Simple Banging Groundbait Mix

[elmoputney]

4 minutes ago, yonny said:

I was just waiting for someone to say that 😂🤣😂

I would've said mintoes but getting them on the coke might be an expensive business 

[jh92]

1 hour ago, carpepecheur said:

I understand your point Oscha and because I am uncertain, I do soak and boil the maize. However I have scoured the internet for any factual evidence that raw maize swells up inside a carp and kills it. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence but no hard facts. I did read that a well known carp fishery in Eastern Europe fattens their carp with raw maize although again this might be fake news. Who knows these days?

 

Try this test. Put some raw maize in a jar and let it soak for a couple of days and then measure it and tell me how much it has swollen up.

I left maize soaking for about 2 weeks and it was the best looking maize I’ve seen.. about 3 times the size and would squish in between your fingers, I boiled it and completely ruined the batch, it blown basically all the kernels so no good for a rig. I do wonder if you soak it for long enough, do you really need to boil it? 

[carpepecheur]

Yonny said “No arguments, this is a healthy debate lads”

I totally agree with that sentiment. Surely this is what forums are about – sharing ideas and experience. But he also said “I think we're all agreed that unprepared particles are a no-no all the same.” And I can’t agree with that statement. I will say that where there is doubt, err on the side of caution and soak and boil but I would also like to see some evidence of raw maize doing damage to a carp.

A farm near me supplies foie gras using a system known as “gavage”. Ducks are force fed maize to make foie gras. To the best of my knowledge no ducks have ever exploded and died due to the maize swelling up. Nevertheless you will read heaps of stuff on the internet with people, who have no actual experience of what it is really like, telling everyone how bad it is for ducks. So much so that foie gras is now banned from restaurants in California. OK ducks and carp are different creatures but I hope you get my point.

JH92 said “I left maize soaking for about 2 weeks and it was the best looking maize I’ve seen. about 3 times the size and would squish in between your fingers, I boiled it and completely ruined the batch, it blown basically all the kernels so no good for a rig. I do wonder if you soak it for long enough, do you really need to boil it? “

I have never observed maize expand to three times its size but if that makes it mushy isn’t that the point. All you can be doing is adding water to the maize. So if it expand 3 times then two thirds of it is water and nowhere near as harmful as a raw grain three times its size. There seems to be a mis-conception that a swollen maize is just as harmful as a hard raw maize.

But in my opinion the best idea posted on this thread was by Oscsha who said “Maybe we're doing it wrong by using boilies that meet a carps needs , as they may eat less due to their nutritional need being fulfilled , this leading to the fish being on the feed less. Playing devil’s advocate a little”

If the carp have to keep eating and re-eating raw maize to get any benefit from it, it keeps them feeding longer and makes them more catchable. That is a VERY interesting and original idea.

The big question is – is it safe?

Edited June 4, 2019 by carpepecheur

[yonny]

Good post!

However, how anyone could argue that the production of fois gras can be anything other than bad for ducks is beyond me (I'm talking about cruelty as well as health wise).

[carpepecheur]

That is understandable Yonnie but it is one of those things you have to experience to understand. I was shown around a local farm because I made similar comments. In my mind, the ducks love the force feeding. In the old days the farmers wife used to use a gadget with an archimedes screw, sit the duck on her lap and force feed it with maize. Nowadays, the feeding tubes are all automatic but come feeding time they are queing at the gate to be let in and fed. When I was there, one duck got left behind at feeding time and it created merry hell to be let in and fed.

Of course I am only talking about local, traditional methods. I am sure there are are industrial sized units which are less kind - like any form of animal husbandry these days.

Like everything on the internet, it is hard to separate fact from fiction.

Edited June 4, 2019 by carpepecheur
photo added

[elmoputney]

The main trouble I see with just baiting with maize is that if everyone else is using boilies they would still fill up on that first as it meets there requirements quicker and I believe carp will always take the easy option, although I do agree if you got them to feel confident feeding on it then it would make them more catchable and if you covered a lot of the pre baiting in the lake yourself then over time you could train them, 

 

 

[elmoputney]

Perhaps this would be a good approach coming into winter though, thinking about it, they would certainly eat more than boilies, angler pressure is down could be a good cost effective winter baiting method 

[yonny]

48 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

The main trouble I see with just baiting with maize is that if everyone else is using boilies they would still fill up on that first as it meets there requirements quicker and I believe carp will always take the easy option

Not sure about that elmo. Look at maggots, they provide hardly anything in terms of nutrition but they'd be taken before boilies every single time. Same with tigers - at times they're more effective than boiled baits but they don't provide much in the way of nutritional requirements.

[salokcinnodrog]

8 minutes ago, yonny said:

Not sure about that elmo. Look at maggots, they provide hardly anything in terms of nutrition but they'd be taken before boilies every single time. Same with tigers - at times they're more effective than boiled baits but they don't provide much in the way of nutritional requirements.

Maggots you very rarely fish as an individual, you tend to fish a quantity, a pint minimum (usually) around your bait, and they create preoccupation.

Maggots do  have a reasonable protein composition. They consist of up to 60% of protein alone. Such animal protein is very suitable for animal nutrition, in fact, better suited than soya proteins. 

 

Tigers and peanuts, i'm sure I have said before, contain enzyme inhibitors. These inhibitors basically prevent digestion, but are addictive, so carp continue to feed on them even though no or limited nutrition is being provided.

[yonny]

15 minutes ago, salokcinnodrog said:

Maggots do  have a reasonable protein composition. They consist of up to 60% of protein alone.

That doesn't show the full picture Nick. Maggots are almost 90% water. It's the remaining 10-15% that contains 60% protein. So something like 7 or 8 % protein as a foodstuff.

[oscsha]

I like to use a good quality food based boilies so that I know the carp are getting some benefit from eating them , but I do think we give them a little to much credit in being able to pick food on its nutritional value .

 

[greekskii]

20 hours ago, oscsha said:

It's a very interesting subject  , I wonder how long their digestive system needs to utilise the nutrients , in the case of tigers I've witnessed that aswell but I wonder if the digestive system is actually pulling any nutrients out of them .

i should read up on it a bit more . 

I've witnessed carp Emptying out full pellets before. They can just eat until it pushes whatever they are eating out the other end. I think it's a very rare thing to have them feeding that hard though

[oscsha]

3 minutes ago, greekskii said:

I've witnessed carp Emptying out full pellets before. They can just eat until it pushes whatever they are eating out the other end. I think it's a very rare thing to have them feeding that hard though

Yes I've seen them do similar as well , my point is though I wonder when they are feeding in such a way are they actually getting any / much nutritional benefit from the food or is it just passing straight through .

Do we know how long their system needs to digest / utilise food .

[elmoputney]

1 hour ago, yonny said:

Not sure about that elmo. Look at maggots, they provide hardly anything in terms of nutrition but they'd be taken before boilies every single time. Same with tigers - at times they're more effective than boiled baits but they don't provide much in the way of nutritional requirements.

I wouldn't feed boilies the way people feed maggots though, people seem to think they all dive into the silt or wriggle away to safety as soon as they hit the bottom, which they don't they drown, so they spomb out tonnes which leads to them getting preoccupied on them, and also finding an easy meal as there is an abundance of maggots on the bottom, 

Personally I always like to have different items available different sizes, shapes, colours,textures and flavours etc so they don't get used to feeding on one sized thing, even if I just fished boilies I would still use 2 sizes and chops and some crushed ones 

 

[yonny]

16 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

people seem to think they all dive into the silt or wriggle away to safety as soon as they hit the bottom, which they don't they drown

I've tested it! You're right, they don't wriggle away or bury themselves, they stay exactly where they are, but they can stay alive overnight - even when pierced!

18 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

Personally I always like to have different items available different sizes, shapes, colours,textures and flavours etc so they don't get used to feeding on one sized thing, even if I just fished boilies I would still use 2 sizes and chops and some crushed ones 

I know a lot of guys that do this. I don't bother. If a bait they like is introduced in the right place (where they're prepared to feed) they'll eat it with gusto regardless of shape/size and trip up imo.

[salokcinnodrog]

1 hour ago, elmoputney said:

I wouldn't feed boilies the way people feed maggots though, people seem to think they all dive into the silt or wriggle away to safety as soon as they hit the bottom, which they don't they drown, so they spomb out tonnes which leads to them getting preoccupied on them, and also finding an easy meal as there is an abundance of maggots on the bottom, 

Personally I always like to have different items available different sizes, shapes, colours,textures and flavours etc so they don't get used to feeding on one sized thing, even if I just fished boilies I would still use 2 sizes and chops and some crushed ones 

 

I've seen carp concentrate on one food item to the exclusion of others; bloodworm, pellets, even hemp.

I've put boilies in when they are feeding on a visible patch of bloodworm, the boilies on the bloodworm bed were ignored totally. Hemp was fed as part of a particle mix, they totally cleared that up, ignoring the other particles and boilies.

A few years back I fished Vitalin, sweetcorn and maize, with a few boilies in there, them and the boilie hookbait were ignored. I had to change to maize and sweetcorn to get a take.

[yonny]

19 minutes ago, salokcinnodrog said:

I've put boilies in when they are feeding on a visible patch of bloodworm, the boilies on the bloodworm bed were ignored totally.

I've also seen this!

[greekskii]

3 hours ago, oscsha said:

Yes I've seen them do similar as well , my point is though I wonder when they are feeding in such a way are they actually getting any / much nutritional benefit from the food or is it just passing straight through .

Do we know how long their system needs to digest / utilise food .

I'd say if they are excreting whole food items then no digestion is happening at all, its in with one and out with another. There will be literature around carp digestion out there for sure

[elmoputney]

1 hour ago, salokcinnodrog said:

I've seen carp concentrate on one food item to the exclusion of others; bloodworm, pellets, even hemp.

I've put boilies in when they are feeding on a visible patch of bloodworm, the boilies on the bloodworm bed were ignored totally. Hemp was fed as part of a particle mix, they totally cleared that up, ignoring the other particles and boilies.

A few years back I fished Vitalin, sweetcorn and maize, with a few boilies in there, them and the boilie hookbait were ignored. I had to change to maize and sweetcorn to get a take.

Maybe that is answer, they may be suspicious more of boilies, as they more often than not they are a hookbait and they feed happily on the particles knowing they are safer 

And especially with hemp as people don't tend to use it as a hookbait at all really 

[oscsha]

I think a lot of carp anglers see boilies as the 'only' bait  , the same as pleasure anglers used to only use maggots  . 

[yonny]

26 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

they may be suspicious more of boilies, as they more often than not they are a hookbait

Nah, they're not that smart. It's because no man made bait can compete with an explosion of their natural food source imo. Naturals can though......

You don't have to worry about that until September when the weed dies down revealing the natural larders. Until then, once spawning is done, boilies and pellets are at their most effective imo - if they find them they will eat them, to help get that weight back on.

I adjust my baiting strategies throughout the year and we're just coming into the period that I'd be using very large qtys of boilies.

[yonny]

9 minutes ago, oscsha said:

I think a lot of carp anglers see boilies as the 'only' bait

Agree. It's nuts (no pun intended lol).