Getting Started.
To make boilies what you do first is to make a flavoured paste. This paste is then rolled into many small balls, boiled, (hence the term boilie), left to dry and then frozen. To do this you need eggs, a liquid flavour, a sweetener and a base mix. For information on the base mixes, see the base mix index link on the left. There is also a link to the flavour index for my recommended flavours.
The use of a sweetener in boilies is personal choice. I always like to include one myself, as I believe it makes the boilies taste better. I have never been able to ask any carp if they too like sweeteners, but all I can say is, that I seem to catch an awful lot of fish on baits that include them. In any case their inclusion boosts my confidence, which always seems to make you fish better.
Eggs are used as they help bind the mix together and during the boiling process, help form a hard skin on the outside of the boilie.
Making the Base Mix.
First of all we need to make the base mix.
In this example I am going to make
a simple but very effective base mix that is made up of:
8oz Semolina (from most large supermarkets)
4oz Ground Rice (again available from supermarkets)
4oz Soya Flour (available from health food shops)
The same method is used for any of the base mixes listed on
the site.
Weigh out the 8oz of Semolina, 4oz of Ground Rice and 4oz of Soya Flour.
The Semolina, Rice and Soya Flour powders are then poured into a large freezer bag.
I've decided to make red boilies so I am adding half a
tea-spoon of red powdered dye into the bag as well.
If you are using a liquid dye you add it to the eggs at a
later stage.
Blow the bag up (with the powder inside) like a balloon. Twist it around at the top to trap the air in the bag. Give the bag a very good shake, so that all the powders inside it are well mixed up.
That's your base mix finished!.
You are now ready to go onto the next stage to make the boilies themselves. If you are not going to use the base mix straight away, store it in a plastic bag or air tight bucket, in a cool dry place.
Making the Boilies.
Having made the base mix, it's now time to use it to make some boilies.
The flavours that I have decided to use are:
2.5ml Mulberry Florentine (Rod. Hutchinson)
5.0ml Scopex (K. Nash or Rod. Hutchinson)
3ml Intense Sweetener (K. Nash or Rod. Hutchinson).
It's a combination the Rod. Hutchinson wrote about and it has caught me many fish. It works instantly without pre-baiting and is also great for fishing as a single hookbait, with no loose feed introduced.
Crack 4 medium sized eggs into a mixing bowl or pan. Measure out the flavours and sweetener, as detailed above, and add them to the eggs. You can use a pipette or set of measuring spoons to measure out the right amount of flavour. Most tackle shops sell small pipettes, which are made for the job. They coast just over one pound for a set of three.
Some chemists sell double headed spoons for a few pence that measure 5ml at one end and 2.5ml of liquid at the other.
If you are using a liquid dye, add it to the eggs at this stage.
Once you have added the flavours and sweetener to the eggs beat the eggs well up with a fork. You will need to beat the eggs for a couple of minutes, so that everything is mixed well in.
Tip.
Try not to get to much air into the eggs when you beat them up, use a fork not a whisk. The air inside the eggs will expand during boiling, making the finished boilies to soft.
It's now time to add the base mix
powder to the eggs. Do not add it all at once.
Add about a cup full of base mix to the eggs and mix it well
in with a fork. It will go like sloppy porridge. Leave it to
stand for about five minutes, before adding more powder.
This will give the base mix you have added time to absorb
some of the egg/flavour mix and will help to stop the mix
drying out to much later on.
After five or so minutes continue to add basemix slowly, mixing well in.
You will come to the time when the mix is to stiff to mix with a fork anymore. There's nothing for it now, but to get your hands messy. Slowly add more powder, a bit at a time and kneed it well into the paste with your hands.
You will know when the paste is ready when it forms a firm ball that isn't sticky and can hold its shape, yet is easy to mould. I think that putty is the nearest description I can give, that the finished paste should be like.
There are a number of bait making aids you can use to make the paste into balls ready for boiling.
Firstly you need to turn the paste into "sausages" of the right diameter. There are two main ways to do this, the first involves the use of a "rolling table.
The animation on the right shows how it works. Some of the paste is broken from the main piece, and laid on a work surface. The rolling table is then worked back and two over the paste to roll it into a sausage. The tables are available in different sizes, to make different diameter sausages.
The second way of producing the sausages involves the use of a "sausage gun". The boilie paste is loaded into the guns tube. As the trigger is squeezed a plunger slowly forces the paste out of the other end on the tube through a nozzle. The nozzles are interchangeable having different diameters, so that different diameter sausages can be made to suite the size of "rolaball table" you are using.
Having made the sausages you now need to convert them into balls, of the diameter you want your boilies.
For this you need a different type of rolling table. This consists of a top and bottom section, which has grooves the same diameter as your intended boilies. Gardner Tackle who make excellent bait making aids, call them "Rolaball Baitmakers".
The sausage is laid at right angles to the grooves on the Rolaball Table. The top of the table is them slid back and two over the sausage a few times. For the final movement slide the top right off the bottom part and you will find your boilies roll of the rolling table and onto your work top.
As with the "sausage rolling table" and the "paste gun nozzles" the Rolaball Table is available in different sizes to make different diameter boilies. So if your new to bait making make sure you buy compatable sizes.
If you don't have a rolling table your going to have to roll the paste into what ever size boilies you want by hand. Simply break off small pieces of paste and roll between your hands into round boilie shapes.
Boilies are only round so that they will catapult out accurately. If your fishing close in or with hookbaits only, there's nothing to stop you rolling the paste by hand into sausages, then cutting the sausages up into cylinders with a knife. At least your being different and that will often catch! - so I've read anyway. To be honest I've never found altering the shape made any difference, at least round ones catapult out better.
You now need to boil your baits. Bring some water to the boil and add about 20 at a time to the boiling water. Do not add to many so that the water goes off boil. After about 2 minutes of boiling take the baits out of the boiling water and let them dry on a clean towel or cloth. I use an old chip pan, as it is easy and safe to lower to lower the baits in and out in the chip basket.
After all the batch has been boiled leave them to dry on your cloth for about half an hour. I use a Gardner Drying Rack which can be bought from tackle shops for about ten pounds. It lets the air circulate freely around the baits during the drying process.
After the boilies have dried for at least half an hour, bag them up and store in the freezer ready for use.
The End Result.
A 15.5lb ghost carp caught on one of the actual boilies I made above.