Chris Yates bread paste

[Stathamender]

..... steamed or boiled ragi-flour paste (millet flour), has been used in India for hundreds of years as mahseer bait, would be the original boilie. The locals flavoured the paste with a aniseed smelling seed called somph.....

Perhaps that's fennel seed called sonf or saunf in Hindi.

[Ian]

Too right Michael.i mind seeing John Wilson in an old go fishing and I think that's what he was using,he lost a big mahseer in that one,I was just meaning that would have been the first boilies used for the carp in Britain,I was made aware of that by an old fisherman I met in Newcastle and he was a day older than coal.

[Santiago]

There's a recipe for boilies in Isaac Walton's The Compleate Angler. I leant my copy out and forgot who to, but I remember it has honey in!

[Match Aerial]

I don't have a copy of Walton these days but if I remember rightly he also dipped wasp grub in honey ,never tried it but I bet it works

[Michael]

For those who feel like having a Walton moment, why not try Walton's paste bait, as used over 300 years ago!

Extract from The Compleat Angler, by Izaak Walton Chapter IX
The fourth day - continued
On the Carp
Chapter IX
Piscator

The Carp bites either at worms, or at paste: and of worms I think the bluish marsh or meadow worm is best; but possibly another worm, not too big, may do as well, and so may a green gentle: and as for pastes, there are almost as many sorts as there are medicines for the toothache; but doubtless sweet pastes are best; I mean, pastes made with honey or with sugar: which, that you may the better beguile this crafty fish, should be thrown into the pond or place in which you fish for him, some hours, or longer, before you undertake your trial of skill with the angle-rod; and doubtless, if it be thrown into the water a day or two before, at several times, and in small pellets, you are the likelier, when you fish for the Carp, to obtain your desired sport. Or, in a large pond, to draw them to any certain place, that they may the better and with more hope be fished for, you are to throw into it, in some certain place, either grains, or blood mixt with cow-dung or with bran; or any garbage, as chicken's guts or the like; and then, some of your small sweet pellets with which you propose to angle: and these small pellets being a few of them also thrown in as you are angling, will be the better.

And your paste must be thus made: take the flesh of a rabbit, or cat, cut small; and bean-flour; and if that may not be easily got, get other flour; and then, mix these together, and put to them either sugar, or honey, which I think better: and then beat these together in a mortar, or sometimes work them in your hands, your hands being very clean; and then make it into a ball, or two, or three, as you like best, for your use: but you must work or pound it so long in the mortar, as to make it so tough as to hang upon your hook without washing from it, yet not too hard: or, that you may the better keep it on your hook, you may knead with your paste a little, and not too much, white or yellowish wool.

And if you would have this paste keep all the year, for any other fish, then mix with it virgin-wax and clarified honey, and work them together with your hands, before the fire; then make these into balls, and they will keep all the year.

And if you fish for a Carp with gentles, then put upon your hook a small piece of scarlet about this bigness, it being soaked in or anointed with oil of petre, called by some, oil of the rock: and if your gentles be put, two or three days before, into a box or horn anointed with honey, and so put upon your hook as to preserve them to be living, you are as like to kill this crafty fish this way as any other: but still, as you are fishing, chew a little white or brown bread in your mouth, and cast it into the pond about the place where your float swims. Other baits there be; but these, with diligence and patient watchfulness, will do better than any that I have ever practiced or heard of. And yet I shall tell you, that the crumbs of white bread and honey made into a paste is a good bait for a Carp;

I`ll stick to the modern equivalent, I think the Mrs may object to the feline ingredients to say the least.....

[Michael]

..... steamed or boiled ragi-flour paste (millet flour), has been used in India for hundreds of years as mahseer bait, would be the original boilie. The locals flavoured the paste with a aniseed smelling seed called somph.....

Perhaps that's fennel seed called sonf or saunf in Hindi.

Tis the one Stathamender, amongst other seeds, its sometimes given out in restaurants as a mouth cleanser and digestive aid, which is called Mukhwas, usually contains fennel seeds, anise seeds, coconut, and sesame seeds......

[Bobthefloat]

Running round the garden trying to catch the neighbours cat at the min. The lengths we go to for our beloved sport!

[Olly]

Sunf = Fennel on the English to Hindi translator.

[Michael]

Running round the garden trying to catch the neighbours cat at the min. The lengths we go to for our beloved sport!

If you think that's hard Bob, try explaining away the small bit of fur in the kitchen blender........

[Bobthefloat]

I had a copy of the book while I was at school but I didn't appreciate it at the time.
I think I'll order a copy and find a quiet little pool somewhere and loose myself for a few days.
Who knows I might even find myself.
I think the fun is in looking!