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| Nice small bowl with 1.2kg of my sweet base-mix |
Bait making is, for me, part of the fun. My ground-bait sweet base mix has worked at both visits to Beaver Fishery going after silvers. The base mix is the same as I detailed back in November but for completeness, I will list it here:
My Sweet Ground-bait base mix recipe:
- 50% Breadcrumb
- 25% Gingernut biscuits
- 25% Custard Creams
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| Good fun if not strictly necessary... |
I like to make my base mix very fine. The 'lumpy bits' can always be added at the bank. The dried bread is broken up into smaller pieces and 'whizzed' in a food processor for several minutes before being passed through a sieve. Lumps that will not pass through are then ground down using a pestle and mortar until fine enough to pass through. This may sound a bit excessive, and maybe it is, but it is very therapeutic! The biscuit tends to breakdown into small enough particles from just a good whiz in the food processor. I have also been utilising my ground-bait base mix as part of my current boilie recipe.
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| 'Pound-shop' bait! |
Whilst out shopping this week Sue pointed out some fishing pellets in the local Poundland, we had already found some strawberry pellets in the 99p Store. Last week I was making a batch of strawberry, and a further batch of
sweet and spicy garam masala flavour boilies. These have only been made
in small quantities just to see what works over the coming months. As one of the packets, in our new find, were pineapple flavour, it seemed only right to make a batch of matching boilies.
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| Small 4mm pellets in 99p Store bag |
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| larger 8mm pellets in the Pounland bags |
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| You even get some fishing advice on the back of the Poundland bags! |
I had a couple of rings of pineapple in my fishing draw in the freezer and this morning I opened the fridge and half a can of leftover pear halves fell out and dispensed themselves all over the floor. These along with the pineapple were processed to a fine pulp ready to be added to my latest experiment, pineapple and pear boilies!
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| Pineapple boilies... |
The pineapple and pear boilie recipe:
- 350g Ground-bait
- 175g Semolina
- 90g Rice Flour
- 90g Dried Skimmed Milk
- 200g Eggs in their shells
- 2 rings of pineapple
- 3 tbsp of the juice from the pineapple
- 3 pear halves
- yellow food colour
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Old onion bags are
great for drying boilies |
The boilies were made in the same way as last week (See
HERE)
. The first batch were very sticky after they were cooked so the cooking time was increased to 180 seconds. I will dry them for 48 hours and check them at that point. if they feel about right I will freeze them then, if not allow them to air-dry until they feel firm.
The other thing I bought this week was a small washing up bowl. I have been looking for a small ground-bait mixing bowl, I know there are plenty of collapsible bowls made for the job, indeed I have a large one, but I have been looking for something smaller and in a suitable colour. There is a general hardware shop in the high street, you know the sort of place that sells all sorts of kitchen and tool shed stuff. There I found a stack of 9 inch (internal diameter) plastic washing up bowls without moulded dimples and ridges. To add to the appeal they are nicely moulded, stamped 'Made in UK' and are made by Whitefurze. Priced at £1.29 and available in black, it was without further thought that one was acquired and added to the bank-side kit.
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| Just the right size for me, and well made - see text |
We are planning to go fishing on Friday and we will try out some of new creations... I will let you know what the fish think of our new bait!
Ralph.
