Old style groundbait vs shop bought mix?

[Match Aerial]

I agree Firebird
I always just regard ground bait as a means to just carry loose feed into an area were fish will find the bait and not be washed away by the current if in running water.
Some of these continental style groundbaits smell beautiful but I honesty don't think they work any better than just bog standard old fashioned groundbait..
I always mix loose feed samples in with the groundbait being sure to add some free hook bait samples in as well.
The introduction of ground bait can be good to hold fish compacted in an area, instead to spread over the swim like you can sometimes get with loose feed only

[Santiago]

It's great to hear you chaps prefer the more traditional approach to groundbait.

[Tonytoned]

During the 70's when times wer hard! We used to spend days collecting any left over stale bread, crusts from our mums. Then spend half a day with the meat mincer, grinding up into crumbs dropping trout pellets in to the mincer to add taste and aroma, these we had previously bought from our local fishing tackle shop (which is still in business today! was then - Sea Anglers Supplies now called Poindestres). Anyway as you could imagine it took a lot of bread to make the ground bait. But we also did muush bread up with water and a few table spoonfuls of powdered milk to make it cloud up as well! "Handy for your tea or coffee too..........Yuk!!!!
So old style for then!.... but shop bought now, because I'm lazy.......Oh! and a bit older.... of course!

[Santiago]

That's just what my dad used to do. We had a big meat tray on top of the cooker that we put all the stale bread. And when there was enough stale bread collected my dad would grind it all up with a meat grinder, and sometimes I would do it for him and take some for my own fishing. Happy days.

[Match Aerial]

I questioned the use of continental type ground baits years ago. After I realised on match days every one used different types and there was no consistency with the match results.
It was still the best pegs that won the matches regardless of which ground bait was used, expensive or home made bread and bran mix.
So I concluded it not worth the extra coppers.
I Saved money for a pint afterwards .

[Match Aerial]

Or another way to look at it is, I have never seen anyone win a match of a rubbish peg because they used groundbait or additives which cost £5 a bag.
When that happens I will start taking notice.

[ExeAngler]

This is a good post. I use GB a lot in both my Carp and Bream fishing. When the fish are having it, you can go through a lot of bait. I use the inline feeder most of the time. With shop brought groundbait it gets expensive. I have been experimenting with using mashed bread around an inline feeder. You have to take care to remove the crusts or you get floating bits. The Carp don't seem to mind. I have caught a few fish on it, but it needs some type of binder to make it grip the feeder.

I have been adding Pellets, Bran and Oats. For colder weather it would over feed the fish, so would need to look at other options, but in the Summer, when the fish are feeding, it looks like a good way to cut costs and fish more cheaply. Frugal and simple.

[Richie]

Mashed bread mixed with liquidised sweet corn I use frozen sweet corn works out around £1 a kilo plus 50p for the bread .

[Vole]

For a fierce binder, try blenderised cornflakes (think about how difficult they are to clean off a plate once dry) or Vitalin (which binds because of its high corn content)

[Kingfisher]

I enjoy watching Graeme Pullen's videos. He's a very enterprising man too when it comes to his fishing. He's always making his own tackle and baits.

This video is excellent for producing a cheap groundbait that actually works very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZMiBZOe9ns