Big Rik Belenger is better known as ‘Carp Angler’ on the FISHINGmagic Forum, where he is appreciated for his generous help to all and sundry. He has now extended that help with a regular carp fishing column for FISHINGmagic, ‘The Carp Column’.
Rik started fishing at the age of four on his local tiny tidal river, catching eels and small wild trout on worm. 
Not having had any angling family members, all his early fishing was solitary and this seems to have carried through to the present.
Like most anglers nowadays, he has a full time job and a family, so his fishing time is limited, although he does, he tells us, have a very understanding wife.He currently lives in the depths of Hampshire, and so is within easy reach of some excellent venues.
He has in the past, and still does, fish for most species, although his greatest love is for carp fishing, which is how the majority of his time is spent.
He now finds himself more thrilled with overcoming the intricacies and problems associated with catching carp, rather than the actual weight of the fish he catches and the so-called glory that goes with it.
It’s often been said and written that location is the most important factor when attempting to catch carp. But location is less important on well-stocked venues and when the water temperature is high. It is when we move onto waters with a lower stock density that location plays a much more vital role.
Making Bait
This is the start of a number of articles on making bait that is relevant to the time of year. Now, being winter, it might not be the best time to start experimenting with new mixes and baits, but there are quite a few proven recipes about and I’ll list a couple here and take you through the steps of making them.
The two types of mixes that I’m going to cover are a high attraction mix and long-term food bait. These two types of mixes require totally different feeding and fishing styles to garner the best results from them, but I’ll cover that later on.
High Attract
I believe that winter attractor baits should be:1. Highly visible and2. Highly flavoured.
These baits are best fished as lone pop-ups or with 2 or 3 freebies around each hookbait.
If you want to produce solely pop-ups then go for a companies Pop-up Mix, if you require a mixture of buoyant and bottom baits then go for a 50/50 or Economy Mix.
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The Recipe
Eggs
Flavour – loads (2 or 3 times the recommended dosage)
Colour – loads (attraction required)
Base mix – enough to produce the paste.
An exact science?
With a high attract mix you are not looking for the carp to accept your bait as a food source, you are looking to stop a fish in it’s tracks. Curiosity, greed, whatever!
Utensils
A food mixer (or a clean bowl and a whisk or fork)
A holey spoon.
A pan of boiling water.
A clean towel.
(This is beginning to sound like a maternity unit)
Procedure
Put the eggs (with shells), flavours and colouring into the mixer and whiz it until it’s frothy.
Slowly add the base mix until the mixer starts to struggle (you’ll here it whining)Now it’s playtime….
Take the wet mix out of the mixer bowl and start to knead it with your hands, slowly add dry mix until the paste loses it’s tackiness and is quite dry to the touch, but not so dry that it will not bind together. (moist window putty is a good description).
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Then, hand-shape the baits or wrap paste around a cork ball (a thin spread of about 2mm is about right) until all the mix is used.
Boiling times should be something like – 60 seconds for baits up to 16mm, 2 minutes for 20mm baits.
Try and keep similar sized baits together so you can time the boiling easier, keep your pop-ups to one side and boil these for at least 2 minutes.
One little hint is to put a groove around your pop-ups so you can tie them on easier.
Scoop out the baits with the spoon and spread them out on the clean towel to dry.
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Then, transfer them to a tray with another towel on it and allow them to dry and harden for as long as possible.
2 or 3 weeks in an airing cupboard is ideal, moving the baits on the tray a couple of times a day.
If the airing cupboard is out of the question, then once they are cool and dry, bag them up for the freezer.
Because these are attractor baits, a couple of drops of flavouring into the bag before freezing will give them an added boost.
Food Bait
Now the fun begins.
I wont go too deeply into all the available bits and pieces that can be added to a bait to make it more palatable, acceptable and wholesome, but I will suggest things to include and these can be added depending on your confidence and how much you want to spend.
Remember when determining your ingredients that a food bait will need to be introduced on a fairly regular basis, so the cost can be quite a major factor. On the other side of the coin, most additives are sold in quantities that will make 20, 50 or even 100 kilos of bait.
So although the initial outlay may be great, the overall cost per kilo will not be so high.
I tend to make my food baits quite dark for two reasons.
Firstly, I want the fish to feel at ease when eating it, I don’t want them grabbing at it through curiosity.
And secondly, I don’t want those darn coots spotting it.
The Recipe
Eggs (Large)
Natural food source(Ambio, Multimino, Minamino etc at 10ml per egg)
Betaine HCI(As per dosage)
Appetite Stimulator(Seed or Spice, 1 or 2 ml per egg)
Sense Appeal(as above)
Colour/sweetener(Go for one that you cannot overload)
Base mix(Milk based or a milk and seed combo)
Making the paste is the same as the attractor mix.
Stick it all in the mixer and add the base mix. Now the only thing I do differently is to not roll the baits.
Why do we fish round baits?
Because they are easier to catapult or use in the throwing stick as they are all the same size and shape. This also extends to the baits on the bottom, which all act the same except for the one attached to the hooklength.
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Chopped baits will catapult out OK to about 40 yards, any further than that and you will need a spod.
But I think the advantage of non-round bait outweighs this minor problem. They settle better on weed and bottom detritus, they all act differently when the carp suck them up and they really cause the carp problems when they try to eject them.
Chops can be created in several ways…….
1. Using a bait gun, extrude a sausage and chop it with a knife, then boil.
2. Create a block and chop it, then boil.
3. Create a block and boil it, then chop
My preferred option is number 2, and you can really knock out a lot of mix quickly by doing it this way.
Hints and Tips.
After you’ve rolled your baits, let them stand for 10 or 15 minutes before boiling them or they tend to stick to each other in the pan.
When putting baits into the pan, make sure the water is boiling and don’t put too many in at once or the temperature will drop and the pan will go off the boil.
Most baits, especially milk proteins, will rise to the surface when they are cooked, that’s the time to take them out.
When you place your baits onto the towel to dry, move them about after 30 seconds or so or they will either stick to each other or the towel.
Nothing earth shattering and no mega secret ingredients or wonder baits. That’s because they don’t exist.
A good bait is important, but incorrect application and poor location will render any bait useless.
Remember that it’s only part of the jigsaw.
Happy cooking.
