Fresh carp produce
Mistral has been the staple of British bait for decades – and they’ll be finding favour once more with this collection of three new boiled foods: each a perfect blend of highly attractive extracts, proteins and appetite stimulators
One company that has an outstanding track record for producing superb quality foodbaits and other carp products is Northamptonshire-based bait giants, Mistral Baits. For decades they’ve gained a real reputation for their shelf-life baits, and since the birth of the i40 in 2010 – the company’s first proper foodbait – they’ve thrived in the world of long-term, big fish boilies. Fresh for the start of spring, Mistral now have these three new baits ready to hit the shop shelves…
1. Sweet Biscuit
When the i40 launched in 2010, it was what the company described as their “finest ever bait.” For while we’d all been struggling that winter, those lucky few who had been field-testing this new wonder bait had been breaking lake records, catching 50lb English mirrors and 45lb commons.
The concept for the bait came from Tim Wagner, who’s input was twinned with the company’s then 22 years of experience in sourcing and making carp baits. The result was a nutritious, digestible and highly attractive alternative to the heavily used fishmeals of today which turned out to be exceptionally effective.
Building on those super successful foundations for 2016 comes the Sweet Biscuit – a natural progression on from the original i40, but it’s now even sweeter, tastier and richer. It still retains a similar crumbly texture and light, washed-out brown colour and comes in two sizes: 15 and 20mm and there’s a number of additional products to compliment the foodbait: Cork Dust Pop-Ups, standard pop-ups and a glug.
“GIMME”: 1kg, £9.99; 5kg, £39.99; pop-ups, £5.99 and £6.99; glug, £8.99
2. Belachan Shrimp
Mistral Baits know four of the best carp attractors in the game are: fishmeal, krill protein concentrate, Belachan and a truly pungent yet tasty shrimp flavour. They also know if you blend all four together at the optimum levels, add in a good helping of their bait making expertise and the end result is one hell of an exceptional bait. And that’s actually what Belachan Shrimp is.
The Belachan Shrimp, which is rolled into nice 15 and 20mm balls, comes out a natural brown colour, and along with that fishy smell, everything about this bait screams ‘big fish catcher’ and looking through the company’s field-tester catch reports, it most definitely is.
The Northampton-based company has had this one on the back burner for a while now and has caught from every venue it has been used on. To paraphrase Mistral themselves, “We’ve had our fun, now it’s your turn to enjoy it.”
“GIMME”: 1kg, £9.99; 5kg, £39.99; pop-ups, £5.99; glug, £8.99
3. Chilli Pepper
The Northampton-based bait brand has been purveyor of all things awesome for years now, and along with the other two baits on these pages, there’s a third: a new hot and spicy bait which is going to be a sure-fire winner, particularly on commercial-type venues.
Mistral is stacked to its bait bags in heritage and this month sees these beautiful smelling orangey boilies go on-sale – a bait that you just know the moment you apply it, regardless of the time of year, the carp are going to love it. To follow hand-in-hand with the other boilies, this bait is produced on an easy to digest base mix, meaning they emit high leakage and make for the ideal choice for those one-off ‘visiting sessions’ to new venues.
There is of course a collection of condiments to go with this boilie, that being a food dip and pop-ups, along with the boilie itself being available in 15 and 20mm in shelf-life form.
“GIMME”: 1kg, £9.99; 5kg, £39.99; pop-ups, £5.99; glug, £5.99, mistralbaits.co.uk