Fieldtester Tips... Joe Easton
Small Boilies Can Outwit Finicky Carp
I have long been a fan of small boilies, both home and abroad. I always use bait sizes of 12mm and occasionally 14mm. I firmly believe using baits this small has given me consistent results, along with a quality bait of course.
Imagine the scenario, 1 kg of bait on 2 separate patches of bait on the bottom. One patch is 12mm boilies (at a guess around 250 boilies), the other patch is 18mm boilies (at a guess around 100 boilies). In recent years, carp on most waters have become alot more finicky and trickier to catch. A carp feeding on the 250 boilies will spending more than twice as long feeding on this patch than on the other patch of 100 boilies, hence increasing the chances of a pick up. I believe hookbaits can get rejected several times before a proper hook hold takes place.
Small Boiles Overseas
I have been a regular visitor to France, and have been every year for the past 11 years. It amazes me when I see nearly every angler fishing abroad using large boilies i.e. 18mm to 20mm. I apprecaiate the carp over there have much bigger mouths but this does not mean they wont eat small boilies i.e. 12mm. Obviously there are some scenarios when crayfish or poisson chat are present when small baits will get whittled away quicker, but generally as a rule, I always use 12mm boilies. Try it, be different, and see your results improve...
Handy Bags
I like many many others, receive my freshly rolled boilies in bulk from Rollin Bait Services. They do a fantastic job, but one thing I do upon delivery is bag my boilies up into handy re-sealable bags.
When I receive my bait through the post the boilies come in 5kg re-sealable Nutrabaits bags. Once these bags are put straight into the freezer, a problem arises, as when I want maybe 1 or 2 kilo's to take fishing, it is difficult breaking the frozen boilies apart. To solve this problem, upon delivery of my bait, I use smaller re-sealable bags, to put my bait into. I find the bag sizes of 6" x 9" (150mm x 225mm) perfect. They can be bought from stationary shops or on internet sites like Ebay for around £3.50 for 100 bags delivered.
This size bag holds around 1kg of bait and if you want to go off fishing you can quickly grab one or two bags out of the freezer, with no hassle.
