made as you say Sean,but i would like to know if the fruit or sweet baits are as attractive in coloured water as the savoury ones.Im wondering about milk baits and expense shouldnt be an issue as feed quantity should be much less,but if everyone does it the fish wont need to feed half the year and their effectiveness WILL wane,which is a part of the problem with pellets in modern times,with everyone and his dog using them(i think im becoming more doom and gloom every year,its an age thing).

Reading between the lines here, but a milk pro bait doesn't have to be sweet or fruity.



To my mind, there is no obvious reason why a sweet or fruity bait should be less effective than a savoury one. It's just a matter of confidence enough to give it a fair go. Which I should add, I haven't yet managed!

When one bait is more effective than another, IMO, it would be rare for the reason to be as superficial as flavour..

Personally I think fish (all fish) will eat almost anything. But as they learn by association, if a bait, regardless of flavour, makes them feel good, they will return and eat more. Happy days! If however that flavour leads to a trip to the bank too often, they will learn to avoid it, so we change the flavour and return to catching. Happy days again. The answer is, get the fish to associate that flavour with good food, feed it often and Bag Up.

Im not playing devils advocate here,but if you gave a person something that tasted gorgeous and it filled them up,would they give it up to have something that is better for them....not b*oo*y likely,why should fish be any different,otherwise most fish would not expend energy trying to find every grain of hemp,they just love it,it must be like a chocolate bar to them,their tastes are different,but milk baits are possibly like a rich dessert to them(if only we could speak barbellise),its a puzzle that is so interesting,because the basis of the boilie must be sound before any flavour could work.Great ideas fellas,all of which add to the picture.
Darren,your knowledge is far greater than mine,my thoughts would be that if you made your own bait and the fish liked it you should be very successful as you would be alone in its use,so the novelty would be harder to wear off,so why do so many 'named' anglers use or say they use certain manufacturers baits as any amount of anglers could be using it by chance,other than sponsorship rearing its ugly head again.

I still havent broken into the whole boilies or pellets being succesfull thing yet at all .
Just been out tonight to a spot that I was pretty sure I had and lost three barbel bites to two weeks ago .
I admit that I didn't get any bites no mater what i tried but on the whole in my limited experiance I have found that naturel or more old fashioned baits like meat and sweetcorn catch me fish yet boilies and pellets don't .
I am still wishing I had not bought a bag of source boilies for £8.99 that will proberbly end up as ground bait mixer since they just don't get bites .

I must be a sucker as i have bought some 10mm marine halibut pellets from dynamite baits just because they are in all the mags as good for barbel but so far I can't tell (my tropical fish at least liked these and even though they were too hard to eat they didn't want to loose the chance and chewed them ,more than I can say for boilies)

Hi Alan,

This is a subject that I personally find fascinating, so much so that I had to force myself to leave it alone as it was taking over my fishing. To the extent that I would look forward to my next delivery of ingredients than actually going fishing!

Hemp is very nutritious, providing vitamins, minerals as well as good fatty acids and energy. It is also a very safe food source in that fish rarely get caught on it. I think fish would benefit from searching out every grain.

As with hemp, fish are I believe susceptible to tuning in to an available food source. I think it was Fred Crouch who discussed how humans seek out variety - for instance, sweets that are multi-coloured! - but fish may be programmed to take advantage of a food source while it is available. Perhaps this has a bearing on the success of widely used baits - it is used so much fish switch on to it almost to the exclusion of other baits...

I would say that sponsorship is a major factor though eh!

I have caught barbel on a wide variety of baits and flavours, in fact the only flavour that I had a zero result with was one specifically made for barbel by Archie Braddock. I'm certain that others caught in it but for me it was an efficient barbel repellent.

I have had most of this seasons fish on a fruit flavour whilst fished against a fishmeal based fish flavour.

I had my biggest fish ever on a lightly flavoured - vanilla - boilie/paste bait during high, coloured flood conditions.

The only thing that stops more people using a different flavour is confidence. If Martin Bowler or Matt Hayes started promoting great results with rhubarb boilies then there would be thousands of anglers using them.

Try something different - only dead fish follow the stream.

Darren i can understand your interest in baits and their ingredients,but there seem to be no golden rules,so you can easily convince yourself off of a successful bait after a prolonged bad spell of results,as for hemp the value of it nutrition wise(oil,protien,vitimin is fairly obvious),but surely if all barbel wanted was a high quality food item they would eat the 'good' boilies and pastes as it saves the work of hunting the grains out(without mentioning the amount of feed items to being hooked ratio,which is a rare occurance at all with hemp),we are all aware bait is but one part of the jig-saw of barbel angling.Do you reckon the beggars would eat virtually anything if they were left in peace to do so.
Excuse me for the shortening of your 'handle' Froggy,you mention source boilies,i have caught a few on them in the last few years,but slightly less effective during the summer,better from now till the end of the season.
Dave,your bait and its results show me that the fish will respond to these sweeter,fruity flavours,i also now of your beliefs on the quality of your bait,which are similar to Darren's,so thats another segment of the puzzle.
THANKS FOR THE INTEREST GENTS.