Boilie Making for Carping "n00bs"

 F irst off, we want you to graduate from your "n00b" status to proper American Carp fishermen. Hopefully you'll show up at one of our Summer River Swims and carp with our Cadre. This site aims to help you accomplish this. Now in Europe, they take this Bait Making thing pretty darn serious. It's the English equivalent of "Japanese Samurai" only with carp rods and smellie boilies. I am not that serious of a person, but the Brits bring a great deal of good Carping information to the table on this. There are entire books written on this subject. The American Carp are so thick in our waters we rarely have to worry about the finer art of finessing a Carp into biting a tasty morsel. A good Feed Corn Recipe will do the trick, but I've seen Oatmeal Jack bring in some big ones using Boilies when I was just pulling in Goldfish (see Oatmeal Jack's site for the picture). Try as I may he will not pull down the picture of me holding that little carp.

If you have read Cookie's Carp fishing story then you may also want to make boilies because you do not have a barrel laden with dead squirrel scent laying around. Nevertheless making boilies promises to be much more appetizing then Cookie's plan of attack. Don't get me wrong, I love "Cookie" but, well he's special. You can do it by hand with a few pots and pans lying around. A shopping trip to the local grocery should net you a list of good ingredients. Last year I found in the Hispanic foods section, bottles of Strawberry syrup that have come in handy for my feed corn flavoring experiments.

The net is your friend here!  Plug "Boilie Making" into Google Videos  or Google Web and you'll soon be on to wasting a day looking at the computer instead of making boilies or paying rent, taking the kids to soccer practice, completing a honey do list, etc... However when carp season rolls around you will be Prepared! How important is that other stuff, really? 

Now here's the thing, You can let your imagination run wild with expanding on Boilie Recipes. Here's a Basic recipe, to which you can add your own Flare 

Easy Boile Recipe (courtesy of Oatmeal Jack)

This simple basic recipe works well in rivers or lakes and is simple and easy to make. It is easy to add more or less flavor. I like strawberry or almost any sweet fruit flavor; the flavors can be Koolaide, cake flavors or even specially made European style carp bait flavors. Equal parts corn meal, semolina and soy flour.  Enough eggs to make it into a dough.  Any bait flavor including Koolaide, cake flavors or carp bait flavors, just enough to be able to smell it in the dough.  A little artificial sweetener like Equal.  A few drops of food coloring.  1/4 tablespoon of vegetable oil for each egg

* Mix eggs, flavor, sweetener and food coloring.

* Add premixed flour to make a stiff dough and wrap in saran wrap.

* Let set up for 10 - 15 minutes at room temperature.

* Roll into sausages and roll into balls or flatten to about 1/2 inch thick and cut into cubes.

* Boil for about 1 - 2 minutes depending on how big the balls are, about 2 minutes for 20mm boilies, less for smaller ones.

* Let cool on a cloth dish towel a couple of hours or overnight.

* Boilies can then be used or even frozen.

* A little tip, put a handfull of dried white rice in with the boilies you are taking fishing with you to keep them drier.

* Remember to write down everything in your recipe!! If you catch a BFC you will want to be able to recreate your bait again!!

There you go, you're now off to a proper start on Carp Baits. I promise to share my Feed Corn/Strawberry Pullet recipe in a future article.

LongJohn 

Here's how to Really Turn Out Some Boilies 

Need Some Boilies Get em Here. 7.55 per 14Oz