Angling-Adventures.co.uk

What Is That Awful Smell

That’s what my wife and stepdaughter said as they walked into the house after a shopping trip. Looking a bit sheepish I replied “just making some bait for My next trip love.” My stepdaughter actually felt physically sick due to the smell, but I have got ahead of Myself.

I have written elsewhere about My Experienced Carp Fishing Friend and the way he was slowly turning me into a ‘Carp Angler’. Having sorted out that I could now tie rigs with a measure of competence we turned our attentions to bait making. Any angler will tell you that there are loads of things in Wife’s kitchen cupboard that make excellent bait, sweetcorn, bread, chick peas, luncheon meat etc, etc but for the biggies you need boilies. There are literally hundreds of flavours on the market some of them really bizarre and they all seem to catch at some point but making your own bait when so much is commercially available seemed at bit OTT to me but I decided to humour him and go along with making my own.

First thing was to decide on a recipe, again there are several ways to do this and it depends on what works for you but the most important thing is the base mix.

My Experienced Carp Fishing friend already had a recipe that he used so it was decided that I would use this tried and trusted mix.

The amounts in the recipe itself are a closely guarded secret but most of the ingredients are:-

base mix is gram flour, soya flour and semolina, added to this was yeast, egg albumin, garlic oil, hemp oil, fenugreek, almond oil and a few other bits, the main flavour comes from adding belachan. This absolutely stinks but is used in a lot of takeaways and Thai food and despite its smell is perfectly edible, it is of course only used in small amounts unlike in bait where more is needed as it is going to be in a lake where smell is important as an attractant.

Anyway half a block of belachan is added to the other ingredients along with four eggs to every 10 ozs of mix. No grams and kilo and cms stuff here.

The traditional way to mix this is by hand to achieve a nice springy paste, personally I prefer to break the eggs into a bowl and slowly add the mix until you have the right consistency for rolling, this will take some practice but practice makes perfect.

Anyway having got myself and half the kitchen covered in this foul smelling goo I was having second thoughts about this bait making lark until my wife , bless her, suggested that I use the mixer that was sitting right in front of me. This thought had crossed my mind but the idea that as this was her pride and joy contaminating it with my rather obscene sludge would be a step to far. Fortunately she is a good cook and see’s boilie making as just another cooking job so why not use the mixer. So after cleaning up and disposing of the residue double wrapped in plastic bags in the bin I started again, using a mixer is so much easier just put all the ingredients in the bowl. Turn it on, whirr, whoooosh, bait made ,,,simples!

Helpful hint is DON’T PUT ALL THE INGREDIENTS IN AT ONCE amounts are not critical but keep about half an egg back just to balance the mix in the mixer.

Having now got my paste to the right consistency it was time to turn it out and roll it, another hint here is to sprinkle some of your dry flour onto the worktop to stop the mix sticking.

So onto the rolling process, if you really get into it you can spend a great deal of money on bait guns to give you a perfect sausage, different size rolling tables and all sorts of other stuff but the fact is that all that wont make your bait any better, its all in the ingredients and then presentation at the lake. 

So take a lump out of the bowl and roll it out into a long sausage at about the thickness you want then using a sharp knife just slice it into pieces, you can at this point roll the small pieces into balls but I really don’t think it matters, if it smells nice Mr. Carp is gonna pick it up.

Boilies are called boilies for a really obvious reason really, they are boiled !!

So you now need a saucepan of boiling water, it needs to be boiling hard before you put your baits in as it will immediately stop boiling and will take a couple of minutes till it starts again, usually it will take two or three minutes of boiling to get your baits to perfection but again it is a case of trial and error as every recipe will differ in the amount of cooking it needs.  I usually put about a dozen or fifteen in at once.

A handy hint here is to open all the doors and windows you can, as already the smell is pretty awful and the cooking process will only make it worse, think of your wife cooking dinner , its ok until it gets in the oven and then all the flavours and aromas start to waft through the house, it’s the same with boilies apart from the smell.  

When you think your boilies are cooked enough using a slotted spoon remove them and place them on some kitchen towel to cool and dry a bit, putting another good handful in to cook. Once cool and dry your baits can be frozen to keep them fresh, again the smell can be a bit strong but this will disappear once frozen. The ones I made are called Satans Arse Mix for a very good reason, they stink however they do actually work and are an excellent bait for carp although they do also attract bream.

I have used these in conjunction with several different ground baits especially Ricks homemade one.

There are now a wide variety of ready made mixes and flavours available so why not give making your own a try as there is nothing quite like  the sense of satisfaction you get from catching on your own bait using one of your own home made rigs.

My thanks and acknowledgements to Dr. Ian Cresswell Phd.  

Occasional angler and good egg.