Eurotec Angling Products
Eclipse B and Enigma Baits
Introduction
Eurotec is a new angling company formed in 2003, who among several other angling services and
products offer bait for the barbel angler. More details of their products
and services can be found on their website at http://www.eurotec-angling.com
.
Eurotec’s philosophy on
bait making is utilising innovative food value ingredients, making their bait
to a quality rather than a price. Their aim is to ensure that your bait contains
the best ingredients available that will attract, hold and benefit the fish
(in terms of nutritional value and growth rates) without the bait ‘blowing’
over a short time period.
Interested in these claims and a few telephone calls later, I was pleased
to receive some of the products, kindly accompanied by a personal visit and
bait demonstration from Nigel Hudson of Eurotec.
Eurotec run their own ‘Bait Clinics’ – which are held at various places up
and down the country. For details of future planned clinics please refer to
the Eurotec website. From what I hear they are well worth attending.
OK, lets now have a look at some of the products.
Description of The Bait Products
Eurotec currently offer two ranges of barbel baits – the “Eclipse
Barbel” and the “Enigma”.
Both are fishmeal-based baits that utilise natural flavours, ingredients and
enhancers with the claim to make them the best long-term campaign baits available.
The Eclipse Barbel (nicknamed Eclipse-B) has an high fishmeal, fish extract
and crustacean content and utilises a spice seed ingredient that is unique
to Eurotec and gives the bait a subtle spicy (almost curry-like) scent and
flavour.
The Enigma utilises a similar blend of fishmeals but has a slightly higher
carbohydrate content to give it a more open texture and better digestibility
in colder water conditions. The Enigma contains garlic and black pepper additives
to both compliment the taste of the fishmeals and to give the bait a slightly
more pungent smell than the Eclipse-B.
Both the Eclipse-B and the Enigma are available as a “family” of baits offering
you a range of bait applications that compliments each other. This allows
you to experiment with your approach to keep ahead of the field, whilst still
presenting the fish with a uniform food signal. The range of baits within
each family is currently as follows: Freezer
Boilies, Base Mix, Specialist Paste Mix, S&M
(stick and method) mix, and Bait Liquids
(for hookbait glugs and dips). I am informed that for the start of next season
Eurotec will also have available matching rapid-breakdown pellets and specialist hookbaits
(such as pop-ups and pre-glugged freezer hookbaits).
Eurotec S&M mix, Eclipse B Boilies
and Eclipse B Paste Mix
For the purposes of this review, I’ll deal with my first impressions of some
of the products under their specific headings.
Eclipse B – Ready Made Freezer Boilies
I received samples of the freezer boilies in 14mm size. These were lightly
skinned baits, with fairly soft centres, which appeared to be tough enough
to withstand to attention of nuisance fish, rather than rock hard baits. Their
aroma was fishy with the addition of a subtle spicy tone.
Enigma – Ready Made Freezer Boilies
14mm freezer boilies were supplied and seemed to be firmer and have a more
open texture than the Eclipse B. There
was a smell of garlic with a hint of pepper on opening the packet.
Eclipse B – Dry Paste Mix
This mix is designed specifically for use as a paste mix and although it comprises
of the same ingredients as the Eclipse B paste mix, there is the addition
of natural binders that enable it to be mixed with water to make paste. This
enables it to be transported to the venue in dry form and then use river water
to make it. This has advantages – you can use river water instead of ‘raw’
tap water (which may contain amounts of water treatment chemicals), you can
make up small quantities as and when needed can minimise bait wastage and
also will cut down on the bait weight you carry in your tackle bag.
Mixing is no problem and with the addition of water, kneading to the desired
consistency makes a nice paste. Leaving for around 20 minutes to cure and
kneading again seems to improve the pliancy. I found it possible to make quite
thin paste wraps on my boilies if desired as well as my usual thicker wraps.
Following a couple of tips, I found that moulding the paste into various shapes
and sizes and then air drying for a few days (time depending on conditions
of course) also made some very usable hookbait pellets. Breakdown times of
these paste produced pellets was of the order of a few hours.
The made up paste, suitably bagged, kept for several days in the fridge without
any hints of going off.
Jam jar tests on balls of paste gave cloudy water with fine pieces of particulates
breaking off, without compromising the main bulk of paste for a couple of
hours. Obviously, breakdown times will depend on other factors – examples
being water temperature and flow, but I’ve found that jam jar tests give a
useful indication.
Enigma Base Mix
This was supplied without the Eurotec liquid, but no undue problems were encountered
making boilies both by hand rolling and using a bait gun and rolling table.
Eclipse B and Enigma Stick and Method (S&M) Mixes
As these two mixes are broadly similar in their handling characteristics,
I’ll deal with them together to avoid repetition.
What are they?
Both S&M mixes are fishmeal and shellfish based intended to give high
food, taste and scent value. Because of the inherent oil content of S&M
Mix it can be dampened with water and used in PVA stocking material for the
‘stick’ presentation. Mixed with suitable amounts of water it will not melt
PVA to any detrimental effect, however, ‘slop’ your mix and be prepared for
the obvious outcome!
The mix can be used
at varying compression rates in the stick form to create sticks that break
down fully at varying time intervals – typically between 1 minute and 10 minutes.
The breakdown times will depend on water temperature and flow rates and also
type of PVA used. The dampened mix can also be used in an open-ended feeder.
The same S&M mix can be mixed with water, kneaded and moulded around a
method feeder or lead to give a firm groundbait ball that will withstand distance
casting.
Whatever method is used, you can add quantities of additional items such as
boilies, pellets etc to personalise your mix.
Mixing
Add water to the S&M mix a little at a time, stirring in with your fingers.
The mix will be ready when it just holds together as a ball when compressed
in your hand. The mix will handle better if allowed to stand for a few more
minutes.
Sticks
For producing stick mixes, I tried making two diameters of stick – normal
(40mm) and boilie (25mm) size and three different suppliers of PVA stocking
mesh (Korda, Carp Quest and Black Cat). The latter two types were claimed
to be ladder resistant and after my rather ham fisted initial attempts the
claims seemed to be justified with not a ladder in sight. The Korda fared
least well - but to be fair this was quite old and I have been since told
that this old PVA stocking material has been replaced by a superior product.
As this review and test takes place during the winter months then my emphasis
was on the smaller diameter type sticks.
Freezing Sticks
I prepared several sticks for a planned fishing session, but had to cancel
it. After it became clear that I could not get out for a few days I tried
freezing the prepared sticks for future use. On defrosting the sticks I expected
problems with the PVA melting, but found that providing the sticks were removed
from the freezer bag before any condensation could form, they retained their
integrity. After experimenting a bit with defrosting I found that the best
method was to take the sticks from the freezer bag, separate them so there
was a slight space between each, and let them defrost. This was carried out
either on a wire gauze tray (such as a maggot or groundbait riddle)
or on a piece of kitchen towel.
Stick Breakdown
Immersion of the sticks in water gave a breakdown time of a few minutes on
average, but this could vary - the amount of compression of the S&M mix
used during the making process and also the type of PVA. As previously mentioned,
water temperature and flow conditions will also have a significant effect.
To test the breakdown in a real situation, I tried fishing the sticks threaded up the line, immediately above the hookbait. On a couple of occasions, after ten minutes or so in the river, I retrieved the stick pretty much intact. On other more frequent occasions it had broken down and was gone. If I had simply hooked the stick mesh then this would have told me little about the breakdown time, but I tried this and not surprisingly did not retrieve the stick once after a few minutes of immersion in the river.
Maybe more practice and experience was required in making the sticks to breakdown in the desired fashion.
Breakdown Illustration of PVA Mesh Stick Mix - Hookbait on Left Stick
Method Mix
Due to the limited time scale of testing, I had no opportunity to test using
S&M mixes as a method mix on the river.
Bait Availability and Sizes
At the time of this review, Eurotec’s freezer boilies are available in standard
14mm diameter, or in 10mm or 18mm by arrangement. Please note that the 10mm
are more expensive due to the additional rolling work involved.
Base, Paste and S&M
mixes bag size are to be confirmed.
For availability and
current prices then please contact Eurotec direct or register with them to
become a field tester. For any possible further news and updates, check the
main BFW site.
Eurotec are running a
series of ‘Bait Clinics’, which show and demonstrate the range of bait products.
Also, baits are available for purchase at these meetings. More details of the
location and dates of these clinics are available from the Eurotec website.
Eurotec have a field
tester forum on Carp Bait City (http://www.carpbaitcity.com)
and there will be more feedback from the newly formed BFW team of field testers
accordingly.
This review will also
be updated accordingly when more information becomes available.
Conclusions
The Eurotec current range of baits look good and I look forward to seeing
more of their products.
All of the products I’ve
experimented with handle well and I was impressed. I particularly liked the
S&M mixes, the versatility they offered and the paste mix.
Update 1st March 2004 - Eurotec products now available from the BFW Shop
Go
to The BFW On-Line Shop
Bob Gill
27th January 2004
Update 1st March 2004
