My experience with the Blue Oyster boilie recipe so far
I’ve been fishing with my home made carp bait now since the beginning of the year and I’ve made 100 kilos so far for my own use as well as for our clients. The first test was during our March carp fishing session and myself and a mate used them very successfully. The 22mm home rolled carp baits accounted for:
- Mirror carp: a brace of 40’s (48lbs 4oz and 43lbs), 36lbs 8oz, 33lbs, 30lbs, 29lbs, 27lbs, 26lbs
- Common Carp: 35lbs 4oz
- Sturgeon: 24lbs 8oz
Considering the tough weather conditions at the time, these results are incredible, and based on this, I had no hesitation in approving the Blue Oyster carp bait as fit for purpose!
Different baits for different purposes
I’ve started to use and to offer Blue Oyster boilies but it’s not because the trusted D-liver has started to lose its effectiveness. We have no plans to drop the D-liver as its carp and catfish catching ability at this lake is well proven. By introducing the Blue Oyster carp bait we enable our clients that would traditionally use the finest quality freezer bait, to be able to purchase such bait on site, rather than incurring the hassle of transporting frozen bait with them. As it’s not possible for me to purchase top quality frozen bait in France, the only way to achieve this is to roll my own and that’s what I’m doing. I’ve set up my own small boilie making operation and thanks to Bill Cottam, I’m able purchase the base mix and liquid directly from Nutrabaits in the UK. The bait is rolled in small 10kg batches to maximise freshness, then air dried for 48 hrs before being packed and frozen in 2kg bags.
Why choose Nutrabaits’ Blue Oyster?
Nutrabaits is internationally recognised as supplying some of the finest quality bait mixes available. With such long running successes with baits such as Trigga and the Big Fish Mix, when I heard that Bill and the team were launching a new bait, I had to check it out. When a man of Bill’s experience tells you that he can’t believe the results coming in from his expert team of field testers, I knew that I just had to trial it. When I reported back to Bill that during the week-long trial the Blue Oyster accounted for my new PB at 48lbs 4oz, my first ever brace of forties and 8 other cracking fish, he didn’t believe the results either (to be fair I could hardly believe them myself!).
Making boilies for river fishing
The river closest to me is the Mayenne which is a good size river similar to the Thames. I’ve been trying to catch a river carp there on and off for 18 months now and it’s been a challenge. This month, my French carping friend Alexandre and I targeted a day sector. We pre-baited two swims for two days using 8kg of pigeon corn, 3kg of pellets and 5kg of boilies to cover spots for six rods. I used my home rolled Blue Oyster and the high protein 10mm house pellet that we use at Beausoleil. Alexandre used some D-liver boilies and his favourite pineapple baits. Much to my surprise I had the first take (normally Alexandre beats me to it!) which turned out to be a stunning 24lbs 12oz mirror carp.
You can watch a video of our session here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02eg_ivTnpQ
I am still experimenting with my river carp rigs and baiting strategy and I’ve just made up some hand rolled boosted Blue Osyter baits for my next session. These were done using a 1 egg mix with 2.5ml of Blue Oyster liquid in them. The large round ones are 28mm (no bream will be sucking one of these in). The dumbbells are 27mm by 22mm and the small round ones are 20mm critically balanced that I made by wrapping paste around 15mm popups. I will be adding a 15mm fluoro popup to these to make a fully popped up snowman presentation and to counter the attentions of the dreaded bream!
Bait size and quantity
The Blue Oyster carp bait is available at Beausoleil in 22mm. I’ve gone for baits of this size due to the increasing average size of the fish stock. Currently we believe that there is only one double figure carp left, all other are twenties, thirties and forties (I’m sure Grey Scar will break the fifty mark again soon!). I’ve always fished double 20mm baits at Beausoleil and when you see how lost they are in the vast chasm that is the mouth of a near fifty you’ll see why! During our trial the smallest carp caught on 2 x 22mm baits was 26lbs 12oz and the average fish size was 32lbs 8oz. The bait is available in 2kg bags and supplied frozen for consistency and freshness.
Potency
The recipe I’m using is one suggested by Bill Cottam. I’m using 7.5ml of Blue Oyster liquid per 6 medium sized eggs as during the bait development the team found that a level between 6ml and 8ml is optimum for a long term baiting strategy. At this level, in its rolled form, the bait has a subtle aroma. Potency can be increased by simply crumbing or halving the baits and during our testing session this is exactly what we did. I’ve settled on an air dry time of 48hrs as it results in a carp bait with a nice firm crust but maintains a soft middle that crumbs nicely. Just because of the subtlety of the bait doesn’t mean you’ll need to use more of it. In fact 90% of our captures were taken using less than a handful of chopped, whole and crumbed baits.
Here are a few things to consider if you’re new to using freshly rolled freezer baits:
- Bring an air dry sack with you and let the baits defrost in it before use. Letting them defrost in a bucket will keep the moisture in and the bait will turn very quickly!
- Only take out enough bait from the freezer for a couple of days. This ensures that the bait is as fresh as can be.
- Unlike shelf life baits, freshly rolled freezer baits swell during fishing (in the case of the 22m Blue Oyster, I’ve measured up to 24mm overnight), so don’t mount the baits too tight to the hook or you may change the mechanics of your rig! I’d recommend mounting fresh baits every 12 hours to reduce the risk of prematurely losing one to a crayfish.
- Chop or crumb the baits over the rig to increase the pulling power and scatter some more baits around the rig to get the fish moving from bait to bait.
