The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything!

[peterjg]

For quite a while I have been experimenting with a new bait additive. I admit that I was hoping for roach but it attracts other species, it sounds really awful but it really works! After much consideration I have decided to reveal:

Groundbait: into your required amount of filtered tap water add a big dollop of HP brown sauce and only a few drops of geranium oil, stir thoroughly. Add dry groundbait until required consistency.

Paste to coat bread flake or hook pellet: squirt half an inch of HP brown sauce into a small pot, add 3 drops of geranium oil, stir thoroughly. Then carefully add corn flour to thicken into a soft smooth paste.

Over the last few months in terrible conditions I have caught roach, chub, bream (unfortunately), carp, tench, rudd, dace, but no barbel. No need for fancy, expensive tackle shop additives.

Will it still be as effective in warmer conditions? I don't yet know?

 

[Steve Arnold]

For quite a while I have been experimenting with a new bait additive. I admit that I was hoping for roach but it attracts other species, it sounds really awful but it really works! After much consideration I have decided to reveal:

Groundbait: into your required amount of filtered tap water add a big dollop of HP brown sauce and only a few drops of geranium oil, stir thoroughly. Add dry groundbait until required consistency.

Paste to coat bread flake or hook pellet: squirt half an inch of HP brown sauce into a small pot, add 3 drops of geranium oil, stir thoroughly. Then carefully add corn flour to thicken into a soft smooth paste.

Over the last few months in terrible conditions I have caught roach, chub, bream (unfortunately), carp, tench, rudd, dace, but no barbel. No need for fancy, expensive tackle shop additives.

Will it still be as effective in warmer conditions? I don't yet know?

Now........that you have found the magic answer to everything........what am I going to do with all those useless additives I have collected in my bait fridge?

There are always more questions.....even when you think you have found all the answers!

 

[nottskev]

I used to read everything around me as a kid. I still remember some of it. Back of the Cornflakes packet? This product is sold by weight not volume. Some settling of contents may have occurred in transit. HP Sauce? English on one side of the bottle, French, for some reason on the other. Cette sause HP est une melange des epices orientaux......... So maybe it's the oriental spices the fish like? That pathfinding inventor and seller of bait flavours, Archie Braddock, lives nearby. I'll ask him if he's tried HP sauce when I bump into him.

I usually have tubs of geraniums and other cheap and cheerful garden centre flowers round the place in summer. Your fingers small terrible when you dead-head them. Is that what the oil's like? Of course, our idea of a "nice" smell is no guide to what attracts fish.

 

[peterjg]

Knottskev, if possible please ask Archie, I'd love to know what he says, thanks.

In the summer geranium with salted caramel works well. If HP sauce works in the warmer months I don't know yet? Geranium, to me, smells horrible - like the flowers!

I do go fishing a lot so just on the law of averages eventually anyone is going to have a run of good luck but this daft idea of HP sauce and geranium really does work.

 

[The bad one]

Does it have to be HP or would others brands that are cheaper do, Like Aldi or Lidle? HP is dammed expensive at £2 45 in Morrisons on Thursday last week for the Outlaws.

 

[peterjg]

The Bad One, I've only tried HP, it was what was already indoors. I've been buying it for bait from the B&M shop where it is only £2.99 for 600ml. Compared to liquid Robin Red it is incredibly cheap. It really does work.

 

[nottskev]

It's great when a home-made bait flavour catches, and I'll try it out Peter. I was glugging punched meat barbel and carp baits in a product called Polony Oil for a couple of years. It practically fumes, and the fish liked it. It's off the market now, so this year I put lots of chopped hot chilli's and garlic sliced close to being transparent in a pint of corn oil and left it on a warm window sill through the heatwave. Worked well, and cheap enough to glug your hookbaits and douse your feed.

 

[Alan Whitty]

The polony boilies worked well too Kev...

 

[peterjg]

Yes, there are some good baits out there, unfortunately loads of rubbish ones as well. If you have confidence in a bait it's half the battle.

I haven't deliberately carp fished since I moved in 2013 to Hampshire. My wife in about 2000 found a garlic sausage in Tesco called Red Jak, no longer made, it was made by Herta. The day before going fishing I would cut it to size and shake the bits of sausage in a powder made of betaine and garlic salt. It just about lasted all night (if not taken) before going a bit too soft. Well it truly was extraordinary, I caught carp to 44lbs 12ozs and many 30s from large and difficult pits. Another carp bait which worked was two tiger nuts on the hair with a piece of flavoured cork between them, produced two other 40s and more 30s.

Now I just fish for roach, still experimenting with flavours and baits. Not only is it interesting I do find certain flavours can help with catching. Just to add though - the flavour level is equally as important as the actual flavour - less is more.

 

[@Clive]

I think that the brown HP sauce has mollasses in it. That is a known attractant. But we will have to ask Kev as he seems to have memorised the recipe

Marmite. That's another open secret that nobody seems to use. And of course Frolicks dog biscuits will catch barbel, carp, chub and wels catfish anywhere.

 

[Steve Arnold]

Marmite is far too good for fish.....and not cheap here in France either!

You must be on another level of income Clive!

 

[@Clive]

Marmite is far too good for fish.....and not cheap here in France either!

You must be on another level of income Clive!

I have many customers who are willing to act as mules to bring in contraband. Last month we received a tray of mushy peas, 6 jars of picalilli, 2 tubs of Bisto gravy granules, some Leyland paint and half a million Yorkshire T Bags. This month I am expecting an ABU Suveran reel, and possibly a rod, subject to a winning bid.

And I don't like Marmite. But fish do, as a glug or added to a cheesepaste recipe.

 

[peterjg]

Marmite, never tried it - yet! The list of flavours to try is endless, it's great fun experimenting but it can be so confusing: some flavours are seasonal and some only work if the amount of flavour is correct and some only work on certain waters? With roach it's not too difficult to verify if a bait works but on lightly stocked difficult carp waters getting a bait right takes a long time with lots of blanks. I have a wad of carp bait recipes going back to the 1970s - the vast majority were hopeless with just 3 or 4 that were good.

 

[@Clive]

Thing is Peter, with saucecand Marmite, it sn't simply 'a flavour'. Each of those products is made up of lots of ingredients and it could be one or more that prove attractive.

 

[The bad one]

The question I asked was asked somewhat tongue in cheek Pete, as it reminded me of a very good mate of mine who died recently. Stevie was one hell of a windup merchant. A vey good carp angler and bait maker. He took one of the lads (Martin) we worked with carp fishing on his club water around 1973. Martin had never fished for carp before and asked Stevie what bait he needed. Stevie says it's bread we use on the water, but it has to be Almond Milk Energy Bread. They won't take any other type of bread other than Almond's. Martin spent the whole of the night before they went fishing going in every shop in Hyde to track down a loaf of the deadly Almon's bread.
Needless to say he couldn't find any. Now Stevie knew he wouldn't, as he lived around the corner from Mother's Pride bakery who did make Almond's bread and had discontinued it several years before. When they met up the next morning Martin says I couldn't get any Almond's bread. So what did you get then says Stevie? White Mother's Pride. No good says Stevie, you'll blank on that, I'll give you a few slice of mine. His BTW was White Mother's Pride that he got off his neighbour for nowt.
Stevie kept the windup going for about 2 week before he told Martin what bread he'd given him to fish with on the day.

 

[peterjg]

The Bad One, that's very funny. But seriously though different makes of the same supposed same flavour work or don't work - it's all so confusing and (especially on difficult big carp waters) so time consuming to prove or disprove.

A few examples of flavours made by other companies:
Hutchinson's monster crab worked well while other makes not nearly so good
Richworth tutti frutti - others not so good
Nash chocolate malt - others not so good '

In reality, I'm now out of touch with current bait products and prefer to use easily available cheap products.

I used to give my baits silly names, a few examples:
Insomnia - because you didn't get any sleep using it. My mate used to work in the local tackle shop, he said people used to come into the shop asking for it!
Black Ice - because the carp slipped-up on it.
Blue Moon - a run once in a blue moon.
The Millennium Mix - a run every 1000 years.

 

[@Clive]

Peter, believe me; this is all you need. Frolicks dog biscuits. If you use them fresh from the packet they will last 30 to 40 minutes on the hook. But if you dry them out in an oven on a low heat they will last all day. If you don't get a bite on these there are no carp, tench, bream or chub in the swim.

 

[The bad one]

Pete as I said I've lost my bait Guru. If I needed a recipe for making a bait up he always had one for me and rarely did they fail to catch barbel. He used all the ingredients you list and more down the years. You will know doubt remember Nod Oil. He'd never tell me what was in it. Smelt like some sort of fish oil but I don't really know whether it was or not. Then there was PYM (Phillips Yeast Mixture) Fred Wilton's creation. That was deadly up here for Northern Carp waters and was more or less instant.
I tried to source some a month or two ago to make a barbel bait with, but it seems not to be produced anymore.

 

[peterjg]

Clive, they sound great but will they catch roach?

 

[peterjg]

The Bad One, do you want a mix for carp or barbel? I've never deliberately made a bait for barbel, I've had a few double figure barbel but mostly by accident. I'll send you a mix for carp with pleasure if you'd like one.