homemade boilies

Can anyone give me any advise or tips on how to make my own boilies
cheers Jason

An absolute beginners guide to making your own bait

Making your own boilies can be a great advantage in several ways, buying bait ingredients in bulk can save a considerable amount of money over using shelf life boilies and secondly you can alter the colour and flavour of the boilies as you see fit. Now this is not intended to be the guide to produce the ultimate bait for your particular venue but more of a collection of information to get you started on your way to making useful bait and hopefully saving money in the long run.

The basic equipment
You dont neccessarily need any baitmaking equipment as boilies can be rolled by hand if you wish but it does make it a little easier with the following items.

2 Large mixing bowls - Required to be able to separately mix the wet and dry ingredients before combining them

Scales - For weighing out your base mix ingredients, normal kitchen scales are ideal for this purpose

5ml syringe - For measuring out precise amounts of flavour and attractors, you can buy these for under a pound from most pharmacies but you may have to explain why you want it (dont be insulted if they ask to look at your arms)

Sausage Gun - For making a long sausage of bait ready for rolling (not essential) but availalbe from many tackle shops (Gardner make a good one)

Rolling Table - To turn the sausage into actual boilies (not essential) again Gardner make a good compact series called the rollaball baitmaker, they also do larger ones but i've found these difficult to use in practise.

Metal sieve & large saucepan - You'll need these to be able to boil your baits

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Right now lets get on with looking at how to actually make boilies. Firstly there are two routes you can take regarding the base mix, either buy a premade base mix or make your own, for first time bait making i'd seriously recommend buying an out-of-the-bag mix as you'll get some experience of the process of manufacturing the bait first time round and normally base mixes are available from most tackle shops, normally a 50-50 mix is a safe bet for your first batch of bait. If you do decide to make your own mix then this will prove initially expensive (due to buying bulk ingredients) but will provide the greatest cost savings. There are plenty of places you can buy the base ingredients especially online retailers. Now before we move on to base mix ingredients lets discuss what we really require of a carp bait.

There are several important aspects that need to be addressed when deciding on bait ingredients. You will need to look to produce a bait that has a good balance of nutritional value to the carp alongside colouring and flavouring and that also promotes feeding plus generating the correct consistency when mixed to be suitable for rolling and having suitable hardness. Sounds like a lot to consider doesnt it....well making boilies isnt really suitable for those that want an instant bait, it can take some extensive research to find your own recipes that work on venues you fish, well, if you've been catching regularly one one particular shelf-life or freezer bait then you've already solved two of the problems as you now know a flavour and colour that works so all you'd need to work out is how to promote feeding and provide a bait with a high nutritional value. There are several good powdered ingredients that provide a good base when mixed in the right proportions such as semolina, soya flour, whey protein, wheat gluten (some typical recipes will be shown later). Semolina is a high protein ingredient that is relatively cheap so is ideal for bulking out the mix, whey protein lends itself to being a good carp attractant so is a sensible additive and gives the same effect as maize meal.

Attractors
Now lets look at oil attractors and amino acids, liquid amino acids normally take the form of liver and spleen extract or similar then there are powdered additives such as green lipped mussel extract, bloodworm extract, betaine etc these additives provide the pulling-power of your bait and promote feeding in carp.

Flavours and Colours
There are many liquid falvours out there but even these are not essentials and often prove to be fairly expensive. Other powdered spices and the like can be readily obtained from a supermarket but if you know a particular bait flavour works well then you may as well get some liquid flavour that matches. Dont over do the flavouring as it can prove a disadvantage repelling the carp rather than attracting them. Normally around 3-5ml is sufficient for 16oz of base mix. There are a wide selection of colours available bu aain its probably best sticking to a colour and shade that you know works otherwise experimentation can be a costly exercise.

Now lets talk about making your bait, firstly weigh out your base mix or base mix ingredients into a mixing bowl, if you are using any powder additives measure them out and add those to the base mix ensuring you mix everything thoroughly. Now take your other mixing bowl and add eggs (rule of thumb is normally 5 - 6 eggs for a 16oz base mix), then add your liquid attractant and flavour(s) in appropriate doses.

Make sure you flush the syringe with water after measuring out each liquid ingredient otherwise you're likely to cross-contaminate bottles of flavourings and amino acids. Thoroughly mix the wet ingrediants, when mixed start adding the powdered base mix into the liquid mix and keep mixing until you get a paste that is of a good consistantly and dont make the mix too dry otherwise it will be impossible to roll, again rule of thumb is that when it stops sticking to your fingers it's right.

Roll this out into thin sausages of the diameter you want for your boilies or load into a sausage gun if you have one. If you have a rolling table you can extrude the sausages directly onto it otherwise do them onto an old chopping board, cut and roll by hand. Otherwise if you have a rolling table only do two to three sausages at a time otherwise youre bait will stick together.

Now with your bait rolled out get a large saucepan filled with water and get it boiling, load around 100 boilies into a metal sieve and lower them into the water for around 100 seconds or longer depending how hard you want the boilies to end up. After boiling you need to air-dry your baits for around 16 hours before freezing. You can do this by placing them on an old tea towel or a purpose made air drying tray.

Well, we hope that you do decide to make your own baits after reading this as it can be deeply rewarding especially when you catch that great carp knowing that its on your very own unique bait.

I have used this base mix for years and it has great results, no better feeling than catching on a bait you have made yourself. Hope this helps.



In this example I am going to make a simple but very effective base mix that is made up of:

8oz Semolina (from most large supermarkets)
4oz Ground Rice (again available from supermarkets)
4oz Soya Flour (available from health food shops)

The same method is used for any of the base mixes listed on the site.

Weigh out the 8oz of Semolina, 4oz of Ground Rice and 4oz of Soya Flour.

The Semolina, Rice and Soya Flour powders are then poured into a large freezer bag.

I've decided to make red boilies so I am adding half a tea-spoon of red powdered dye into the bag as well.



Blow the bag up (with the powder inside) like a balloon. Twist it around at the top to trap the air in the bag. Give the bag a very good shake, so that all the powders inside it are well mixed up.

That's your base mix finished!. store it in a plastic bag or air tight bucket, in a cool dry place.

hi jason

try the Korda Web site theres loads of interesting stuff on there. www.korda.co.uk



cheers Keith