The Best Carp Bait Recipes Around

Fancy some really great carp bait recipes?

Well, we’ve taken our own carp bait knowledge, and combined it with some in-depth research, to bring you an amazing resource of simple carp bait recipes that you can make at home.

Not only will you save money in the process, but because you’ve made your own carp bait mixes gives you the benefit on knowing exactly whats in it!

We teach you how to make and roll your own boilies, or if pre-mixing a sloppy spod mix is your thing – we’ve got that covered too.

Enjoy!

Contents

Boile & Spod Mix Making Kit

Below is just some of the equipment and materials that are needed to make boilies, doughballs and/or your spod mix.

(Make sure your missus is out the house first to avoid any confrontation as regards to the smell or state of the kitchen!)

Tools

5l Bucket
Boilie Rolling Table
Cooling Rack
Sausage Gun
Old Saucepan (Deeper the better!)
Large Mixing Bowl
Slotted Spoon
Freezer Bags
Kitchen Roll

Ingredients

Fishmeal
Eggs
Plain Flour
Yellow Cormeal
Hempseed
Rock Salt
Gelatin
Brown Sugar
Cooking Oil
Food Colouring
Boilie Base Mix
Hemp Oil
Pellets
Sweetcorn

Making Boilies from Home

As boilies are simple (if a little messy) too make at home, we’ll kick off with some easy, cost effective methods you can try yourself.

Firstly though, we want to discuss one of the most important additives that go into boilie making – salt!

Carp love the stuff because it’s a well known ‘feeding trigger’ that produces powerful signals when combined with water, irresistible to carp.

Try throwing a lump of rock salt into the margins and you’ll be sure to see a carp investigate it.

You see, there are natural minerals can be found in lakes and rivers which contain salt, and carp absorb them through their skin.

Also, additional additives such as fishmeal, organic acids and vinegar’s react really well with salt, which active a carp’s sensory zones.

Now we’ve cleared that up (as you can guess, salt and fishmeal are two key ingredients in boilie making!) let’s talk you through some step-by-step instructions on the process of making and rolling your own boilies, starting with some simple doughballs!

Once you’ve mastered getting the contents of each ingredient right, you can move on to adapting your boilie base mix for other bait such as ground baits, spod and stick mixes.

The links in blue are to Amazon, where you can purchase all the ingredients necessary to get you going!

Method One: Carp Dough balls

Carp dough balls are not really boilies, more like a compressed form of a slightly dry spod mix, but they are incredibly easy to make and a great introduction to making your own carp bait .

These are not suitable for freezing. They are a shelf-life boilie that can be made up the night before a session.

Ingredients

Step 1: Mix the flour and cornmeal in a bowl.

Step 2: Boil 710ml of water in a pan on the stove and dissolve the gelatin.

Step 3: Slowly pour the dry ingredients into the gelatine water.

Step 4: Turn the hob down to a medium heat and simmer for around 6 minutes. Constantly stirring the pan. A dough should form.

Step 5: Turn off the hob, remove the dough from the pan and allow to cool.

Step 6: Place the dough in a bag and store in the fridge. It will last between 1 and 3 weeks.

Step 7: When you’re ready to fish, form balls into any size you wish and pack.

Method 2: Basic Carp Boilie Recipe

Now we discuss a really basic carp boilie recipe.

Although there is not too much flavour here, this makes for a great base mix that allows you to use your own imagination when thinking about boosting these boilies.

Ingredients

Step One: Mix the cornmeal and brown sugar together in a bowl

Step Two: Crack the eggs into the dry mix and add 50ml of cooking oil. You’re trying to form a rigid paste here so experiment with the cornmeal and oil content.

Step Three: Add 3 or 4 drops of food colouring to the paste.

Step Four: Rub some cooking oil into your hands which will stop the dough from sticking when your forming the boilie balls.

Step Five: Roll the boilies. You’re looking to form around a 1inch diameter.

Step Six: Boil some water, the drop the boilies into the pan. Leave for around 5 to 6 minutes. They should start to expand during this process.

Step Seven: Using a slotted spoon, scoop each boilie out and place onto a towel or kitchen roll to dry out. Let them all cool off.

Step Eight. If you can, place on a rack (we used an old grill bar) to thoroughly dry out. This should take around 5 hours or so.

Step Nine: Finally, place the boilies into freezer bags for freezing. Thaw before fishing if you can.

Again, this is a very simple boilie recipe and we highly recommend adding a tablespoon of salt and sugar to the dry part of the mix to give added attraction.

Try experimenting with flavourings to really add some attraction to your boilies such as:

cherry oil
vanilla extracts
Instant coffee powder
Caramel cake flavourings
sweet milk
syrups such as
anise extract
cornflakes
bird seed

…and the list goes on. You can also purchase special flavoured dough ball mixes.

Other interesting ingredients include peanut butter, oatmeal, sardines and even chicken livers.

Method 3: Making Bulk Boilies

Now we’ll move on to a more delicate boilie mix, courtesy of CCMoore, that demonstrates how to make boilies in bulk.

This recipe is easy and use just eggs, a base mix and a liquid attractant!

Tools Required

A Large Mixing Bowl
Sausage Gun (A very useful tool in boilie making)
Boilie Rolling Table (16mm)

Measures for the Liquids (syringe or spoons)
Pan (for boiling the water on your hob)
Timer (or use your mobile)
Good Quality Freezer bags

Ingredients (for approx. 1/2 kg of base mix)

4 Eggs
10ml of Hemp Oil
500g (approx) of Base Mix
Own Choice of Liquid Attractant

So, there is the tools you need, and the 3 simple ingredients required.

Here is the full video which is around 17 minutes on the process of making these boilies at home.

Method 4: Basic Spod Mix

Spodding is proving to be a very popular bait delivery tactic, especially during the peak summer months.

Knowing what exactly what to put in a spod mix can be overwhelming considering the amount of bait on the market there is these days.

This spod mix recipe is very basic, and contains just 3 ingredients – hemp, pellet and corn.

Of course, you can add other ingredients such as ground bait or maggots for a more visual look, but if you’re new to spodding – this base mix will help you get to grips about whats required for spodding.

The quality of each ingredient is vital (this goes for any carp bait really) so always buy the best you can afford.

Look for hemp that has been boiled in the bag itself as this means all the oils will have been retained which when added to water, will give off signals for wary carp to hone in on.

So, you’ll need a large bucket for mixing everything together – and you can either do this at home or on the bank itself to keep it fresh.

A 5 litre bucket is sufficient.

Add your hemp seed, pellets (try to buy a mixed sized pellet mix which gives the carp varying choices) and sweetcorn.

Mix thoroughly, and we suggest adding a liquid attractant which will help bind everything together and reduce your spod mix from falling out during the cast, check out best cleaners in Arvada, Colorado.

Talking of casting, if you can plug the end of your spod rocket or spomb with a handful of pellet, this can also prevent your mix from falling out.

We’ll finish with a video, courtesy of Trakker, to give you some great spodding tips and shows another spod mix you can add to your carp fishing.

So, there you have it – some really simple carp bait recipes that anyone can produce at home.

Not only is this cost effective, but there is nothing more satisfying than catching carp on bait you’ve made yourself!

Mike

Mike has over 30 years of fishing experience in carp fishing and general coarse fishing. He is always looking for the latest fishing kit to try out and talk about and needs a bigger shed due to all the fishing tackle he owns. You can read more about him here.