I managed to get hold of some of the new Tuna Wrap range from SonuBaits a short while before they came onto the market and my first impressions were they are very……. tuna-ry! If you want to use a fishy bait, these will fit the bill, the cats were clawing at the doors to get in!
Tuna Wraps Boilies
First up is the actual boilies – as you can see it’s a boilie enveloped in an outer skin – the skin is textured and quite rubbery, though the skin still stuck on the chopped baits.
They are firm enough to use with a throwing stick – just wet the stick first – and last well on the hair. The skin itself takes 3-4 hours to break down, so they are ideal for short sessions, and even then you will be left with a hard boilie (looks like a yellow birdfood bait) surrounded by the dissolved skin, so you will still have plenty of attraction, though SonuBaits should maybe develop a specialist hookbait that can last longer on the hook? They are a shelf life bait and are supplied in a handy bucket.
(Note from GM: Leave a few to air dry and the wrap gets much firmer and will last for a full overnight session).
Tuna Wraps Boilie unwrapped
Tuna Wraps Boilie split
The Spod Mix is a mixture of different sized and types of pellets, with a strong tuna aroma to them. Perfect for bag use, and again supplied in a handy 3kg bucket (ideal for a morning’s fishing LOL!). As a spod/bag mix, I would like it to have a little bit of fishmeal or ground pellet in it to give a really nice cloud effect to it, though it’s not that difficult to add a bag of groundbait to achieve the desired effect.
(Note from GM: I passed on this suggestion to Sonu and I believe this has been taken on board).
The Tuna dip is very, very fishy! Ideal to make the hookbait last longer and boost attraction – I also added it to the pellet mix to give a cloud of attraction as the bait falls through the water, and I’m definitely going to use it in my method mix.
Verdict
In use…..
First, the night before I planned on going for a quick overnighter I chopped roughly a kilo of the boilies into halves and quarters, added about 2kg of the Spod Mix, gave it a good glug (roughly half a bottle) of the Tuna Dip and gave it a good shake to get everything coated so it could soak in for 24 hours. This also gave some time for the smell to wear off my hands…. funny looks at work otherwise!
Chopped and glugged
Once at the lake, it was all spodded over a reasonably tight area, and another 30 or 40 baits scattered around. One rod was fished with a three bait stringer, the other two halves fished with a PVA bag of spod mix pellets, the traps being set just as the sun set. Game on?
It was the night of the England Rugby victory and the night before Lewis Hamilton’s famous rookie victory…… or not as it turned out! The rugby had just got underway when the rod with two halves was away with a low double the culprit.
The night was a cold, clear one but the takes carried on roughly every hour until a very heavy mist fell at about 4am. Five fish to mid doubles (didn’t weigh the fish or set up the self take gear as it was bloody freezing!) and I only heard one or two other takes to the other five guys fishing, but that’s more to do with my angling prowess than the bait LOL!
About 20 or 30 baits were catapulted out after every take and due to the way the skin dissolves, I re-cast all the rods after every couple of fish to make sure there was plenty of wrap on the bait, though I can’t decide whether this is really necessary.
I reckon they could be onto a winner with the concept, though I think the bait may suit summer conditions more – the skin is quite oily, but I’ve got just about enough of the pellets to carry on with a little bait test I’m going to do….
So I’m going to give the concept 10/10 – I haven’t used the bait long enough in the right conditions to score it fairly, but I reckon they are onto a winner…..
