Many fishermen pay too much for the privilege of using latest commercially produced wonder bait, but if these were so great, they would not have to keep bringing out more and more of them! You can catch just as many fish, if not more by making your own unique bait, plus it is a great option to save you money!
The greatest edge with baits is being unique and that way the fish will be far less cautious in taking your hook bait in its mouth, giving you the run you want! Having fished homemade baits over 3 decades plus, I can tell you they work in any situation against any commercially produced bait providing you approach your fishing with the care and attention to detail that fishing for wary big fish deserves!
Many anglers really enjoy the satisfaction of catching carp and catfish on their own special baits. When you are catching well on your own bait, no-one else can come along and ruin your chances by also fishing with it in competition with you! Surely the real edge of a bait is over the impact and effects of other fisherman's' baits as much as anything else. So it pays to make them as unique as possible if you dream of catching strings of big fish!
You might be confused about making paste or dough bait or boilie base mixes, fish nutrition and feeding triggers, flavors and oils and other commonly mentioned items. Well I can tell you that no matter what you use that you would eat as a human, at least 80 percent of the homemade baits you make will be successful to various degrees. Some may be more successful on some waters simply because they are new and different and fish will be more willing to risk testing them inside their mouths!
Others will work because the flavors, ingredients and additives (usually natural extracts) will mean the pH effects of you bait on water and fish food detection cells are favourable to induce fish to identify it as potential food and at least mouth it. You bait does not need to be expensive to make nor time consuming either. Having made baits for decades I realise some bait formats like round boilies and even barrel shapes take time because you are adding to the number of steps involved, but this not necessary at all.
There are very many short-cuts in bait-making and you do not have to make your baits perfectly round and boil them or steam them to make them hard. You can make a very quick and easy paste or dough bait which will form boilies if boiled for 2 minutes a handful of baits at a time. You can add dry mixtures of flour or meals to eggs and liquid additives, flavors etc to form a stiff paste and use this fresh or store it in bags, label it and freeze it.
All you need is a mixing bowl, a spoon and a few minutes. The easiest way to start is put the weighed-out dry powders into a big bag and mix them thoroughly. Crack 6 eggs and add the flavors and liquid additives you may wish to use and whisk well. Add the powders a bit at a time to the liquids keeping a constant consistency so the paste has a putty or plasticine consistency. One very quick simple recipes is:
- 6 ounces semolina.
- 6 ounces soya flour.
- 4 ounces of yeast powders (deactivated.)
- 6 size average sized eggs.
- 1 teaspoonful of fine sea salt.
- 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil.
- 15 drops black pepper essential oil.
- 3 to 5 milliliters of a sweet or fruity flavoring.
Once you have your paste or dough ready, bag it up in plastic bags immediately. A 6 egg mix will produce about a pound and a half to a kilogram or more of bait, depending on various ingredients you choose to use. The thing about bait is you can look at what every other angler is doing and deliberately not copy it to achieve many very big competitive edges over them! This little bit of thinking is one of the great key to success; copying is fine but you learn far less and fast learning is what puts you ahead the easiest and quickest! Like anything in life, practice makes perfect, but then luckily, your fishing baits do not need to be perfect to catch big fish; in fact the opposite is the case in so many ways!
To form baits with your dough, you can obviously roll them into large or small balls of maybe marble or cherry size, or make them any size or shape you wish. If you leave them out to air somewhere warm for a day or 2, you can harden them which means you can catapult or use a specialist bait throwing tube or similar, great distances if required. When these baits land in water, they will leach out attraction and stimulation far quicker than ordinary boiled baits and pull in fish more quickly. If you wish to boil your baits, boil a handful of baits in a large pan of boiling water. Usually 2 minutes or less for most mixes will give them a resilient enough skin to deter many other smaller species of fish.
