There was a time when rolling your own boilies was completely normal.
These days it’s much easier to buy excellent ready-made bait, but making boilies yourself still has some big advantages.
You control exactly what goes into them.
A basic boilie recipe consists of a dry base mix combined with eggs and any liquid flavours or attractors.
The dough is rolled into sausages, cut or rolled into round baits and then boiled or steamed before drying.
The real skill is building a balanced base mix.
Too much binder and you end up with hard rubber balls.
Not enough binding ingredient and the baits can fall apart before they reach the lake.
Good homemade boilies don’t need twenty exotic ingredients.
Fishmeal, milk proteins, bird foods, semolina, soya flour and various soluble ingredients have all formed the basis of successful carp baits for decades.
Making your own bait is particularly attractive if you use large quantities.
The downside?
Your kitchen can smell absolutely horrendous.
Does anyone on CarpTalk still roll all their own boilies?