Designer Baits

[Ron Clay]

Just how good are all these special baits, flavours, additives and recipes, especially for species other than carp. Go into any modern tackle shop and you'll see what I mean. Some of the base mixes for example are extremely expensive. I will shortly be starting a barbel campaign on the tidal Trent. Do you think I should stick with the old tried and tested baits or is it worth experimenting with "designers"

 

[GrahamM]

I've fished many of the rivers in this country for barbel and have never yet found one that didn't respond to more basic baits such as meat, worms, casters, maggots, sweetcorn, etc.

No doubt designer baits have their place with other species as I don't doubt for one minute their potential effectiveness, but I think they're more appropriate in stillwaters, or on relatively short stretches of rivers where a great many anglers are using such baits.

If enough do it on the right stretch it could even cause the barbel to put on more weight than they would if everyone used more conventional baits.........

 

[Philip Inzani]

Ron I would worry more about finding them there...I dont think they will be too fussed about what you put in front of them after that.

 

[Steve Boulton]

Hi Ron the special pastes are very expensive and as graham says do have their place in moderation,but none can replace inteligent angling swim selection etc.I fish the Dove which sees very few anglers and luncheon meat still does the bizz.

 

[Ron Clay]

I should of course have qualified that fish location is paramount. What I meant is that assuming all the rest to be in order, would the use of designer baits give an edge?

 

[Paul Williams]

By designer baits i presume we are talking about pastes and boilies, they definetly do work and can be very effective when applied properly, a friend of mine proved this to me beyond a shadow of a doubt.
However the Trent hasn't yet had the hammering of say the Severn so if i was starting on there i would go in with the standard type baits, i have great confidence in the old pink stuff in a Trent type situation, barbel love it! even well caught fish continue to fall to it at times, so why make work for yourself before needs be?

 

[Ron Clay]

What's pink stuff?

 

[Paul Williams]

Ingredients,
Pork, water, starch, salt, casienate,sodium polyphosphates, spices........thats what it says on my tin of......Luncheon meat!!

 

[Ron Clay]

Thanks Paul. I grew up in the African Bush you know. They had never heard of Luncheon Meat there. They used to call it Bully Beef or Spam

 

[Carp Angler]

Specialist baits need not necessarily be expensive.
My boilies for next year, have an excellent food profile are nutritious and fairly instant, and ready rolled are cheaper than luncheon meat.
Luncheon meat is (approx) 86p for 340g, thats about ?2.50 a kilo(thats before adding all your spices and tumeric etc etc), I'm paying ?2 a kilo for boilies.

?10 a kilo for labelled bait is just giving someone enormous profits.
I know that one of the minor bait companies is clearing about ?2000 profit a week!!!!!
How much are the big boys making?????
Don't let them spin out all those sob sob stories of rising costs and advertising and development.
Most recipes are just taken from the petfood or confectionary market.

The only problem with fishing a boilie on a tidal river, is that if the river is in flood your bait which should contain minimal flavour will not be as appealing as an overflavoured lump of meat.
Tony Miles, in his many articles, says otherwise and thinks that 'dsigner' baits will outfish meat in all conditions.
I'm just sceptical because he has a commercial interest.

 

[tony miles]

I stick to every word I've said about designer baits being superior to meat, where they have been applied properly. Having said that, I have always said that flavoured meat comes into its own on a high, coloured river. However, when I used a new bait in 1998, with an exceptionally low flavour level, both my friend Matthew and I took dozens of good chub and barbel in conditions of thick floodwater. It is very rare for chub to feed normally in those conditions.
And I do NOT have any commercial interest in bait. All the Action Baits range were based on my initial experiments in the late eighties/early nineties, but I relinquished my commercial interest in them at the beginning of the season. Action Baits is noe solely under Trefor's control.
I did this because I wanted to extend my experiments outside of products available to me under the Action Baits banner, which would have led to conflict of interest and made it impossible to give unbiased opinion through my writing.

 

[Carp Angler]

2 points to make here.

1) I am of the opinion that if the water is high and coloured why not fish a glugged or over flavoured version of your normal bait.

2) I didn't realise you had severed ALL ties with ALL bait companies and have no commercial interest whatsoever in bait.

As this has not been made public knowledge I apologise for assuming you were still involved.

 

[Paul Williams]

Tony,nice to "see" you on Grahams site, whilst i can fully agree that designer baits can outfish meat, the if applied correctly bit is as important as the bait itself, don't you agree?
To someone on a comparitivly virgin stretch of water without the means to apply the correct baiting programme i still think that meat is one hell of a barbel bait, certainly second to a good designer ( i hate using that term!)but a close second all the same.
Incedently Trefor still uses it a hell of a lot doesn't he?

 

[Carp Angler]

Yes, the term 'designer' bait has only come about since 'special' baits have been used for barbel.
It is very mis-leading, it implies the bait was 'designed' for barbel, whereas in fact it is just an adapted dog food or similar.
To think that any bait company would employ a team of biochemists, marine biologist, nutrtional specialists etc etc is laughable in the extreme.

I've jusr re-read that passage and I sound like a cynical old git.
Good, that's what I wanted to portray.

The specialist bait market is the biggest money maker that I've ever come across.
I've produced bait on a mass scale in the past and, providing you can purchase the quantities,it is stupidly cheap.
The biggest problem is that gullible people want to see a name on the packet.

 

[Paul Williams]

Carp angler, you are a cynical old git!!! next you'll br telling me that i can have a huge sack of lovely smelling seed bait delivered to my door for ?16, when i know full well i can buy a little bag of carp magic mix for twice the price.....what do you take me for??????

 

[Ron Clay]

Thanks chaps for a really interesting thread. I was also nice to have comments from my old friend Tony Miles. If we could just get Old Father Trent into a reasonable state, I'll get out there and bag me a double or two.

 

[Tony Miles]

Carp angler, there is no reason whatever why you should not fish an overflavoured or glugged bait in high water and have just as good results as with a designer special. I have always said that flavoured meat and high water go together. The point I am making is that the specials work just as well and just because the river has come into flood does not diminish their effectiveness. My 16lb 10oz fish in October came on my second serious barbel trip, in eight feet of floodwater, and I had made NO prebaiting trips. My bait has a flavour level barely discernible to the human nose. You may also be interested that my friend Matthew was forced into a change of venue on Wednesday, having found his usual Ouse stretch unavailable because of some ten feet of floodwater. He fished another stretch with much higher banks, for the first time this season. He also used his low-flavoured specials, because that's all he had with him, and took two fish, of 11lb 3ozs and 13lb 1oz, in a few hours.
And you have no need to apologise! I have twice tried to make it public knowledge through my Coarse Fisherman articles that I have no further commercial interest in bait, but both times the Editor thought my feature overlong and deleted the relevant paragraph!
I'm sorry, but the baits I'm playing around with are certainly NOT amended dog foods and certainly ARE designed with barbel in mind, using water soluble products for leak off into the current and utilising flavours that have been seen to give good reaction in barbel. Certain good carp flavours have been found poor for barbel, for instance.

Paul, yes, meat is a perfectly good bait on a virgin water, but it has always been poor in low clear rivers in daylight. In these conditions, particles or maggots score best, with meat after dark. If you want to use a large bait in daylight in clear water, a special bait can give you this option.
Trefor does use lots of meat, but don't forget he always fishes it on the roll. The texture of meat is perfect for this method. But when Trefor is fishing more statically, certainly in summer in clear water, he uses pastes, generally Action Baits Oriental Dream or Marine Harvest. Trefor will be the first to confirm that meat is extremely poor fished in cubes in daylight in clear water.

 

[Paul Williams]

Tony, no fishing today? me neither!! i agree with your point of view, on a low clear river particles do indeed out fish meat, i was comparing largish baits with each other, not with the likes of maggots.
Interestingly though we had no problems catching Severn barbel during the early days on low clear rivers with meat, my own theory is that the shear numbers of fish present kept the Barbel forever on their toes as it were, amid fierce competion for food.
If there is a reluctance for even "virgin" barbel to take static meat during daylight on clear rivers, are we to presume that they simply are not searching it out, and are staying in their haunts untill dark? Teme fish can be very relutant to leave their cover but they are hardly virgin fish but again they used to be very easy to catch on meat years ago IF you knew where to put the bait....nowadays however it can be the kiss of death and their reactions can be to either leave the swim or to roll on the meat, the latter usually happening when a moving bait becomes "stuck" i can only presume they are seeing if it will move again before taking it?

 

[mark tullett]

Rik, I'm showing my ignorance here but please give me a clue.......how are you only paying ?2/kilo for boillies?, Even the so called'crap' baits are about ?4 in the shops, that's why I tend to stick with meat, particles etc for Carp!

 

[Carp Angler]

Imagine this scenario.
1)Man makes bait.
2)Man sells bait to big bait firm for ?1 a kilo max.
3)Bait company sells bait to tackle shop at ?3.50 to ?4 for a 400g bag or ?7 to ?8 a kilo for frozen.
4)Tackle shop sells 400g bag for between ?5 and ?6.50 and 1 kilo of frozen for between ?9 to ?10

Would you believe me?
Does it sound credible?

I'd like to buy from the maker wouldn't you?

Read one of previous replies about money making schemes........