Par Boiled Potatoes

[Mark]

This is a bait I have never tried, I know in the 50’s it was a bait that caught plenty of fish. Has anyone used or using this bait.

[St.John]

I've never tried it, but I keep meaning to. It worked a treat back then, and I do think some of these trad baits are a bit of an edge....

[DontKnowMuch]

I've cast out par boiled spuds into Croxby, Woldale and Butts' Pond (check out Kev Clifford's A History...) and caught nothing at all with them :lol:

I must admit they were the tinned variety and not home prepared so maybe thats why they failed to attract anything.

For casting I followed some old advice and used a crust 'buffer'.

[Snape]

I'm not too surprised you didn't catch anything as I don't think carp really find them that attractive without some form of additive. Carp, being omnivorous and scavengers will be attracted to protein whereas a potato is nearly all carbohydrate.

In 'drop me a line' Walker and Ingham discuss dumping a large quantity of boiled potatoes in the lake to get the carp to accept them more readily. Walker found that they worked in some lakes well but in others not at all.

Looks quite tasty to me though.

[Martin James]

Mark I caught a lot of carp on potatoes from the 1940's to the late 1960's, but they were not par boiled, but cooked until soft with a crust pad on the bend of the hook. Try pulling a hook through a par-boiled potato it doesn't work. Remember in the old days anglers often used a treble hook. No way could you pull such hook through the recommended par boiled bait. I could virtually tell the time when the carp would move in and feed often within about ten minutes. The reason being, I fed the water every day with a couple of pounds of soft cooked potatoes at the same time, the carp quickly recognised this fact.

On one occasion in the 1960's Mike Harris and I sat fishing a gravel, I said " Mike we can expect the
carp to start feeding within 10 minutes, in fact 5 minutes later the bite indicator shot up to the butt ring and soon a mid double figure mirror carp was landed by Mike who said "Bloody Hell I don't mind you catching the fish but telling me the time when you expected a take is incredible".

I think it was in the 1953 season when myself and two friends baited a new water every evening from April 1st until the start of the season. By May we could throw in the spuds, then watch the carp move out from the reeds to the feeding area. In fact sometimes we would throw in a few stones, the same thing happened. Potatoes have been a good bait for me, on another occasion after baiting a new water for several weeks in 1956 or 57. I caught 13 doubles between 3 and 8 o'clock in the morning. As I caught the carp, my mates walked round the lake collecting Hessian sacks from other anglers. At 9 o'clock the weigh-in cabin was opened, we weighed my carp. They weighed between 10lb ounces and 13lb 8 ounces. Let's be honest the humble potato could best be described as one of the first boilies, in fact the first boiled baits were used in the USA and known dough balls Regards Martin

[GloucesterOldSpot]

I'm not too surprised you didn't catch anything as I don't think carp really find them that attractive without some form of additive. Carp, being omnivorous and scavengers will be attracted to protein whereas a potato is nearly all carbohydrate.

If carp are omnivorous (and I agree they are) then carbs ought to be as attractive as protein. Don't bother quoting all the bait theory stuff as evidence either; been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Still got buckets of fishmeal and Robin Red and horrid smelly black snail basemix cluttering up the shed. What's been my most successful bait this year?

Maize.

I used to scorn the whole boile/HNV thing, believing all you needed to catch carp was a lump of bread or some corn or what have you. I then started using boilies and ended up getting in way too deep in the whole food-source bait syndrome, throwing loads of expensive muck into various lakes in the vain hope that a regular supply would switch the carp on eventually. It didn't. Three years of prebaiting one water with one of the most highly regarded baits available produced a sum total of nil carps. Since then I've had several fish on a variety of simple baits, like peanuts, maple peas and maize. Maize and peanuts worked pretty instantly, though the nuts tended to be less successful as time went on.

Now I agree totally with Walker; 'A carp will eat anything, so long as he's not been taught not to'.

[Mark]

Mark I caught a lot of carp on potatoes from the 1940's to the late 1960's, but they were not par boiled, but cooked until soft with a crust pad on the bend of the hook. Try pulling a hook through a par-boiled potato it doesn't work. Remember in the old days anglers often used a treble hook. No way could you pull such hook through the recommended par boiled bait. I could virtually tell the time when the carp would move in and feed often within about ten minutes. The reason being, I fed the water every day with a couple of pounds of soft cooked potatoes at the same time, the carp quickly recognised this fact.

On one occasion in the 1960's Mike Harris and I sat fishing a gravel, I said " Mike we can expect the
carp to start feeding within 10 minutes, in fact 5 minutes later the bite indicator shot up to the butt ring and soon a mid double figure mirror carp was landed by Mike who said "Bloody Hell I don't mind you catching the fish but telling me the time when you expected a take is incredible".

I think it was in the 1953 season when myself and two friends baited a new water every evening from April 1st until the start of the season. By May we could throw in the spuds, then watch the carp move out from the reeds to the feeding area. In fact sometimes we would throw in a few stones, the same thing happened. Potatoes have been a good bait for me, on another occasion after baiting a new water for several weeks in 1956 or 57. I caught 13 doubles between 3 and 8 o'clock in the morning. As I caught the carp, my mates walked round the lake collecting Hessian sacks from other anglers. At 9 o'clock the weigh-in cabin was opened, we weighed my carp. They weighed between 10lb ounces and 13lb 8 ounces. Let's be honest the humble potato could best be described as one of the first boilies, in fact the first boiled baits were used in the USA and known dough balls Regards Martin

Thanks Martin for the detailed explanation, you’ve made it a lot clearer for me.

[GloucesterOldSpot]

Yes, but not extensively. They can be a bit soft for casting, but the crust pad idea is effective - though I slice the end off the spud to create a flat surface against which to rest the crust. I don't see why they shouldn't work out of a tin; corn, beans, chick peas and the like all do.

To be honest I've not tried spuds for some time, since getting involved in the boilie thing. I may put one out for the night next time I go, just to see what happens; most baits get chomped by the roach sooner or later, so if nothing else it might get me a big roach.

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

Love this excerpt from Arthur Clarke's article on fishing Woldale in the 60's...

"The going bait was potatoes, freelined I had been assured. Saturday mornings were spent on Grimsby market sorting out perfectly round new potatoes, one inch in diameter. Saturday evenings were spent par-boiling them. Sunday, chucking them in and watching the carp avoid them."

[DaveM]

Love this excerpt from Arthur Clarke's article on fishing Woldale in the 60's...

"The going bait was potatoes, freelined I had been assured. Saturday mornings were spent on Grimsby market sorting out perfectly round new potatoes, one inch in diameter. Saturday evenings were spent par-boiling them. Sunday, chucking them in and watching the carp avoid them."

I love it when a plan comes together!