Apr 06 2010
Homemade Fishing Boilies and Recipes for Big Carp and Catfish!
You can always learn more whether you are new to making, adapting and improving baits or not. Improving readymade baits and making really outstanding homemade baits takes a good deal of experience and knowledge to get consistent at it but here will be provided a really sound starting point to get the ball rolling as it were! We all start somewhere in making and improving baits but why not start big and aim for unique reliable baits to catch big fish and read on!
The concept of making little round balls of food for fish like carp and other species has a very long history and even back in the sixteenth century and beyond there are historical references to such activities utilising various protein-rich ingredients, binders, sweeteners and enhancers and so on. In the UK Fred Wilton pioneered the modern version of making baits that delved much deeper into essential fish dietary requirements in order to exploit them to make baits that fish would find many highly attractive and stimulating reasons to consume to the effect that the more they ate the more they would want them! The HNV or high nutritive value bait approach is just one angle – these baits are rich but other baits can also hook fish although they may be far less nutritional as in the case of over-flavoured baits for instance; but readymade baits did not always exist and various other approaches to homemade baits work although usually you need to be a better angler to keep catching on instant baits compared to HNV baits!
The original protein-rich high nutritional value baits were designed around caseins and caseinates but other protein sources also figured including liver, yeast, and fish materials etc. From the fifties and onwards the rise of specialist baits really has exploded but a shift occurred from the mainly milk orientated baits of the seventies and early eighties to the fish meal and bird food and other combinations and styles of baits that predominated. It was realised by those who did their research well that fish need carbohydrates in baits to fully utilise the proteins in them, and also milk proteins sky-rocketed in price over the years so other protein sources have been sourced again and again; however, caseins still figure largely in nutritional baits of most kinds today! Fish meals really became popular in the eighties and nineties like the bird foods and other forms of ingredients as homemade bait-making anglers strove to cut costs while developing highly nutritional digestible baits and it can be significantly cheaper to make your own outstandingly successful potent baits than just depend upon ready made baits – especially if you are smart in how and where you buy your protein-rich ingredients!
Although fish meal baits came more into prominence in the nineties, bird food and milk protein type HNV baits were not the only forms of nutritional baits as there are endless variation, and the success of flavour over-dosed baits and fake baits show that many other options also exist. Fish such as carp or catfish can be trained like dogs or humans for that matter to come back for more food when it is introduced to them regularly; where baits contain particularly stimulating nutrition and bioactive factors then baits can be extremely successful – even if you are only an average angler. HNV type baits can be an excellent leveller of results even against better more talented and experienced anglers when you regularly apply them over time – which is a major reason I prefer to make my own unique economical ones and because this is a long-proven big fish tactic for both big carp and catfish and other species too!
Knowing how to manipulate and exploit fish behaviours and instinctive needs internally by bait substance secrets is the most powerful starting point in beginning to design fishing baits – and not just knowing a bit about a few additives, ingredients or flavours! Finding out about fish internally is really exciting because the more you know how to manipulate your fish using the leverage of baits substance secrets the easier they can be to catch! Knowledge really is power that leads to far better than average catches of big fish!
When you begin bait making learning about fish first then it is very much easier to select a range of bait ingredients, additives, special enhancers, palatants, flavours, digestion boosters, addictive and habit-forming substances etc with absolute confidence! To write about bait in depth takes a depth of personal experience and catches from experimenting with bait substances and various combinations and levels etc over many years and my bait making days began for me around the age of 7 back in the early seventies. Many new bait substances are available now that really seriously boost catch results and because these substances are so potent you do not need to use much of them.
In the old days milk protein baits were used very sparingly by most anglers because for one thing they were very high in protein so the fish did not need to eat many before getting full; and anyway, they worked instantly on the vast majority of waters. When fish meal baits came into prominence it was the relatively new tactic of dumping many kilograms of boilies into a swim to draw and hold the fish. Please do not get the idea that you need to make hundreds of kilograms of homemade boilies to catch big fish because just a handful of extremely potent homemade baits are always be just as good as any pricy readymade bait when you fish them in the right spot with a suitable rig!
The major reason why you can have absolute confidence in your own unique homemade baits and recipes is because preferably you will have studied the fish in detail in terms of the many factors that you can potentially exploit to manipulate their feeding modes, feeding habits, feeding intensity and location and so on. I spent a very long time putting this kind of information all into my ebooks to make this far quicker and easier to understand, and to put into practice in formulating your own unique baits that catch fish again and again. Now I will provide you with a simple homemade bait recipe for big fish that will kick start you on the bait-making road – or will give you something a little bit different if you already have some experience!
The bait below is not a complex one and anyone can make it – or versions of it with confidence when aiming for big carp or catfish for instance. This bait is based primarily on highly digestible fish meal and not caseins to keep costs low and there are additions in it that you may or may not utilise to boost effects and performance and make your bait especially unique. When making baits it is an art and not just science so bear in mind that levels and ingredients can be adjusted to however you like and this bait although digestible and highly nutritionally attractive is not as optimised for digestion as is possible looking at this recipe form a scientific standpoint – but your fish will not mind at all!
7 ounces of low temperature fish meal. 2 ounces of calcium caseinate. 1 ounce of 90 mesh casein. 2 ounces of CC Moore Meggablend sweet. 1 ounce of blood plasma. 1 ounce of hydrolysed poultry protein. 1 ounce of keramine soluble meat protein. 1 ounce of chopped fennel seeds.
You can make baits using liquid eggs or other binders but add liquid foods such as hydrolysed worm extract, stabilised maggot juice, liquid Belachan, CC Moore Red Venom, plus a low volume dose of oil – such as evening primrose oil and cod liver oil for example; many anglers like to use flavours, or mixed palatants, enhancers and appetite stimulators etc – you might try CC Moore green-lipped mussel or Belachan flavour instead of the usual Scopex, pineapple or chocolate malt so currently familiar with pressured fish; you might even add a citrus extract or liquid spice extract in unusual combinations and levels. CC Moore figures quite a bit as a supplier in these suggestions and ideas; of course you get what you can and certainly I source many really potent bait substances that are not found in bait company product listings – so keep an open mind! (For much more detailed further information on homemade bait making and design, and boosting and adapting your readymade baits see my dedicated website Baitbigfish right now!)
By Tim Richardson.
Now why not grab your opportunity to maximise your catches for life with these unique fishing bibles: Big carp baits secrets, and Big carp flavours and feeding triggers secrets, plus Big carp and catfish bait secrets! For these and much more now visit Baitbigfish the home of the world-wide proven homemade bait making and readymade bait success bibles!




