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Boilies Savoury or Sweet...

T

Tony Carter

Senior Member
Just thinking out aloud on this but as most boilies aimed at catching barbell/chub are nearly always fish/meat etc flavoured i'm considering trying a sweet flavoured bait might be worth trying as it could potentially be less conspicuous.

I think the last recipe I made for winter fishing was a combination of both using John Baker ingredients....

Just a thought !
 
I don't think I've ever caught chub on a sweet bait of any kind (just my own personal experience - others' mileage may vary), but barbel often fall to sweetcorn, so I don't see why they wouldn't go for a sweet boilie. Your only problem might be if carp and/or tench are present - they're likely to snaffle it up before a barbel does.
 
My fav ever boilie for Barbel was Mainline Maple 8 (all months), it was certainly sweet and caught Barbel from any venue.

I’ve prebaited with Mainline Hybrid, which certainly appeared to be sweet/fruity and the Barbel were all over it, after several helpings. Any quality food source boilie will work when prebaiting, regardless of flavour. Barbel weren’t interested in it however, when I needed an instant bait on waters I haven’t fished before.

I also have a mate who does very well in the winter months, with a base/flavour combination, which was a real eye opener for me!
 
I recently watched a video where Des Taylor is fishing The Kennet using Ritchworth Esterberry boilies - he has a few chub and barbel on them. I thought I would give them a go to try something different from all of the fishmeal boilies and pellets that everybody uses.

I have used them many times over the last couple of seasons on the Kennet, Thames and Loddon and so far have not had any fish on them. The closest I've come is a take from a small chub that came off after a couple of seconds. I will continue using them until they run out and hopefully get something on them.

A couple of my mates carp fish the Thames and have had loads of barbel on Mainline Cell.

I've got loads of fruity / sweet boilies in the freezer but, (rightly or wrongly), always go to the fishmeals when barbel fishing. I think it's more of a confidence thing. But who knows if my catch rate would be just as successful using fruity / sweet baits?

I'm planning on giving the Thames a good go over the next few months, and, as I can get away with 2 rods I may just keep one on the sweet and one on the savoury and see what happens.....
 
One of my most successful barbel baits was cranberry shellfish,...so a bit of both there!
I use both fishmeal and sweet baits with confidence.
 
There are a lot of flavour combinations these days using sweet and fish/savoury flavours.

I think the JB frost/flood has a hint of sweet/caramel about it with a meat favour.

Minamino etc have meaty/sweet undertones.

Don't know why but I always use particles on the smaller rivers and boiles on the bigger ones like the Thames.
 
Neil Blood said:
My fav ever boilie for Barbel was Mainline Maple 8 (all months), it was certainly sweet and caught Barbel from any venue.

I’ve prebaited with Mainline Hybrid, which certainly appeared to be sweet/fruity and the Barbel were all over it, after several helpings. Any quality food source boilie will work when prebaiting, regardless of flavour. Barbel weren’t interested in it however, when I needed an instant bait on waters I haven’t fished before.

I also have a mate who does very well in the winter months, with a base/flavour combination, which was a real eye opener for me!
Click to expand...

Loved the smell of them maple boilies. Might still have have about 5 kg in the freezer. Could be mark 1s though been that long since I used boilies
 
Essential B5 Plum
John Baker ASP
Fenspice
Source
Maple 8
Nutrabaits Cream Cajouser additive
JB Frost and Flood
Richworth Tutti Frutti
Strawberry Meat

are some that immediately spring to mind. No doubt lots of others.
 
Bob Gill said:
Essential B5 Plum
John Baker ASP
Fenspice
Source
Maple 8
Nutrabaits Cream Cajouser additive
JB Frost and Flood
Richworth Tutti Frutti
Strawberry Meat

are some that immediately spring to mind. No doubt lots of others.
Click to expand...

Thank you Bob.

Say for instance you were using frost and flood would you add another flavour/sweetner to that?

Tony
 
Tony - I personally would not add anything else to begin with. You can play around once the bait has caught to add your own label, but have found that my confidence would take a dive if I messed around with a proven bait and then suffered no interest. F&F is pretty intense at standard levels of addition, the maple being quite intense (in human terms).
You can play around with all sorts of combinations once confidence in the bait has been established.
There are some very effective combinations consisting of mixed types of flavours - for example Ala Salar and Plum on Bio Shellfish (all JB).
Some flavours are undoubtedly more effective than others, some are similar between brands, others are not.
For me confidence is a major factor, I remember using the original Mainline Grange with little confidence at first, but it turned out to be a great bait for barbel. Unfortunately, it was changed and never seemed to be as good.
Hope this helps,
Bob
 
Bob Gill said:
Tony - I personally would not add anything else to begin with. You can play around once the bait has caught to add your own label, but have found that my confidence would take a dive if I messed around with a proven bait and then suffered no interest. F&F is pretty intense at standard levels of addition, the maple being quite intense (in human terms).
You can play around with all sorts of combinations once confidence in the bait has been established.
There are some very effective combinations consisting of mixed types of flavours - for example Ala Salar and Plum on Bio Shellfish (all JB).
Some flavours are undoubtedly more effective than others, some are similar between brands, others are not.
For me confidence is a major factor, I remember using the original Mainline Grange with little confidence at first, but it turned out to be a great bait for barbel. Unfortunately, it was changed and never seemed to be as good.
Hope this helps,
Bob
Click to expand...
Thanks bob that makes sense!

Just one final question if that's ok...do you think that supermilk should be cut with another base or will it be fine to use on its own.

I'm not worried about cost as I think the amount I use it works out cheaper than using maggots and caster these days !
 
Personally, would not cut Supermilk, but have done when experimenting. Would tend to use SM with an essential oil and if any other further additive is required would keep levels very, very low, apply sparingly. Tended to use milks in colder conditions
I have used JB Supermilk Gold as a very useful ingredient for making pastes such as cheese for winter use. Expensive, but gives me a good performance paste bait.
 
Thanks for replying Bob such a minefield boilie recipes!

I did see the JB book for sale on amazon but they want £35 for it I think !
 
JB book is OK, but lots of information around from other suppliers. Nutrabaits, Essential etc. Stock baits (not necessarily fruity) like Essential B5 Plum, Nutrabaits Trigga Ice and others are well proven barbel baits. There are others from smaller concerns such as the excellent Custom Bait Services 'Fenspice'. One thing that I like about the latter is that they give a full list of ingredients and offer a comprehensive service.
Example here:
Custom Bait Services PDF
 
Don't have a lot of faith in Boilies really, still buy them of course,:rolleyes: prefer using the boilie paste as a wrap. Pellet seem to work better for me, maybe it's just that I have more confidence in pellet, certainly get more bites on pellet vs boilie.

But I do agonise over if I am missing out on a wonder boilie out there that has escaped me thus far, if anyone can help, please let me know, pm if you prefer.:)
 
On highly pressured venues it's a wonder whether pellets etc are putting the fish off mind you enough seem to get caught on them still perhaps a case of right time right place rather than right bait
 
I believe more pellets on a venue improves the fishing rather than the opposite, on the Severn even the Roach get in on the act, snaffling 14mm pellets intended for Barbel. After all that is the nature of the pellet, it is a commercially produced fish food.
 
i bought a bag of the new sticky baits manilla boilies which are sweet but in three sessions on them i never even had a bite so i went back to good old halibut pellets the next session and had 4 barbel including may first double of the season.
thats the end of my sweet boilie exercise.
 
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