Simple Carp Bait Making
Written by Peter Hooper on May 29th, 2009There are two ways you can go about making your own baits, firstly is to start from scratch and make the base mix prior and literally take it from grass roots through to the finished product, or you can start with a ready made base mix and construct the bait from there.
Each of these methods has its advantages, the main of which is the costs involved and the final quality of the carp bait you are aiming to produce. For example adding flavorings, eggs and any additional oils are the only things required when you already have a good base mix, where a majority have the right quantity and quality of ingredients that are required. Although the more expensive of the two ways you do get a very good quality product at the end of this process.
The second method is to pull together all of the ingredients that are required to make a basic base mix for your bait. There are three main ingredients to make the basic base mix, Semolina, Soya Flour and Ground Rice. It can take a while to get this right but it is worth it in the long run so a little patience goes a long way.
Now is the time to add any powder you have planned for your mix for example robin red or fish meal, one of the key rules to making bait is to remember that you add powder to powder and liquid to liquid. It sounds fairly straight forward but as an example make sure you have added all the powder to your mix and given it a really good stir before you add in the liquids. One of the best ways to mix the dry is to use a sealed bag and shake it around, a clear bag allows you to see how mixed the powders are before you proceed.
With the base mix ready you need to move on to the next step. The manufacturer will have guide lines on how many eggs you should use but the normal amount is four eggs for every kilo of base mix that you have generated. Break your eggs into a bowl and add the amount of flavors you need for the amount of bait that you have and mix it all together in a bowl with a fork, be careful not to put too much effort into this as the air in there will determine how soft your mix is at the end of this process.
Once you are sure that your liquids are all fully mixed you can start adding them to your base mix, a little at a time, not to much but add a little quite often and keep mixing it with a fork until the mix becomes too thick to use a fork on. At this point you have to get your hands dirty as you will need to mix by hand (wear gloves if you don’t want to smell like your bait for the next week). Continue dribbling in the mixes together until when you break the ball open you will see that it is the same dampness all the way through.
Break the paste into sections that can be placed into a bait gun, compress the sausage through the gun using the nozzle that corresponds with the size of carp bait you want, i.e 18mm nozzle for 18mm boilies. When you have the sausage roll it out with a Gardner sausage rolling table, this ensures the sausage is level and will avoid your boilies coming out oval and broken.
Once you have rolled your sausage in the rolling table and produced an amount of mix into the required size spheres you will need to move on to the next stage, boiling your fishing bait. Take a small amount of your boilies and place them in a pan of boiling water for around two minutes. Refrain from putting too many in the pan at any one time as this can restrict the bait from cooking properly.
Once they have been in the pan for around two minutes you can remove them and put them on a dry tray for around 24 hours which will give them a chance to form their skin in full. At the end of this time you will be able to go and try your bait out on the fish.
Tags: Bait, bait mix, carp bait, Carp Fishing, Fishing, fishing bait, outdoors, sports, Tackle
