The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

ALDI Trout and salmon cat biscuits 500g 89p
pigeon conditioner 1kg £1.50 or there abouts I can't remember the price but it's not far off.
curry powder 1 tspn
1/2 tin of sweetcorn the rest for hook baits.

I put the cat biscuits through a blender and blend to a fine powder. it just fills a 2ltr ice cream container, which can also be frozen for future use.
Put the pigeon conditioner in a bucket and cover with boiled water the night before fishing. This can also be frozen next morning.
The next morning the pigeon conditioner should have soaked in all the water and swelled.
Add the other ingredients to it and mix thoroughly.
Add more water if needed but you shouldn't really need any unless it's a hot day.

This consistency is ideal for balling in or also using on a method feeder, it will bubble in the water like a tench feeding. It also smells like fish curry.

I have found what I believe is my groundbait nirvana ..... a mixture of cattle nuts @ 31% protein and sheep nuts at 18% protein.
Soak overnight in a bowl and then riddle through a groundbait sieve.
The mixture binds well and momentarily floats before sinkkng and breaking down to nothing.

All agricultural feeds ... cattle nuts £9.31 = 25kg and sheep nuts 25kg £5.63
All cereal based soya protein. Cattle feed has a little more molasses

Works really well
Bendsomecane

My Old friend who was a farmer used to feed the carp in his lake cattle nuts. The carp were transferred from one of his irrigation pools along with some roach into a newly dug 3 acre lake not a million miles from Redmire pool about 15 years ago. The common carp were all around 1lb in weight and there was also a mirror of about 5lb.

The last time I was there I was watching a common carp which looked to be around the 20lb mark take bread off the surface.

Kingfisher .... did your farmer friend think that feedjng the cattle feed was really beneficial to growing on his stock

Bendsomecane

BendSomeCane wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2017 10:01 pm Kingfisher .... did your farmer friend think that feedjng the cattle feed was really beneficial to growing on his stock

Bendsomecane

To be honest I think it was more a cost saving issue but I dare say he knew the benefits of the cattle nuts. Also after paying for the carp in the first place I would imagine he didn't think it would harm his fish in any way.


Here is the lake. It didn't take long before it was weed fringed and had trees growing, it now has an abundance of aquatic life and the carp are always truffling for bloodworm. I don't think it needs any bait/food substitutians anymore.

Firebird wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:10 pm All these fancy groundbaits, some using fish meal it seems (impact on the marine environment) - how do you know they work better than plain old breadcrumb? Considering all the fancy commercial groundbaits - based on the leftovers from the cooking oil business - each has its own adherents, is there anything more fish-catching than the rest?

The only way to find out would be randomised trials, I suppose, although what often influences thinking is that adopting a new method leads to improvements in catches (e.g. particle baits).

Firebird wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:58 am .......But I think the vast number of "recipes" used suggests to me that one is no better than the other.

It doesn't necessarily follow rather it's virtually impossible to tell what might be an improvement. The very specialised case of fishing for one species (carp) on a restricted number of waters enables comparisons to be made that show particle baits are successful. Tench fishers also claim special value for one form of groundbait (splodge or spludge or something like that?) which presumably derives in the same way.

I woukd agree with Firebird ... over the years ive tried most things to create that extra special something.
In my veiw if you understand what it should do against what anglers think it does when they chuck in a ball you woud be better trying yo get the mix right before it hits the water.

Too often anglers pay silly silly money for what it essentially cereal based mixes with bits of added crushed biscuit, sweeteners, salts or other flavours.
The trend to add fishmeal us not new but popular.

In the orginal post it mentioned layers mash ... I use it but riddle out the larger bits of maize. I also use sheep and cattle nuts which have different densities of cereals and a little molasses
These complement my mix which is always done the night before and riddled again to create air.
I do not put anything else in and as I am putting it in by hand the ball momentarily stays on the surface before falling down crumbling itself and when it hits the bottom there is virtually no ball left.

This creates the ground-bait on the bottom which is protein rich light and fluffy.

I find this is the key to better catches and understanding presentation of Ground-bait rather than a specific mix

Bendsomecane

i could write a 5,000 page book on the subject and it all boils down to one thing,learn about the fish you are trying to catch and don't over complicate things.ive fished for roach with the fanciest of groundbaits and I've fished for roach with brown crumb and a black currant t-bag put through it and both work really well,as long as it's sweet,that's a basis for roach.

I normally keep all my old bread and then grind it up. I've been using 80% crumb, mix it with water then at the last minute I add about 20% vitalin flakes in to get round the problem of it going gloopy. Seems to work great for carp, corn or wheat float fished over the top.