If you buy a loaf of bread and forget about it, you can be fairly certain it will go stale after a couple of days; thereafter, it will inevitably go mouldy given the right conditions.
An opened tin of ‘something’ might last a bit longer in the fridge but it has an end-date the same as every food item has. Some foods obviously last longer than others, and in case you ever forget when it was bought, the ‘USE BY’ is usually found somewhere on the label or lid.
All well and good, but what about the bait you buy?
Most of the bait bought in tackle shops and online has some sort of protective packaging to help preserve it. Some also have a date stamp but most don’t. So how do you know when it was made – and is it safe for fish?
The simple answer is: unless you make it yourself, you don’t!
Save for the few manufacturers who bother to state ‘use by’ dates or declare very long shelf life, you simply have to use your own judgement by inspecting the product. Look for signs of mould growth or discolouration, familiar smells of staleness and the like. If like most anglers you only buy your bait a day or two in advance, then there’s probably no need to worry about shelf life – providing you trust the supplier that is. However if you make your own or have left overs lying about for a few extra days or even weeks in some cases, then you would probably want to know how safe they are.
Knowing what goes into them is the first consideration. Meat and fish for example might not keep as well as a bird food bait or baits made with eggs.
General guide to something ‘off’ would be as follows:
If it smells rank, it probably is, chuck it out
If it looks mouldy and contains meat or fish products then chuck it out.
If it has turned a funny colour, chuck it out
If it has bought from someone you don’t know and it smells foisty, chuck it out
If it has a fur jacket and you don’t know what it is, chuck it out
If you don’t remember when or where you bought it or what it is, chuck it out
‘Safe’ to most of us means fresh. However, those that know me will be aware that I don’t ‘do’ fresh and certainly not sterile in anyway shape or form. That’s not to say I don’t exercise caution because I do. I also have the advantage of knowing what’s in there and EVERYTHING gets tested.
The better bait as far as I’m concerned (remember there is no such thing as BEST) is one that the fish prefer. If that means ‘pre-digested’ then that’s what I will use, and in case someone reading this doesn’t know what pre-digested baits are, you only need to know that they are safe if designed that way. In fact they are superior in every way and they are NOT just carp specific – all fish prefer them!
Bread is pre-digested by the actions of groups of bacteria called ‘yeasts’ for example. The mould that grows on it (after its sell by date) is called penicillin. Most penicillin is safe to consume and is beneficial to most animals that consume it. This includes fish, and especially roach and chub. A bread mash is probably the ultimate fish catcher that has been in and out of the freezer more times than the wife’s jaw moves. In fact according to some specialist anglers a good mash can only get better with age. I agree, but it does have its limitations.
Generally most bacteria are friendly and beneficial to the animal. Some are essential to life itself but what’s significant to us as anglers is that once a good colony of friendly bacteria has taken hold and is eating away at the food item, it will mostly stay off the nasty ones – competitively. That’s important to know.
The quantity of a particular bacterium eaten will likely give you and me the trots because we’re not used to it. There are cultural differences too, but you would need to have a particularly weak stomach or allergy for it to affect you that way in the long term. Fish are remarkably adapted to consuming what we deem to have ‘gone off’. A lot of oriental fish farmers, for example, suspend chicken coops over lakes for the fish to feed on the ‘pre-digested’ waste. These fish are destined for the table and are perfectly healthy having eaten nothing but chicken crap.
Hens have a short digestive tract similar to fish and so what they eat is only partially digested – pre-digested food.
It’s a massive topic and I have only just touched upon its importance in fish nutrition, but please consider and not just dismiss pre-digestion as a fad or ignore its benefits to anglers. It’s a natural state of things and it helps the fish we catch to grow big and strong. Fish really do prefer it and it is why (given their short digestion times and/or no stomach as such) they derive nutrients far more efficiently from something that’s already partially broken down by the actions of enzymes and bacteria.
Anyone thinking of making a paste from Chicken sh**t ? It’s already been done.
So, too, the chicken feed: it’s full of pre-digested nutrients; just look at the label on a sack of layers mash if you don’t believe me. This is another good ground-bait additive by the way, along with ewe’s nuts mixed with breadcrumb!
Roquefort: a source of excellent barbel baits
I was tempted to share with you a couple of our commercial paste recipes with extended shelf lives, or rather how it is made. In particular the Halibut Cheese paste (made with Roquefort sheep milk blue cheese) It is certainly no great secret describing how to make cheese or how to combine it with one of the best barbel baits out there. But then I recall the countless hours we spent perfecting them, the waiting times in between (for the enzymes and cultures to work their magic), the field trials and all the rest…
Instead I will share with you how to preserve left-over maggots naturally with krill (KPH of course) without freezing – which you can carry around with you in your bag for up to five years or so…. another time!
Chris Wilson (Laguna)
