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"Groundbait ingredients and additives
Reading back my own article I know that (like the title says) it's more of an ingredients list and how to make groundbaits than about how and when to use it and what it does.
I will leave this very complicated problem to others who are better at it than I am.
Most anglers, certainly the British I think, use readymade groundbaits these days, as I often do.
Most of them are good, some excellent, simply because a bad product doesn’t sell. The only thing that might be wrong with them, is that you don’t know what’s in them. When you want to adapt them for a specific water, or a specific time of the year, you might add things that make them worse instead of better. So select a few and get to know them well and stick with them.
Even if you don’t make your own it’s important to know if you add something to it, exactly what the added ingredients do to your groundbait in terms of sticking, saturation, taste …
I’ll be concentrating on bream, with roach and carp on the side, because those are the only things I’m familiar with. That mostly on still or slow running waters.
Altough I have a fair knowledge of groundbait, I’ m only a modest club angler so I doubt very much my advice will make you world champion. But who knows, if you only learn one thing, that’s also an improvement. I like writing anyway, so if nothing’s gained, nothing’s lost.
First some general ideas on groundbait.
The continentals (the French, the Dutch and the Belgians anyway) often divide ingredients in different categories by what they do in your gb. Of course one ingredient can do different things. For instance pain d’épice (Honey bread) gives taste, adds weight and is sticky too.
The percentages vary according to the species, the time of the year, what kind of water it is, how long you are fishing etc….
1. There’s the base, which mainly is bread in one or another form and it makes up 20 to 60% of the entire gb
2. Ingredients that give weight and/or keep your gb together (10-30%)
3. Dispersing ingredients (5-30%)
4. Taste and smell (10 to 30%)
5. Additives 0-5%
6. Inedible things like loam. (0 to even 800%)
For a bream and carp gb for a 2 m deep lake in summer for instance you could have
cat 1: 30%, cat 2: 30%, cat. 3: 10%, cat 4: 30%.
For roach, that could be: 1:45, 2: 10%, 3:25%, 4: 15%
Why do we use these standards?
To avoid mistakes.
If you know that for instance BC Collant comes in cat 2 and helps to keep your gb together and is moderately saturating, you know you’d better not use 30% in a gb for small roach on a lake in winter time.
Other example: bream are mostly attracted by ingredients of cat. 4, so you could be inclined to use only or mostly cat 4 ingredients. The only problem is that these can be very saturating. So using all the stuff they love might leave you with a lot of fish on your peg, but unless they are there in big numbers and very hungry, no fish will be caught (or only at the beginning)
You might think that your gb isn’t good; in fact it is too good. For a longer match in summer where you expect big fish after a few hours, you could gamble and use more of these saturating products in the hope that this will keep them on your peg for a long time and they will bite in the end or that you might be able to get them to bite using the right tactics.
A poorer gb will attract less and perhaps smaller fish, but will make your fishing easier and get you more easy bites.
Our goal is not to attract and feed fish, but to attract fish, keep them there and keep them interested to the bait on your hook. A difficult balance
These categories and the % are not a bible, just a guideline. World champions are not made of people that always follow the rules in the book completely.
Ingredients of category 1
If there are a lot of British anglers out there I’m on dangerous ground. They probably know a lot more about it then I do, because in the past it was often their main or only ingredient
- White crumb, the stickiest and most saturating, made from the white of the bread, for flowing waters and bigger fish
- Blonde crumb: an all rounder, a good standard for still water and bigger fish, made form the white and the crust together
- Brown crumb made only from the crust (or of roasted blonde), mainly for roach on stillwater and canals. Superb to make a wet base dryer before adding the rest of the ingredients.
- Biscuit (the English one, in French Biscuit is a greasy kind of cake): even lighter and similar in use as the brown
Of course you can use 2 sorts, for instance for a bream gb on still water of 1,2 meters deep you could use 50/50 brown and blonde.
- These last years there are also the special mostly yellow or red big crumbs to add (not dry or only a handfull) to your gb to give it more visual attraction and keep the fish busy picking them up. To keep them busy you could also add couscous, tapioca or rice.
Ingredients of category 2
- Pure weight: given by products as maize meal, polenta, rice meal (the last one can also be used to make a cloud)…..
- Stickiness: delivered by BC Collant, TTX, PV1 (all 10-30%)………
Pouring boiling water over it will make any ingredient more sticking and often improve its taste but also make it more saturating (so meant for the summer). A good example of that is grounded hemp (normally very dispersing) you pour boiling water over. It will then become moderately sticky, before dispersing. TTX is also often prewetted to use in bream gb, which makes it more sticky but also cloudy. Coarse maize meel is normally dispersing and brings poor nutrition, but if you poor boiling water over it, it can become very sticky and saturating. The fish can easier reach the calories inside it.
- Copra molasses (roach and bream) first binding then dispersing, with a lot of taste. So in cat 2, 3 and 4 (10-20%). All products with high sugar content are binding, but a lot of them not for long, because the sugar quickly dissolves.
Ingredients of category 3
All gb must disperse sooner or later.
Late for flowing water and on still water if you are after big bream or carp that come later to your peg than the smaller fish.
Sooner for smaller fish and still water.
An active gb attracts smaller fish. The English team are said to make their gb very inert the last years to select the size of their fish. A few years ago everybody said that the presence of small fish attracts the bigger in a later stadium, now that is questioned. On the “matchangler.com” site is a good article on that subject. It comes out of the (magnificent) French magazine Déclic Pèche. If you speak French: any angler should read this magazine!!!!
A few examples of dispersing ingredients.
- A very dispersing and an all time favourite for roach is roasted and then grounded hemp (5-10%) or grounded hemp. Be very careful not to overheat it while grounding it if you use an electrical grounder because then it goes off very quickly.
- Rasped coconut (0-5%) is very dispersing and floats up and down in different water layers and can attract fish from far to your peg on still or slow flowing water. Used on a fast flowing water it could ruin your peg and take fish away from your peg following the parts drifting off. Can be roasted which gives a very good smell and makes it less dispersing, and less saturating (as roasting always does by lowering the fat content)
If you have a favourite gb that's too rich for the winter you can roast it to diminish the food value.
- Pellet and other oily products, giving you also a clear indication (an oily cloud) of when the fish have arrived at your peg, which can be especially helpful when you fish 2 pegs. This could have been in cat. 4 also, because the fishmeal gives a lot of taste and has a high nutritional value.
- Belgian coco, very much used. This is a favourite of Jan Van Schendel who uses it as a soup (very much water added, before adding it to the rest of the gb) This is often used to overwet a groundbait and then produces a cloud that remains intact a long time. Very good for roach and skimmers especially on muddy bottoms.
Ingredients of category 4
- We here have all meals of cookies, waffles, cake etc. in all variations, all more or less sweet. In Belgian and France often called biscuit, galette…
A big difference can be the % of fat (butter) in them what will change the sticking power and will very much change the saturation rate. They can be very light and not very saturating (ice cream waffles, called galette) or rather heavy and saturating (pain d’épice or others called biscuit) and anything in between. Very difficult to know what you are buying exactly. You can easily do this yourself of course.
- The different bird feeds can be very sweet also, and provide a high nutritional value. They will keep the fish on your peg for a long time (10-25%) CeDe yellow is one of the favourites of Belgian anglers. Pastoncino comes in this category too
- Things like cat food (with Lidl’s Coshida as an absolute favourite it seams) or dog food, pig food or any other kind of animal food can be used. Most of them are saturating, so mostly for the summer. Most of them contain appetizers and/or enhancers (if they work on fish also?)
Ingredient of category 5
Not only on Enda’s request this category is a little more detailed.
Additives are clearly a way to personalize a commercial gb. Sometimes they are effective, sometimes absolutely not. On heavily fished waters they CAN make the difference. In 80% of the cases I’ll gladly trade the best additive for 2 kilo’s of chopped worm, when fishing bream.
By the way, I always see that English anglers use dendrobena for that purpose. I don’t know if it is the same in England and other countries but here in Belgium I (and a lot of other experienced worm anglers) have found that the bream don’t like their taste very much. Here on number one come the worms you find in meadows and on number two the ones in compost or manure.
What additive for what fish? When you want a general rule: Roach love spicy and bream love sweet. I know: all general rules have a lot of exceptions.
The bigger bream, roach or carp seem to be attracted by things that are acidic, or bitter, or very spicy. These seem to change the character of the water and attract their attention. Or does it just chase away the small ones, giving the big ones more time to find it?
- The classic additives: give a smell and enhance human appetite. Since the digesting system of a fish is quite different (they don’t even have a stomach), we don’t really know if it does the same to them. So we don't know how they work, but they do work.
o Coriander: for all fish (not selective in size) when the water is not too cold. Bert Aufderhar from Holland used that (3%) on the last championship in Holland (where he won the silver I believe)). A big favourite of the French also.
Works better in combination with fennel, Van den Eynde’s super sweet, vanilla or another sweet ingredient.
o Fennel: also works in colder water, all fish
o Fenugreek: bitter, for bigger roach, bream and carp
o Vanilla: all fish, not selective in size (in some waters only catches small fish, on others the big ones)
o Arrow root: bigger roach
o Curcuma: all fish in cold water, good on maggots
o Aniseed: smaller roach (although it is also present as a carrier in supersweet.)
o Cinnamon: mostly bream
o Caramel: mostly bream
o Quinine: mostly roach, stimulating
o Cumin: roach and bream
o Poppy: takes away suspicion roach and bream
o Saffron, cacao…………..
- More exotic from the Indian shops, mostly used in winter
o Garam masala
o Colombo (the big fish favourite of Livia Hadju of the Hungarian team)
o Five spices powder………………………
- Dangerous stuff
o Absinth: once half of the French population was addicted to it (it came in an alcoholic drink). Enhances human appetite
o Asa foetida: we already discussed this one on the forum.
o Nux vomica: enhances human appetite
Especially number 1 and 3 are poison in high doses; so if you want to use them, take only very small quantities.
All the special attractors from Van den Eynde , Mondial, Sensas...
° I haven't used these much so I can't judge on them. Most of you probably have more experience with them than I do. I know Van den Eyndes Superzoet (supersweet) is good, but the rest I don't know good enough. One of the favourites of most anglers is what is usually called "brasem" (the Dutch word for bream) This was initially made by Belgian anglers and was (or is?) ground coconut flesh to which you add some molasses. I suppose the idea was that the coconut disperses because of the fat it contains and spreads the attraction (smell and taste) of the molasses so you get a bigger range of attraction.
- All the stuff from our friends the carp anglers
o In their range they also have the above-mentioned classics, mostly as essential oils and an unbelievable number of others. I prefer to use them on baits rather then in my gb.
The essential oils will quickly go to the surface and are therefore at their best when you want to attract fish that are swimming in the upper water layers.
The alcohol based flavours: the ethylalcohol dissolves very easy in any water temperature (without coming to the surface) Some even say alcohol is an attractor on its own.
The glycerol based flavours stay longer at the bottom and dissolve less quickly, certainly in cold water and are therefore more suited for warmer water.
One of the all time favourites for bream, tench and carp is Maple (which goes also well with fenugreek). Other classics are Rod Hutchinsons Scopex and Richworths Tutti Frutti both for winter and summer and Nash Chocolate Malt in winter.
There are of course the special bream attractors. What I've got against them is: for carp they've got 100 flavours for different kinds of water and temperature, for bream the've got 1 and for roach none.
Another one, that can do well for bream and carp (at its best in cold water under or at maximum 12°C) is an acidic fruit like Lemon or Mainline's Pineapple, or Rod Hutchinsons Banana. Also in combination with a sweet one such as vanilla.
I've read very good things about the new Sensas' Double Scopex lately (a combination of Corn Steep Liquor and Scopex) but I haven't tried it yet myself.
Coconut: for bigger bream
The newer stuff such as:
· Corn steep liquor: stays at the bottom and dissolves slowly (fermented maize)
· Betaine (Magnatract) used as an appetite stimulator (on long term) while breeding fish. That doesn’t mean it works on short term.
· N butyric acid: only a few drops, also called the elephant drug (beware: this stinks unbelievably, even in a bottle that's inside a container…..) To avoid problems with the wife, only apply it outside.
Weird stuff, but it really can work.
-Amoniac (for very difficult bream)
-Ureum: was or is used by Belgian international anglers. Attracts all fish and works best in waters with some pollution
-Vinegar, lemon acid, ascorbine acid (vitamin C)
. Sweeteners, bait enhancers, palatants and appetite stimulators. These feeding stimulators can also be obtained, and much cheaper, from animal food shops, they are used by pig (or cattle) breeders. For instance Cresco, Pigortek...
Finishing and using gb
Here you can ruin a good gb or make it very good.
- Until recently I always put in a lot of work in this.
Since I’ve read an article of Michael Schlogl (in Déclic Peche) pouring in all the necessary water at once and using a drilling machine equipped with some kind of a mixer and doing the job in 3 minutes I’m convinced that this is a lot easier and probably even better.
I’m going to try this next season.
It is said to even take away the need of riddling.
Well, it's a few months later and I've tried it now and it does work, certainly usefull when you need a lot of gb, less when you only need 1-2 kilos. I still give it a quick riddle afterwards.
- We can make a gb with a little of water (and/or 20-30% of galette meal), so that it even floats for a while before it goes down (very good in not too deep water with a lot of mud on the bottom)
- We can make a gb with a normal amount of water, or a little bit more where there is a slight movement in the water that comes from the wind
- We can very much overwet it so that it forms a cloud going down (also used on muddy bottoms) or to work on half water.
- Especially for bream and roach you can add loam (up to even 8 times more than gb) and put joker or chopped worms in it to keep the fish busy. You can even put left over joker in the freezer, take them out 3 or 4 days before the match, put them in very wet loam and let the loam absorb the joker until there is no trace of it anymore and add fresh joker the day you are fishing. NEVER think like a human when adding such stuff to gb, roach and certainly bream absolutely have nothing against things that died a while ago, mostly not even if they stink a bit. It just makes their feeding easier
- Loam (sometimes a killer with additive) will also give you the possibility to have a lot of attraction on the bottom (with very little saturation) in cold water when fish are easily saturated.
- Of course it can also be used for its weight and stickiness.
- If you are fishing bream with chopped worm and you want to keep the carp away, put your chopped worm in loam and you have a good chance of keeping them away. Bream love to dig into loam with worm (or other baits) in it. Carp hate the sand between their teeth. On the other hand: if you want the carp, don’t use loam.
- Adding salt (in winter) or bitter almond oil to loam can immobilise joker and will help to select the bigger fish on your peg.
I’m going to stop here, in my younger days I dreamed of becoming a writer so I would like to go on and there still is a lot to be said about gb, but I do have to work a bit too. "
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