Q. Why, and indeed how, do you re-hydrate boilies?
Re-hydrating boilies is quite a useful trick for boosting the pulling-power of baits, especially if you are fishing long sessions, where using air-dried or shelf-life baits is necessary. I also use another slight spin on the re-hydration theme a lot in my every-day carp fishing that I am sure gives me a nice little edge over other anglers, let me explain.
Re-hydrating does several things. Firstly, you can replace some of the water in the bait with liquid foods and other attractors. This can give you an edge if you are fishing with ready-rolled baits and want to boost your baits significantly. Re-hydrated baits also leak out their attraction a little faster as well, which is a bonus. Re-hydrated baits are also lighter in colour, resembling baits that have been in the lake for some time, and perhaps seen as ‘safe’ by the carp, and are also a lot softer than baits straight out of the bag because they have a higher liquid content. I am a big believer in softer baits, and I think this is a good enough reason to use soaked or re-hydrated baits in its own right.
To re-hydrate something like a boilie, obviously you have to dehydrate it first! Now shelf-life boilies have a relatively low water content anyway, but you can lower the level even further by putting them in a dry carp sack or dedicated air-drying bag and simply leaving them in the shed, garage or spare bedroom, in fact anywhere out of direct sunlight for a week or more. The baits will go a lot harder and shrink slightly as the moisture content drops. Exactly the same thing can be done with freezer baits, although it is essential to spread the baits out a lot more and keep moving them every day so wet spots don’t occur that will promote fungal growth. Eventually you will get baits that are as hard as marbles, so hard in fact that they will be difficult to even drill through!
The next stage is to add back in the liquid that you have removed. Now, bear in mind that the thicker the liquid the more difficult it will be for it to be absorbed back into the boilie. For this reason I normally use thin liquids that have been diluted in water. Make up plenty of liquid and cover the boilies with it. They will soak up the liquid pretty quickly and should be used within about 48-hours to get the best from them. The baits will start to soften up and swell quite a bit, and will also start to lose their colour.
What additives do I use for re-hydrating my baits? Well, you can use pretty much whatever you want, but I normally go for the liquid foods, stuff like carpamino, liquid liver, thinned molasses, that kind of thing. You can use any attractor you like really, but if you are using concentrated flavours remember to keep the levels very low.
Now here is a trick I use an awful lot, and that although not really re-hydrating, it is a similar tactic so bears repeating. What I do is cook up a gallon of hemp and while it is still hot I add 500g of NashBait Soluballs in the same flavour as my boilies. Once the hemp has cooled I add 50ml of Liquid Liver and a 500gram bag of 10mm boilies in my chosen flavour. Leave over night and you are ready to go. By the next morning the hemp liquid will have taken on the smell of the boilies and the boilies will have taken on quite a bit of the hempy, liver liquid and softened up. Carp go absolutely nuts for this combo, and I would be happy to take it to any carp venue in Europe and catch.
Any Questions?
With carp and specialist anglers of the calibre of Paul Garner, Tony Gibson, Alan Storey, Steve Pope, Ted Bryan, Alan Blair, Mark Barrett, Lewis Baldwin and Bernard Anderson – to name but a few – the Nash Peg One team has a wealth of experience covering just about every species that swims and the expertise of the whole team is on tap for everyone at FishingMagic to take advantage of in these Q and A sessions.
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