Meet 'The Key': currently the world's most expensive bait

It’s been a few years since the Nashbait stable launched a show-stopping new bait, but according to bait boffin and its creator, Keith Sykes, ‘The Key’ will have been well worth the wait. Here CARPology exclusively speaks to him about ‘The Key’s’ life-story and why it justifies having the highest price tag going for a kilo of bait.

We’ve been hearing whispers about ‘The Key’ for sometime now, but finally it’s here. Firstly, can you explain the concept of ‘The Key’ and secondly, how long have you and the Nashbait team been working on it?
“It started with Kevin asking me to design some new baits for Nashbaits in conjunction with Gary Bayes, who I should add is, in my mind, one of the most knowledgeable bait men out there. In a nutshell, I was using purpose designed enzyme systems in baits in the early eighties, I wanted to incorporate this technology that has come on leaps and bounds in to the new bait, so The Key was born. Think of it like the door was being finally unlocked to really harness so many of the ingredients in baits which are suppressed due to their inherent protein complexity.

“In essence I have been using enzymes since the late seventies, purpose designed enzyme systems on and off since the eighties, and now this new system for the past four or five years. The Key itself has been developed over three years with fine tweaking.
“I asked Kevin and Gary if we could have a dedicated team for this project, which I aptly called the A Team, little did they know what they had to do, and yet now each and everyone of them will say this is the best ever bait they have used. Okay, I can hear everyone saying here comes the hype, well sorry chaps, all these lads were hand-picked and not involved with Nash in anyway, they were coming off other baits to become my guinea pigs.”

Did you come up with the initial concept?
“No, it came from Kevin after writing his book, Memoirs Of A Carp Fisher, and recalling the epic captures that he enjoyed using Fred Wilton’s HNVs in the 70’s and a realisation that HNV had been more or less forgotten and for a very long time carp baits had been following the same theme. So Kevin contacted me, as he knew that I had spent many years of work and effort on bait nutrition and triggers. So with Gary Bayes’s assistance we worked very closely together on creating a new, bang up to date bait, which I named The Key as it unlocks all the doors.”

The real talking point about this bait seems to be the price though: £15 a kilo. Firstly, what’s your justification for that price tag and secondly, why should a CARPology reader invest that much into a kilo of boiled food?
“To answer your question directly, The Key actually isn’t expensive, there are a number of bait firms that sell HNV bait base mixes at much more than this, and in reality the way you use The Key means it is very competively priced. Let me explain: most of the lads using The Key found as the norm (depending on the population of the carp) that the introduction of anything from twenty-five to fifty-percent has been found to be perfect to get the action wanted, so you see if you compare this to say the average bait costing a tenner a kilo, this bait is competitive. Gary Bayes has a great analogy: we have cheap detergent, then we have Fairy Liquid which costs a bit more, but then you don’t have to use as much, making it more competitive than a cheaper brand!”

So what’s the main base of the boilie? Is it an all-out fishmeal; a bird food; a blend of the two? And what else is in there, which gives it such a high price tag?
“Some of the basic ingredients are listed on the bag, but everything has been analysed in a laboratory so we have a true picture of the bait’s nutritional profile. What I shall say is this is a compliment of milks, fish, animal, algae, coagulants, vitamins, minerals and an amino acid complex with an ingredient specific enzyme system. The colour and the aroma changes as it defrosts and the length of time it is immersed in the lake it is biologically very active. One point I should make is that we have deliberately removed any naturally occurring enzyme inhibitors, making this bait probably the most digestible bait available.”

Talk us through the field-testing process and the results it’s yielded? (1) Has the bait changed much since its initial concept and (2) how successful has the trialling been (can you give me some examples)?
“As I said, this is a very dedicated team fishing very hard waters, where you really would be wanting to use a bait you had used before but I think it is fair to say that none of the lads regretted making this transition.

“I would be a liar if I said initial testing was all plain sailing. I am so pedantic in getting the micro elements spot-on that I gave Gary some right headaches; we had to ensure the micro-nutrients were being distributed throughout the bait.

“The A Team, it has to be said, were, and continue to be, brilliant with their continual feedback and the results exceeded everyone’s expectations: to sight just a few, look at Steve Sinclair on the notoriously bait-orientated Manor in Essex. On just short sessions, his catches were incredible, all the big girls, and the biggest in the pond very quickly, whilst others just sat back and watched, it seemed the 30’s and 40’s just honed in on it! Dean Lloyd fishing another right head banging water in Herts that contains just sixteen known fish, caught ten fish in his short time there (July to September), whilst the remaining syndicate caught ten in between them. John Elmer and Jay on their first visit to the Manor in Oxon had the two largest residents out within 48hrs! Ed Biscoe had more fish in one session on a notoriously difficult large pit than he had in the season previously! My son Dave caught a forty-six three times, twice in the space of twenty-fours-hours! Jim Beardwell of JAG got on the bait independently and caught from several hard circuit waters with fish to 45lbs+. Then there are more and more results when field-testers got on it, both in this country and throughout Europe. In a nutshell, the big girls like it.”

That leads nicely onto my next question: the main man himself, Kevin Nash, has made a number of large claims on his Facebook page stating that, “‘The Key’ will single out the larger fish of the lake”, so I suppose going by your last answer, that is true?
“You either believe in nutritional recognition or you don’t. I think it may well be fair to say that big carp get big for several reasons, one has to be their ability to access and utilize the lion’s share of the natural food source, finding it first! Kevin has received enough evidence from the trials to back-up his statement. The A Team noted that quite often it was the largest carp in the lake that fell to The Key the quickest.”

Let’s talk about the back-up products with ‘The Key’ collection. Are there any real standout items for you? ‘The Key Flake’ looks interesting, as do the Pastel Airball Pop-Ups, so can you talk about these products in a little more depth?
“Yes, the flaked boilie concept came from a development meeting, it offers a totally different feeding perspective and has numerous applications. It really shines over filamentous algae and silt. And coated with The Key Bait Soak and the attraction is increased even more. This is a product that took us a long time to get right, it is so active and attractive.

“Washed-out hookers are in-vogue, but again they have been put in the package for a reason, not just a visual one. If I had to single another product out in the range, it would have to be paste, why anglers don’t use more paste baits is beyond my understanding. It might be a thing of the 60’s and 70’s but it’s probably one of the biggest edges you could use today.”

We’ve also been hearing a lot of noise about the ‘Cultured Baits’. Firstly, what are they, and secondly, do they fall under ‘The Key’ umbrella or are they a stand-alone product?
“I should explain: for years and years I have been experimenting with getting attraction to carp in a format that makes it very appealing, using attractors that are sensitive to commercial bait making. However, Cultured Baits really came in to their own when Dean got his proactive mind working, and between us we took it to where it is now. Dave put his biological input into it, resulting in a devastating bait which works extremely well hand-in-hand with The Key.”

“To explain further, Kevin looks at this development as the greatest game changer in thirty years. The Key Cultures are growing, living baits, with a continuous stream of natural attractors that the carp will home-in on as they accept them as being part of their microhabitat. As I said, there are many attractors that are highly stimulatory in their free form, the classic being amino acids and vitamins amongst others, harnessing their power is part and parcel of the Cultured Baits. We believe carp accept Cultured baits as part of their natural dietary intake due to the free form of high chemo receptive stimulants contained therein, they seem to seek them out and eat them with gay abandon, showing no caution whatsoever, often meaning the bites are very quick to come by. Cultured Baits are as natural a bait as you are likely to find.”

Again, unlike other bait companies you’re bucking the trend by just having one high-attract hookbait and not five or six. Why is that? Simply because this one is the best?!
“It’s not bucking the trend, it’s thinking outside of the box. Cultured Baits might stand-out because they are bigger than most hookbaits, cough, but colour-wise they are far from noticeable, it’s what’s in them that does the talking to the fish!”

“This is a tremendous development in terms of what the Cultured Bait is actually doing, it’s not just a coating, it’s a living mass of attraction. Yes, it is a brilliant stand-alone hookbait due to its inherent attractive properties, but it works so well in conjunction with the background feed of The Key. This bait development is getting away from just another round single hookbait scenario, as explained earlier, the carp just find the bait irresistible, and that is easy to understand why as we are providing the ultimate natural attraction and also nutrients that they find hard to acquire. We have seen it time and time again, these baits get bites within minutes of being in the water, and I do mean minutes, and this is just when they are beginning to work their magic, so to speak.”

Finally, is the full range in the shops yet? If not, how much longer before anglers can get their hands on the products?
“Now the bad news: Nashbait are being overwhelmed with the demand and frankly speaking, they are struggling to lift capacity in order to deal with this demand. The latest I heard was that The Key should be available to most by the end of February and the Cultured Hookbaits in March.”

Most outstanding result

If you need more proof that The Key singles out the big girls, then read Oli Davies short account from his Les Teilliatts trip last autumn…
“Having used The Key throughout the testing period and knowing there isn’t a carp that swims that wouldn’t eat it, for me it was the natural choice when deciding what bait to take to our Nash social trip to Les Teilliatts last autumn. As it turned out, I was the only one to be using it, with the other lads opting for TG, 4G Squid or their own favourite from the Nash stable. Perhaps it being so soft had put them off? It certainly wasn’t an issue for me.

“It was actually a working trip for me as I was there filming the trip so I didn’t fish as hard as the others and yet I ended up catching two of the biggest three fish. I’m convinced that was down to the bait and its application.

“I had already used it on a public water in the South of France where it had accounted for some big fish and I adopted a similar style of baiting for this trip. I resisted the temptation to go overboard and fished for a bite at a time, baiting with a kilo of 20mm baits per rod. A kilo might sound a lot but when you lay it on the floor it actually doesn’t look enough to attract the attentions of a large carp let alone hold a passing shoal. However, I was fishing for a bite at a time, rather than a ‘hit’.
“I caught quickly on The Key – in fact it only took a couple of hours to get a bite on a single that I had chucked out while I set-up. That gave me immediate confidence, and on the third day I banked a giant mirror of 30kg (66lb). I didn’t think it could get better than that, but when my margin trap in a small bay was sprung the following day and I banked the biggest fish in the lake, The Long Common, it turned into the trip of a lifetime.

“I firmly believe the bait and careful application played a big part in my success – I wasn’t on the main pack and didn’t catch the most fish but I did catch the right ones…”

Overview of the produce

The Boilie
It’s only available in frozen format and comes in 10, 15 and 20mm in 1, 5 or 20kg bags. “GIMME”: £14.99, £59.99 and £209.99

The Flake
This finely flaked, slow sinking boilie crumb provides a new baiting dimension and prolong feeding periods. “GIMME”: £14.99 a kilo

Airball Pop-Ups
Ultra buoyant dedicated Key Airball Pop-Ups for presentation versatility which come in a ncie dark colour.

Pastel Pop-Ups
Carefully formulated to resemble washed-out high-viz hookbaits – i.e. brilliant for carp that see high-viz hookers all the time.

Bait Soak
A rich PVA-friendly concentrated food dip complex which is all based on the deadly attractors used within the bait. “GIMME”: £8.99