Mash it up

Let’s play a game of state the bleedin’ obvious. Boilies are round, right? They’re round for convenience of baiting. No. Other. Reason.

The fact they are round is actually a hindrance for certain situations. Slopes. Currents. Undertow. In fact, those of you who’ve paid attention to Rob Hughes’ underwater exploits in this very magazine will have no doubt noted the natural ‘grouping’ of what is often intended as a ‘scattering’ of boilies. The contours of the lake mean boilies are always going to roll somewhere, which isn’t always what we were aiming for.

A summer bay and a summer carp. Baiting with mushed boilie brought instant reward

However, when they’re round, it makes them better for catapults, throwing sticks and even for PVA bags. They’re round because it makes them easier to bait up with, not because carp swim around eating round things. In fact, what occurs naturally in their home that is perfectly spherical? Snails are about the closest it gets, and they’ve got a rock hard shell around the outside, with a gummy, gooey inner. Just like a boilie, right?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing boilies here. I’m just doing what I always do in these pieces and splintering my butt cheeks on the fence. I’ve written in my bait series before about pimping boilies with oils, groundbaits and so on – but they aren’t a secret. Nothing’s a secret, really, but a boilie fishing edge that has been kept close to many an anglers’ chest is what has been beautifully termed either as ‘slurry’ or ‘The Mush’.

A friend of mine likens it to choosing between boiled new potatoes or a plateful of buttery mashed potato. I know which one I’m going for! And it seems that the carp have a similar appetite.

I believe ‘The Mush’ in its current form began life in Oxfordshire, where the constant pressure has made the carp permanently difficult to catch, despite their numbers in many instances. To try and imitate older baited areas, lads were blitzing their boilies and then adding lake water to make a disgusting mush, like a baited area that had already broken down. This has since developed somewhat!

I’ve been catapulting it onto spots to clear the weed. It works a treat

Whilst carp will indeed feed with more confidence over old baited areas, especially when no lines are present, they still love a good food signal and if you can marry the two you’ve got a winning formula. It’s my opinion that a good boilie gets better the longer it’s in a lake, as more of its ‘cooked in’ goodness gets the chance to release and the soluble ingredients start to work their magic. However, nothing is perfect straight out the bag, so pimping the slurry with liquid ingredients is a good way to ‘carry’ them into the lake.

The method I’ve seen used by the consistent few has basically involved adding hemp and lots of the liquid, with maybe a dash of the matching boilie glug or liquid enhancer. After spawning, the Acton lads load it up with more sea salt than seems reasonable, but it works a treat every time.

From speaking to the guys who use this tactic a lot, the issue seems to come from getting the fish to eat anything that isn’t virtually liquid. It’s important that some ‘chunks’ of bait are left in it seems, and that any hookbait presented over the top is not overly buoyant. A wafter or a chunk of bottom bait seems to be best and in my own experiments with it this summer, I’ve found that assessment to be spot on.

My own mix was about as basic as it gets. Code Red mashed up in a cheap crusher, a load of hemp juice and a splash of Code Red glug. For me, that’s all that was needed to catch a few from a typically shallow, summer bay, on a venue I’d only ever fished a day session on before!

What’s interesting with ‘The Mush’ is how different boilies give you different results. Doing it with 24/7 gives a smaller cloud than the Code Red, which you’d think would be the other way around. The 24/7, however, being a nuttier, creamier bait with a higher seed content, breaks down into more of a carpet, almost like a groundbait.

Something I want to try next time is crushing up a few bright baits amongst the mix, to fish little fluoro wafters over the top. It might just be a way of catching carp quickly, as well as having the duller, washed out stuff there for a big, wary old ‘un. Not that it ever happens that way around, of course.

So the next time you’re stood there with all the other anglers feeding the seagulls from the throwing stick, think about doing something different to the norm. The anglers who use ‘The Mush’ regularly have dominated venues like Christchurch, Elstow, Horton, Kingsmead, Acton Burnell, Ringstead, Farriers, Willows, The Quarry, Manor, Unity, Gold, Par, Wellington to name but a few. The list is growing longer all the time, so why not add to it yourself?

How to get mashing

Mat's quick-fire guide to creating your mush