bait additives

i know its often a closely guarded secret but does anyone knowhow to make a decent bait additive, i dont mean just pilchard oil, but one where you add things to pilchard oil to make it more potent. go on dont be shy, you can pm me if you'd rather not tell the world

lugblood

As a current Club Master Angler / 2 Specimen Bass in 24 hours / an International Angler as a buddy I think that you should be sharing some secrets with us Paul :D Open up that t :lol: ackle box of yours and post the pics!!! All in favour say I!!!

FWIW... I experimented with a product called Smartbait, comes in a 4 vials and a grey box. Smells like Gulp rag/Sandworms. The box I had was specifically for targetting "plaice and flatfish". On the day I had 3 flounder, none of which took the marinaded baits. Jeep still stinking from the stuff too.

emulsified oil (sardine, smelt, mack, lamprey)with red food colouring and betaine.

had some good ray catches last year with red emulsified mack oil. the two baits with the oil had 7 ray in one session, the two non oiled had one.

liquidised worm, as cortaz said, has worked for me in the past. mixed up with oil and crumb and fished in a feeder for flats

now now kstaff, if my buddy would tell me all of his secrets i would be the international woulddnt i :lol: :lol: i have been given some stuff before and it worked to great success but it was given to me by some one that got it from some one else that got it from some one else...... and basically the final product was hard enough to get but the recipe was not something i was ever going to be given. i was hoping this thread would allow members to discuss what is and isnt worth using. for example thanks to cortaz i now know that adding emulsified lug to the mix will add to my chances.
sour grapes thats all i get from you :lol: :lol: :lol:

try adding the sour grapes to the additive and see how that works!! :P

Seriously though are we talking about a Rubby Dubby type mixture that bait is dipped into before casting or just a drop put onto the bait? Would bait need to be soaked before hand etc,,,I've never done it myself.

Cheers.

the carpet in the back of my van is realy starting to stink from fish and lug juice i am considering cutting it into strips and giving it a try i recon it could pull a few lunkers at this stage any sugestions for a name greatly appreciated :lol: the best name gets a square yard to try :D

roger the dodgers landing strip :P

the carpet in the back of my van is realy starting to stink from fish and lug juice i am considering cutting it into strips and giving it a try i recon it could pull a few lunkers at this stage any sugestions for a name greatly appreciated :lol: the best name gets a square yard to try :D

rugworm

back to topic, isnt there a ban on additives when match fishing

ya additives are banned.

rugworm

Classic :lol: :lol:

im only going to use it for recreation angling only not match fishing.

kstaff,
ya im thinking of something along the lines of a thick liquid or a paste that you leave your bait sitting in until its ready to be used. i really have no idea what people put in the stuff.

MC,
as good as your rugworm idea is its not really what im thinking of.

I've a five gallon drum of fish oil that i've used to soak sandeels in before(obviously in a smaller container!)...caught fish but couldn't really say whether it was down to the 'soak'

what you are aiming to do is to increase your scent trail with additives and maybe add something that will aid attraction. but i personally think scent trail is the key, thats why i think wd40 works on baits, its an emulsifier and helps solubilise proteins, oils and juices so they spread quicker (the oil in it probably helps too)

what you add depends on what bait you are fishing, if its worm try liquidised emulsified worm , injected into the bait

if its mack or sandeel try emulsified fish oils or liquidised fish juice (i have some frozen in tubes from the summer)

if its crab or prawn you could try something like belachan shrimp paste or liquid, or liquidised crab.

for all these you have a range of general additives like red colouring or things like betaine which has been implicated in fish feeding responses. and dont rule out groundbait either with the above additives

they do work, apart from ray, we have had good catches of pollock, wrasse, bass and shore conger over 30lbs using groundbait and additives.

all in all i think they complement good location and good bait, if you have the best additives in the world and you are fishing rubbish bait in a poor spot you still wont catch

thanks adam for your very informative reply, this is the kind of information i wa hoping for. i was recently given a sample of a sort of goo to soak fish baits in and i have to say it worked wonders for the venues i fished. i dont know whats in in but it came via a friend from yer one that targets the skate. its a secret recipe but it really really is good. the only problem is it contributes heavily towards decimating the white fishstocks :lol: :lol:

Pilchard oil doesn't really work because it floats, therefore it rises away from the baits.
What you need to do is find some way of making the Pilchard oil water soluble...... and its really quite easy.
You need to mix the oil with an emulisifying agent. When I was playing around with this a good few years ago when I was in college I used a chemical called soduim laurel sulphate (powder not liquid), I must dig out the recipe, but i think it was 5g sls, 25g water and 70g pilchard oil (just play around with the percentages)
this when shaken together gives you a dark coffee coloured liquid, which is water soluble, and stinks to high heaven.. and when injected into for example, sandeel, will increase the baits effectivness 100's of percent. I must say i have not used it for years, but i did win quite a few competitions using it in the past.
As far as i am aware there is NO rule against the use of bait additives in any I.F.S.A competitions, unless a club has put one in for their own competitions. E.F.S.A do however ban bait additives.
My first step in fishing a competition is to read the rules... remember if it's not written down, it's not a rule !!

you can get pre emulsified oils, pilchard, lamprey and smelt etc. these oils are solubilised using safe emulsifers like hydrogenated oils and fatty alcohol combos. they are sold as "winterised" oils and are very soluble in water. but even some of the molecules in standard oils like normal pilchard oil will disperse in water.

you can check that by pouring some pilchard oil into a glass, bottle or tube of water and inverting it a few times to mimick what would happen as the oil moves through the water column. you will see that the water will take on a slight brown tinge from the soluble matter in the oil and if you are using a plastic bottle you can extract some of the water from the middle of the bottel with a syringe and smell it, you should be able to get the pilchard smell. they dont disperse as well as winterised oils but normal oils do a bit.

i would be careful using lauryl sulfate (or sds as we call it) its a really potent irritant and is pretty nasty stuff .the powder is really light too and easily gets into the air and so is easily inhaled, its even toxic in high dose.

i know its used in soaps and the like, but in very small amounts and its main form of action is to break down fats, lipids and lipid bilayers so you could imagine what it would do to your lungs or eyes. it binds to skin so if you get any on your hands it will stick and then if you rub your eyes they will sting for days and it also denatures proteins.

i once saw a guy in the lab drop a weigh boat full of and the powder cloud hit his face. he was vomiting for about ten minutes.

i dont know how safe it would be for fish if swallowed in 5% concentration, but i would guess it would be equally or more damaging then wd40

have to agree with dave, i dont think there is any rule on bait additive being banned in the ifsa although the organisers of any comp can include the rule if they so wish.
at some comps groundbaiting etc is bannedto, so as dave says, always check the comp rules.

paul,
i think a few drops of washing up liquid might do it.:shock: it works on cookin oils/fats. :)
its also a lot safer than the chemicals. 8)