Fishmeal boilies, there really is no finer bait for consistent results and targeting big carp. Jake Anderson explains why…
The carp bait market is flooded with choice and baits of all types, which can make things a bit confusing. For me, the choice is simple, you cannot beat a fishmeal-based boile.
I’ve always been in to bait making and bait ingredients and wanting to understand what ingredients work best, when and why. In my previous position for Solar Tackle I worked in the bait factory, and so boilie production and ingredients were a daily business for me.
Fishmeal baits are more ‘naturally’ attractive than a cereal, nut or seed-based bait. The have high levels of inherent fish oils and fats, which fish find hugely attractive, far more than any other type of bait. Of course, other baits are attractive, and I do use other types of baits in certain situations, which I’ll explain shortly, but as a rule of thumb, fishmeal baits are more attractive and, I believe, more productive.
For instance, the bait I’ve been using this season is Solar’s Red Herring, which will be released as part of the new The Orginals range in late August. 57% of the Red Herring base mix is pure fishmeal, in fact it’s a combination of three different fishmeals.
Fishmeal baits don’t break down as easily or quickly as a seed-based bait, but they give off a much better scent trail. The oils and fats that leak out of the baits in the water produce a very long-lasting scent trail for the fish to home in on. The high levels of oils and fats also means that some of the scent and attraction from the baits seeps in to the lakebed, if fishing over a softer bottom, so even once the boilies are eaten there will still be scent in the sediment for a period of time. You do get some oils from seeds, hemp seed for example, but the oil that you get from hempseed or the like in a boilie is far less than with a fishmeal. The fishmeal oils are also richer.
Particularly if I’m concentrating on one water and on a baiting campaign then fishmeals will always be my choice, for the reasons above. On my current target water I can get there to bait up once or maybe twice in a week. Having this longer-lasting scent trail in the area keeps the food signals on my baited spots even if the baits have gone and I can’t get down to bait up again for another day or two.
Early on in the days of a baiting campaign, when your spots aren’t established and it may take a bit longer for the fish to start feeding confidently on your area, the longer break-down time of a fishmeal bait will help ensure there is bait on the spots when the fish want to feed.
Fishmeal is a powder and so generally leads to a denser structured bait than seed-based mixes, as the larger particles of the seeds give those baits a more open structure. This is predominantly why fishmeals take longer to break down.
There is a general belief that fishmeal baits don’t work in the winter, but I still use them right through the colder months. It also means that I’m using them in very early spring, when a lot of people still think it might be too cold. When the carp wake up, a fishmeal is going to be the best protein source for them and if they are going to search out highly nutritional food after their winter ‘slumber’ then the fishmeals score well. Fishmeals have a higher protein level than most baits, providing there is a good amount of fishmeal in the baits, unless the other baits hold a lot of quality casienates and milk proteins, which are very expensive ingredients.
In addition to the inherent oils in fishmeal baits, I also like to soak my baits. The Red Herring baits that I’m using at the moment for example are coated in Solar’s Hot Scottish Salmon Oil. I left them for 48 hours to absorb the oil and then repeated the process. After a further 48-hours I then coated them in our TunaMino amino concentrate. These are shelf-life baits, but the oil will help make frozen baits last a little longer once defrosted.
I want the oil to penetrate right into the baits so that the release is much longer lasting in the water than if they were just coated prior to chucking them out. I also let the thinner salmon oil soak in first, as the thicker amino liquid sticks to the outside of the bait. The TunaMino Liquid is basically a liquid fishmeal, and so contains a lot of similar proteins and food signals as the powered fishmeal that’s used in the bait production. These oily boilies also give you a great indication as to what’s happening out in the swim as when fish start to feed on them they disturb the oil and it gives you a flat spot on the surface.
Obviously, it’s the height of summer at the moment and so water temperatures are high. As the temperatures drop later in the year, and in the winter, I leave out the salmon oil, but I still coat the baits in the Tunamino amino liquid. As I’ve mentioned, fishmeals have a lot of inherent oil content and it does take longer for the oil to leak out in colder water, so I don’t need to prolong the leak with more oil in the colder months, as it will naturally be slower anyway.
Now, I’m not saying that other types of baits are bad, far from it. There are fantastic seed and nut baits out there. If I go to a day ticket water as a one off for example then that is an occasion when I would consider a high-attract, seed-mix bait because I’m looking for sort-term success and something that’s instant, and a high-attract seed mix will generally do that. Longer term though, and particularly when I’m on a target water after larger carp, I’ll use a fishmeal and a fishmeal is always my preferred big-fish bait.