How to make the most of a kilo of boilies

Bait can be expensive, there’s no getting away from it. So how do you maximise your kilo of proven carp-catching
boilies down at your local water, whilst ensuring you get the very best value for money from your hard-earned cash? CARPology.net looks at a whole host of ideas to broaden your angling horizons and examines different approaches to baiting up without ‘baiting up’…

Boilie stringers

Are an amazingly effective and so often underrated and underused tactic that have been proven to catch big carp again and again. The cluster of anything from two to 15 freebies deposited neatly around your hookbait can be too much for even the wariest of carp to ignore. Chopping them in half before threading them onto PVA tape is mega deadly.

PVA Sticks

Short, tiny one-inch Sticks stuffed full of compacted boilie dust leaks an incredible amount of attraction out into the water column. Most people fish a two-to three-inch Stick but in reality wary fish often recognise the obvious patch of crumb. Match your Stick size to how wary you think your target fish are.

Singles

How many big fish get caught on single hookbaits? Loads, that’s how many! Carp have an amazing ability to detect baits in the water, even at super low levels and whilst it takes guts to fish a single, the results are there for the taking. A single white pop-up takes some beating.

Pre-baiting

You don’t need to spod in a bucket of bait to pre-bait. If you find a spot where the fish pass through, a dozen baits dropped under an overhanging branch on a regular basis will definitely result in bites. Start on a Monday and bait daily until you get down there to fish on Friday night. Remember, the longer the campaign before you wet a line, the more confident the carp will be.

Chops

So you’ve got a kilo of boilies – that’s around 400 baits. Chop them in half and spod them out and you’re fishing over 800 baits that the fish won’t treat with too much caution. Settle a tipped bait over the edge of the baited area and wait for the screamer!

Sticks for pre-baiting

Make up a dozen tiny inch-long Sticks of boilie crumb and make sure you really compress them or they can float. When you start fishing, fire a few Sticks out in the area of your hookbait. The masses of attraction and smell in the water with all those tiny particles can drive the carp mad!

Glugged baits

Used to devastating effect on any water, try glugging your baits overnight and then pre-baiting or fishing immediately with these little bad boys. Ultra obvious and easy to find, the fish will switch onto your bait in no time.

Washed-out baits

Benson, Charlies Mate, The Fat Lady… all famous, big carp that have fallen to the washed-out bait trap. It’s so easy to do and it’s SO underused. Get a bucket of lake (not tap!) water and drop your baits in for a day or two. Use them straight out the bucket over a pre-baited area or just when you arrive to fish. Carp will readily munch them thinking they’ve been out in the lake for days.