How to mix your boilies up and the carp’s head

When it comes to boilies, everyone has the same mindset and don’t the carp know it. So why not introduce some confusion into their daily routine and diet, just providing you with an edge over the guy next-door – and lets be honest, we all need these little tricks up our sleeves!

The best way to do this is either roll your own bait or get it rolled by a reputable bait maker. Most bait rolling companies are very knowledgeable about their products and they will, with a little persuasion, make changes to your mix. These might be subtle, but as an example, Gary Bayes at Nashbait will add extra GLME or rock salt to basic recipes, immediately providing you with a little edge. If they will do this, try to obtain a different textured bait but still containing the same attractors, something the carp have to get their mechanical digestion going-on prior to fully ingesting into the gut. The ‘crunch factor’ can make them work harder and also stay longer in your swim.

Of course such variations and more besides are very easy to do when making baits yourself and also give you a lot of satisfaction during the process.

One area I think is so often overlooked is feeding different shapes, textures, attractor levels and breakdown periods. Imagine the scene: you have chosen your spots and put in a few catapults worth of bait, in essence these are all the same and the carp will recognise this and deal with accordingly, dependent on how nervous they are at the baiting situation. Now change the baiting strategy to three different sizes of baits, or even more, very big baits, twenty-five-millers for instance, and they will have to deal with this differently. Furthermore, change the shapes. A mixture of barrels, chopped bait; round baits and extruded sausages, spaghetti baits and this then creates an even more elevated level of feeding differentiation. Sounds too much like hard work? Well then you obviously don’t want the edge against the guy next-door who is fishing his baits straight out of the bag.

I know it’s been said before, but washed-out baits will catch a lot of fish and is a good technique to use. However, it’s not always practical and so you have two choices: use rain water with a little added salt or get some batches of your bait made with considerably lower inclusion levels of the attractors. You might even like to get the baits lightened down by the bait roller. Think outside the box and you will be thinking outside of a boilie eating machine!

I make my baits so they breakdown at different rates; some are almost like paste, whilst others are much harder (but without boiling the granny out of them that is!).

Finally, give the assorted mixture a good ‘top coating’ of some nice water-soluble natural carp catching attractors; there are so many now on the market that we are spoilt for choice! All you have to do then is sit back and wait for the buzzers to start singing!