Hi there & thanks to Ant for asking me to cobble something together for his followers.
Boutique ground baits are taken for granted these days and with all the variants that can be used as additives from the carp sector it’s easy to concoct you own mix.
But here’s one I used to create way back in the mid 70’s which I used to great effect in my match career, it involves some ingredients you may have to search for in health food shops and really requires a food blender.
Better still a coffee grinder for the hemp & tares, it’s a mix for open end feeder ostensibly but add some crushed high quality trout pellets & it makes a superb carp mix which can be used in conjunction with a method feeder.
You have to play around with the consistency to ensure it binds enough for this type of technique, add more ground hemp or tares to get it stickier.
This is a rough guideline for a 1kilo dry mix
Base Ingredients
650g Brown Slicer Bread Crumb
This is a high quality brown ground bait which can still be obtained from tackle shops but ensure it’s not the cheap white dyed brown which s too stodgy when mixed up.
Some shops still sell in bulk 20kg or 25kg sacks.
150g Dried Hempseed blended/ground fine (binder)
100g Ground Tares or Black Sunflower seeds (binder)
50g Roasted or Plain Salted Peanuts blended/ground fine
25g Desiccated Coconut (this floats and emerges from feeder)
25g Strong Cheese sauce mix
Wet additive options for knocking up mix on bank
Reduced hemp water from cooking hemp you can substitute the cooked hemp ground for the dry hemp ground.
Molasses this is a black sticky sweet treacle and you can add a couple of heaped tablespoons and acts as a binder (you’ll need a towel to hand)
2 tins of Jolly Green Giant Sweetcorn liquidised to a very fine puree add water if necessary when blending with a food processor, adds a cloudy suspension to the mix and a great binder.
I used all three of the above & often added a wasp’s nest which isn’t as easy to come by but for chub there is nothing finer than the aroma of wasp grub and the cake mashed up.
You can knock up the night before and as mentioned add some crushed trout pellet maybe as much as 250gr for carp orientated venues, play around with the ingredients and try others.
It doesn’t have to be an exact science and experimentation is most of the fun, add the wet ingredients little and often while mixing in a round bowl.
Always use lake water or fresh harvested rainwater, tap water is okay but has fluoride & chlorine in it which I prefer to avoid, it’s not essential but more of a confidence booster.
I use a whisk in a drill these days to knock up my ground bait which adds much more air into the mix, a vital ingredient for a ground bait to work even when compacted harder for the method feeder approach.
Using hands is fine too and easier to find than my drill usually.
Once you are happy with the texture, pass through a maggot riddle this will remove any lumps/larger unground particles and add even more texture to the finished mix.
Keep in a ground bait bowl with a lid to prevent evaporation and getting waterlogged if it’s raining, it’s best to let the ground bait rest a while before use so knock up as soon as you get to your swim/peg if it’s not already mixed from the night before.
So there you have one of my ‘secret’ mixes that helped me to catch loads of fish & won me loads of matches in my competitive days.
Footnote
As a final addition for certain days when the water was gin clear I used to darken the ground bait off with mole hill soil which I’d collect sieve through a pinkie riddle the keep in a bucket.
Mole hill soil is soft & loamy that why moles can dig through it and snuffle around for worms which is their staple diet, what goes in must come out and I feel that there is always some residual worm attractors albeit post mole digestion aka mole poo.
I use it lots still to this day for tench & bream fishing and of course Mr Carp will always come along to spoil the party, it’s a free bulking agent/additive & dye.
Just be careful collecting it by the roadside eh?.
Good luck & Great Angling!
Home Made Boilies 