Types of boilies
- sinking (for fishing from the bottom);
- neutral buoyancy (for fishing at a short distance from the bottom);
- floating (for fishing in the water column or on its surface).
After forming them from the finished mixture, sinking boilies are boiled until a hard crust forms on the surface.
The density of such balls exceeds the density of water, so when they fall into a body of water, they drown. Neutral boilies are pressed until maximum moisture is removed from them. This bait retains zero buoyancy, allowing it to stay afloat near the bottom. Before placing a boilie that has such neutrality on the hook, you should select the right weight that can regulate its immersion to the desired depth.
Floating balls, due to drying, have a low density and do not sink at all. They are designed to catch fish that feed at the surface of the water.
Despite the wide range of boilies in specialized stores, most fishermen prefer to use homemade balls as bait. In this case, you can achieve the ideal combination of mixture components, suitable for a certain type of fish and the characteristics of the reservoir.
In hot weather you can do without them, but the presence of flavorings is mandatory. Fruit flavors are well suited for carp fishing: plum, banana, strawberry, as well as honey, caramel, etc.
It is better to use semolina or corn flour as a base for boilies. It is also necessary to use eggs or casein as a gluing component. Many fishermen add salt to the mixture, which is an excellent natural preservative.
Even a novice angler can easily make some equipment for boilies with his own hands. To achieve success, a fisherman must understand which equipment will work best in specific fishing conditions.
The knotless fastening method is the most popular among fishermen, as it has repeatedly proven its versatility and high catchability. To create this installation you need:
- pass the leash into the eye of the hook, leaving a free end 5 cm long;
- tie a “hair” loop at the end of the leash;
- wrap the end with a loop around the shank of the hook several times, and then pass it through the eye again;
- Pull the loop through the boilie hole and secure with a stopper.
This boilie rig can be used with both floating and sinking types of boilies. Simplicity of manufacture makes knotless installation the most popular among novice fishermen.
Blowback rig
The Blowback rig is perfect for catching trophy fish with large baits. Carp anglers often use this setup when fishing with a “snowman” type bait made up of two boilies. To make a blowback rig you need:
- pass the leader material through the eye of the hook, leaving a free end about 5 cm long;
- wrap the free end around the forend several times and secure with a self-tightening loop;
- form a classic “hair” loop at the end of the leash;
- put a metal ring on the shank of the hook;
- pass a piece of leash with a loop through the ring, securing it with a simple knot in the middle of the forearm;
- pass the “hair” loop through the boilie and secure it with a stopper.
An example of constructing a catchable boilie rig
The main advantage of this installation is that the ring moves freely throughout the structure, making it almost impossible for the fish to get rid of the hook.
Installation with a cambric located on the bend of the hook has proven itself excellent when fishing from the bottom. The procedure for its manufacture is as follows:
- the leash is passed through the eye of the hook, leaving an end about 4 cm long;
- the end of the leash is wrapped around the forend and secured with a self-tightening loop;
- at the end of the leash material a “hair” loop is formed, which is threaded into a cambric about 0.5 cm long;
- the cambric is put on the hook;
- The “hair” loop is passed through the nozzle and secured with a stopper.
In combination with this equipment, sinking leashes with a lead core are often used. Installation with cambric can also be used in zig-rig equipment.
Fishing with boilies is a trophy type of fishing, so the gear used in combination with this attachment must have a large margin of safety. If you know how to properly place boilies on a hook and create different types of equipment, a fisherman can always count on a good catch.
Making your own boilies
Not every fisherman can afford to purchase expensive balls from advertised manufacturers. And it’s not always possible to “get into” the taste preferences of the inhabitants of a particular body of water. Therefore, if you have the desire and opportunity, you can make bait yourself. Moreover, this matter is not difficult.
Composition recommendations
If you break down each granule into its component components, they will all be aimed at performing specific tasks. Some additives provide nutritional value, others provide structure and the necessary taste, others provide aroma, and others provide color.
The following components are used as the basis for making bait:
- Semolina and soy flour. This base includes a mixture of carbohydrates and protein of plant origin. Being low in nutrition, it is excellent for short-term fishing and exploring a new body of water, because over time the carp will understand that this food does not satiate it, does not bring energy, and will refuse it. All kinds of fruit flavors are best combined with this base. You can increase the nutritional value by adding corn flour to the original mixture. Balls made from this base “work best” in cold water.
- Flour from fish and various seafood. A base that mainly consists of animal proteins and fats. Its peculiarity is that the fish must first be accustomed to such food. The more often you use granules of this composition, the faster the carp will begin to perceive them as natural food. Such balls have a loose structure, so they quickly get wet in water and become prey for small things. Do not use them in cold water or in bodies of water with strong currents.
- Birdseed. This base well replenishes the energy losses of carp, as it consists mainly of carbohydrates, fats and proteins of plant origin. If you add semolina flour and fruit flavors to the mixture, you will get a fast-acting bait. Together with fishmeal and animal aromas, you will get a perfectly balanced bait for long-term fishing.
In order to bind all the components together, they use chicken eggs, starch, and casein. Food coloring is used to give the desired color.
Cooking steps
Regardless of which ingredients you decide to use, the cooking process will consist of the following steps:
- First you need to prepare all the dry ingredients. Grind the large ingredients and mix everything into a homogeneous cereal.
- In a separate container, prepare the liquid component of the mixture. Mix eggs, dye, flavoring, etc.
- Stirring constantly, pour the dry base into the liquid base.
- Knead the dough. It should be homogeneous and elastic. Shouldn't be too liquid. The required consistency is achieved by adjusting the amount of liquid in the mixture.
- You need to make several sausages from the dough. Their diameter depends on what kind of fish you are going to catch. Then the sausages are cut into cubes, from which balls are formed.
- The final stage is heat treatment and subsequent drying.
Adviсe:
- To ensure that the dough reaches the desired consistency, strictly follow the recipe. Maintain the required proportions of dry and liquid ingredients.
- If you want the balls to be covered with a hard crust, leave them to dry in the fresh air.
- To prevent the nozzle from becoming moldy or sour, store it in the freezer.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=nGqvdzZXM_U
KNOTLESS KNOT
This knot makes it possible to set the desired distance between the nozzle and the bend of the hook. Some anglers prefer further distances, others closer.
There is no specific requirement here, but still this distance should not be very large, since the hook will not immediately enter the carp’s mouth. The side closest to the hook should be 1 inch before touching it.
The meaning of the “hair” rig is in the separate arrangement of the hook and the nozzle. When fishing for carp or other fish of this family with teeth located in the back of the throat, it is most likely to get caught on the hook of the hair rig.
If the hook is in the bait, the chances of catching carp are reduced.
So, how to plant them correctly?
So, how do the boilie-to-hook attachments differ, and what is the most important thing a beginner should know? This bait itself is designed in such a way that carp, which calmly sucks on any bulky food, cannot do the same with it. Therefore, it should be secured in the appropriate way. Initially, it was strung on hooks so that the sting was not visible behind the main body, but fishing in this way did not bring good enough results, so alternative ways of attaching the latter to boilies were invented.
When looking at boilies, many do not even suspect the wide variety of installation methods, and that how to set the bait, how to tie knots and how to generally tie the hook to the fishing line greatly depends on the type of reservoir and the type of fish you are hunting for. One of the most popular methods for catching carp and bream can be called "hair".
In this case, the boilie is installed not on the hook itself, but near the lead outlet, which is located nearby. When boilies are used for carp in this way, the chances that the fish will be hooked on its own due to the swallowed hook increase significantly, and you can only rely on correctly secured gear. Depending on what size hook and size of boilie you use, the chance of that the tackle will still spin due to a sharp jerk from the fish.
In general, this method is suitable for most beginners; doing this with your own hands is as easy as shelling pears. We select the required hook size for the depth, tie it, preferably tie a sea knot, and now everything is attached and set, and the beginner will only have a pleasant experience from such fishing and quite massive carp if you choose the right hook.
Catching fish using this method is much easier, the main thing is to make sure that you managed to secure everything well so that it does not fall off at the last moment. After all, it all depends on how to tie the hook and how the boilie is attached.
- drowning;
- medium buoyancy - suitable for any body of water;
- floating on the surface.
To successfully fish on any type of reservoir and with different types of fish nutrition, a fisherman must be able to set boilies in different ways. The type of fastening may depend on several factors:
- type of reservoir;
- fish feeding horizon;
- fish activity;
- type of nozzle used.
A silicone tube 1–1.5 cm long placed on the eye of the hook improves the grip of installation
A hard bait can be attached to a hook in several ways. In the most common version, the “hair” loop is passed through a through hole in the nozzle and then fixed with a stopper. This method is the most universal and allows you to fish with baits of various sizes and any buoyancy.
To attach the bait in this way you will need:
- insert the needle into the hole of the bait;
- hook the pre-formed loop with the needle beard;
- pull the loop through the body of the hard bait;
- secure the end of the loop in the center of the stopper;
- holding the stopper along the edges with your fingers, pull the leash.
The next mounting option is ideal for beginner fishermen who have not had time to acquire a specialized tool. For this method, you need to make a shallow cut around the circumference of the nozzle ball. The cutting depth should be about 1–2 mm. Next to the hook, not an ordinary loop is formed, but a noose loop, which is inserted into the cut and tightened tightly.
Another method involves inserting a swivel into a round nozzle. Before driving the swivel into the boilie, you need to drill a hole in the bait and insert a silicone casing of the appropriate size into it. The swivel is inserted into the cambric only halfway. The free ring of the swivel is put on the hook and secured with a small rubber stopper. This method of attachment is quite reliable and allows you to perform power casts. It is most often used for fishing from the bottom on a slowly dissolving bait.
Fishing with floating pop-up baits involves the use of a fastening element such as a rubber ring. In this case, the fisherman will not have to tie complex equipment. To fix the nozzle, just put a rubber ring of the required diameter on it and hook the hook onto it.
The size of the hook in a boilie rig should always be slightly smaller than the size of the bait used
Mini boilies are equipped with a thread, which makes the installation process very simple. To attach a mini boilie, just hook the hook onto the thread
It is important for the angler to remember that placing a hard bait on a hook should be done with great care. Beginner fishermen are often in a hurry when performing this procedure, which often leads to injury.
How to add attractiveness to carp boilies
The fundamental factor in the success of carp hunting is considered to be a competent choice of fishing location, the fisherman’s search for the so-called carp trail, where baits are supplied
But in addition to this condition, the bait must attract fish, which is especially important during the low period of its activity. The practice of catching carp with boilies has made it possible to develop a number of techniques that can add attractiveness to the bait, thereby increasing the number of bites with positive implementation of attempts
Let's consider a number of such measures that help increase the efficiency of the fish's approach to fishing points.
The essence of the mechanical method of increasing the attractiveness of the boilie bait lies in violating the integrity of the ball shell. By violating the integrity of the bait, the aroma spreads as quickly as possible, which speeds up the time it takes for the fish to approach installation. The main bait is deformed by chipping or cutting off the hard shell, and the bait elements are completely cut in half or crushed.
By adding corn grains to the hair rig, when the activity of the carp is low, it is stimulated to become more active. Grain is used both canned and independently prepared by boiling or steaming.
Read Fishing tackle cork and catching fish with it
The method with the starting material is that the dry bait is wrapped in fresh dough intended for preparing the product. A passive carp reacts faster to a semi-finished product, actively searching for bait.
Many fishermen soak the dry product in water for a couple of hours before fishing, thus softening the hard crust and facilitating the rapid spread of aroma from the inside of the bait. They often resort to tinting the balls in a bright yellow color similar to the color of ripe corn grain, which is a favorite delicacy of carp. The technique can also bring an increase in the intensity of the bite.
Assembling the equipment
Typically, when fishing for carp with boilies, the following types of equipment are used:
- hair;
- feeder;
- float
Due to the fact that the boilie does not fit on the hook due to its density and hardness, the hair bait method was invented. First you need a special hook for carp. It should not have rust. The hook is selected depending on the size of the nozzle. Then you need a thin piece of braided fishing line, from 3 to 5 cm in length, so that there is a knot with three turns on it, that is, you will need to trim off the excess length from the initial few tens of centimeters. You can knit a microloop using a needle.
After this, a piece of silicone tube is pulled onto the leash, and the other end of the leash is pulled to the beginning of the bend, which ends with a sting. Just before the start of this bend, there should be two windings of 5-6 turns on the fore-end and the second just before the start of the bend. Next, the knots on the fore-end are glued and a few minutes after drying, everything is ready.
Installation of the hair attachment
There are several ways to mount the hairpiece:
- D-Rig rig. This type of installation gives a large amplitude of movement of the boilie and the hook, and the fish will not have the opportunity to spit out the hook with the boilie after swallowing;
- "Backfire" The two halves of the boilie are attached with bulges to each other on the hair;
- rigid equipment. The bait is attached in close proximity to the hook. This gives maximum chances for timely and quick hooking;
- knotless installation, that is, without various additional devices. This boilie tackle has proven itself well.
Gear is also used for bait.
The importance of matching boilie and hook size
Ideally, the straight distance from the tip to the fore-end should be half the diameter of the boilie. The hook should only protrude slightly from under the circumference of the bait. When you look at the boilie from below, it should not completely hide the hook. The table shows the calculation of the ideal sizes of the boilie and hook, taking into account the nuances of carp fishing.
Boilie size | Hook size |
8 mm | 10 |
10 mm | 8 |
12 mm | 8 |
14 mm | 6 |
16 mm | 6 |
18 mm | 6/4 |
20 mm | 4 |
22 mm | 4 |
Scooter recipes
The baits can be meat, fish, spicy, fruit, sweet. A wide variety of ingredients are added to them. Carpomania boilies are a wide range of baits for carp fishing.
You can make boilies for carp yourself. You need to create a very thick mixture, after which you need to cut it into strips, and then divide these strips into cubes. The cubes are rolled by hand to a spherical shape. After this, they need to be cooked for about 2.5 minutes for balls with a diameter of 2.5 cm, 2 minutes for a diameter of 2 cm, 1.5 minutes for a diameter of 1.5 cm, and so on. It's fast and cheap. There are classic recipes for preparing boilies for carp fishing.
Recipe 1:
- wheat, corn or semolina flour - 200 g;
- fish or bone meal - 200 g;
- chicken eggs - 5−7 pcs.
- wheat or rye bran - 100 g;
- sunflower cake (makukha) - 100 g;
- powdered milk or sports drink - 50 g;
- salt - 50 gr.
All dry matter must be ground to powder. Then add eggs and knead until dough forms. After this, you need to select strips that should be rolled into a cylindrical shape, make balls by cutting oblong sausages.
Recipe 2:
- Grate 300 grams of potatoes with a large amount of starch;
- add 5 chicken eggs;
- add 1 cup of wheat flour and 0.5 hemp cake;
- The mixture is slowly stirred until smooth, after which balls are made and boiled for several minutes.
Recipe 3:
for summer fishing, the following ingredients are recommended: soy flour (1 kg), corn flour (1 kg), semolina (150 g), rice cereal (200 g), milk powder (500 g) or milk protein (150−200 g) , dyes, flavors. Hemp grains (50 g), eggs (5-9 pcs.), salt (1 tbsp. spoon), sugar (1 tbsp. spoon) and vegetable oil (3 tbsp. spoons) are also added. The ingredients need to be crushed and water added to them. Bring to a dough, make balls. After this, cook for several minutes depending on their diameter. It would be a good idea to fry them in a frying pan for a short time after this.
Cooking boilies
This bait can also be prepared at home. In this case, you will be absolutely sure of the nutritional value of your boilies and their suitability for carp fishing. And catching a trophy fish with a boilie you made yourself is much more enjoyable than with a purchased one. So, let's look at a couple of recipes.
The first recipe is suitable for reservoirs in which carp are accustomed to sunflower cake. In general, the smell of sunflower is considered a win-win option when catching white fish. So, to prepare the bait we will need: 150 g of wheat flour, 50 g of sunflower cake and 2 chicken eggs. The cake must first be crushed into powder. First, the eggs are beaten, and then the dry mixture is poured into them. After kneading the dough, you need to roll it into sausages, cut into small pieces, and roll them into balls. All that remains is to boil the balls - and the boilies are ready.
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The second recipe is more sophisticated. For it you will need: 400 g of corn flour and 200 g of soy flour, 150 g of semolina, 100 g of salted cake, 100 g of protein (can be bought at a sports nutrition store) and 50 g of salt. Next, everything is done in the same way as in the previous recipe. For every 100 g of dry raw materials you need to take one egg.
Depending on your personal experience and the specifics of a particular body of water, you can add all sorts of dyes and flavors to the dough. Fortunately, there are more than enough of them on the market.
Example #4 - Ring on Shank
When to use: Best with a pop-up. With a sinking boilie, the efficiency will be noticeably lower
Addition: If you are looking for something unusual, it is quite possible to move away from the classic hair installation and put a mini-ring on the hook, fixing its movements on the sides with special silicone stops. (Editor's note: There are different opinions on the Internet about the pointless purchase of branded stoppers, supposedly this is not such an important element of equipment, you can completely replace it with cheap analogues. Remember - a bad rod cannot prevent a good hook from hooking a fish, a bad hook can prevent a good rod from catching a fish fish it out. Then it’s everyone’s choice).
So, there are many variations of the ring on the forend, but the meaning is the same - replacing a hair. It cannot be said that this rig is the most catchy, but you need to have it in stock in order to sometimes offer the fish something extraordinary.
How to tie a boilie to a hook
Most often, experienced fishermen use special bait if they need to catch fish of the carp family, and do not even think about how to attach boilies. It is so popular that it is considered one of the best baits in this situation, and many prefer boilies even to worms and canned corn. The thing is that it can be considered high-quality only if such bait includes animal and vegetable fats in combination with oils, and all this gives a fairly strong and pungent odor that the fish hears at a great distance. And, it would seem, it does not get wet and is easily attached to the hook, what problems might arise? However, after sitting for a couple of hours without a bite, the understanding will probably come to your mind that you made a mistake somewhere, and it’s all about the method of baiting. So, how to put boilies on a hook so that the fish does not jump off, and you get a good catch?
What are they?
In order to understand the question of how to properly attach boilies, you first need to understand what they are and how they differ from other baits. First of all, it is worth understanding why they are so highly effective against other baits, then you will understand how to prepare hooks for boilies. It’s worth starting with the translation of the name itself, and in Russian it will sound like “cook”, and accordingly, the product is given heat treatment at the manufacturing stage to improve its characteristics.
How boilies are placed can also be judged by their spherical shape, the diameter of which can be:
- 0.5 cm – for fish swimming near the surface and small individuals.
- 5 cm – for deep sea fishing.
- 3 cm - if you need to catch carp or bream of particularly large sizes, but these are not found in every body of water and if you miscalculate the size, you will be left without a catch at all.
And thanks to the dried filling, consisting of fish and bone meal, there are many ways to mount boilies, depending on the situation. But, if you want to make something similar at home, you don’t have to hope for a product that is similar in effectiveness.
So, how to plant them correctly?
So, how do the boilie-to-hook attachments differ, and what is the most important thing a beginner should know? This bait itself is designed in such a way that carp, which calmly sucks on any bulky food, cannot do the same with it. Therefore, it should be secured in the appropriate way. Initially, it was strung on hooks so that the sting was not visible behind the main body, but fishing in this way did not bring good enough results, so alternative ways of attaching the latter to boilies were invented.
When looking at boilies, many do not even suspect the wide variety of installation methods, and that how to set the bait, how to tie knots and how to generally tie the hook to the fishing line greatly depends on the type of reservoir and the type of fish you are hunting for. One of the most popular methods for catching carp and bream can be called "hair".
In this case, the boilie is installed not on the hook itself, but near the lead outlet, which is located nearby. When boilies are used for carp in this way, the chances that the fish will be hooked on its own due to the swallowed hook increase significantly, and you can only rely on properly secured gear. Depending on what hook size and boilie size you use, the chance that the tackle will still spin due to a sharp jerk from the fish will vary. In general, this method is suitable for most beginners; doing this with your own hands is as easy as shelling pears. We select the required hook size for the depth, tie it, preferably tie a sea knot, and now everything is attached and set, and the beginner will only have a pleasant experience from such fishing and quite massive carp if you choose the right hook.
You can also experiment with the boilies themselves, which come in:
- drowning;
- medium buoyancy - suitable for any body of water;
- floating on the surface.
Try different types and then you can decide which one is best for your situation.
Boilie equipment for canned corn.
From time immemorial, corn has been successfully catching carp and grass carp; you should not give up using corn when fishing with long-distance casting on hair tackle; you just need to take into account the tenderness of the bait when using long-distance casting. For many fishermen who are not experienced in long-distance casting, the speed that the boilie equipment develops when casting, say, over a hundred meters, will be a revelation. So - this speed - the speed that the sinker takes on - exceeds one hundred kilometers per hour. Tender canned corn, if no additional measures are taken, simply flies off the hair when cast. Therefore, you need to either pack the entire equipment or leash using the so-called candy - small-sized dry bait packed in PVA foam - or fix the corn grain using, for example, artificial floating corn as in the photo
Bonduelle corn reinforced plastic floating on hair mounting with ring
red plastic corn fixes canned corn when casting, and in the water with this combination the result is an almost neutrally buoyant bait. You can use a single kernel of corn, but a boilie rig with two kernels of sweet corn camouflages the hook more easily and is more effective.
Read Silicone bait for fishing and its varieties
Required tools and fasteners
To attach the boilie to the hook, the fisherman will need specific tools and additional fasteners, with the help of which the rigid bait can be quickly and reliably mounted on the equipment. To perform various bait installations on a “hair” rig, the fisherman will need:
- special needle;
- drill;
- stoppers;
- metal rings;
- swivels;
- cambrics of various diameters.
To attach a hard bait to a “hair” rig, which is most often used in carp fishing, the angler will need a special needle with a notch at the end. This needle is similar in design to a regular knitting needle, but differs from it in its smaller diameter. The notch at the end of the tool is needed to pull the loop through the through hole of the boilie. You can make such a tool yourself or purchase it at a fishing store.
On a note! If the bait used is highly plastic, then a through hole can be made in it using a regular sewing needle. To make a hole in a fragile bait, the fisherman will need a small diameter drill. Such a tool can be electrically driven, which significantly speeds up the installation of the boilie on the hook.
If the boilie is set correctly, the fish is hooked on the lower lip
Equipment for catching carp with boilies
The stopper can be quickly made from scrap materials:
- matches;
- hard stem of grass;
- thin tree branch.
To make this element, you will need to take a small part of a match, branch or blade of grass about 1 cm long and insert it into the hair loop. Then you need to pull the equipment so that the stopper slightly enters the body of the boilie.
Equipment for fishing with boilies often includes cambrics of various diameters, which are usually mounted on the shank of the hook and serve to increase the efficiency of hooking. The diameter of the cambric used directly depends on the thickness of the wire from which the hook is made.
Important! The cambric should be put on the hook with noticeable force, which will prevent it from moving along the fore-end during casting. The color of this element should be such that it does not stand out on the bottom soil and does not alert the fish
As a rule, anglers use black or dark gray cambrics.
The color of this element should be such that it does not stand out on the bottom soil and does not alert the fish. As a rule, anglers use black or dark gray cambrics.
Catching carp with boilies
Fishing this unpredictable, cautious and strong fish is a real challenge for the fisherman. What carp fishermen have come up with in order to win an exciting competition over their prey, what tricks they have invented to make the carp bite, and then, having received incredible pleasure from the process of fishing, take a photo with the coveted trophy!
According to many fishermen, fishing for this underwater inhabitant is a whole science that cannot be mastered in a couple of days. Today there are many different ways to catch this fish, but the most effective is fishing for carp with boilies. The latter are now considered the most popular baits for “white” fish. Hard round balls are used not only by professional fishermen, but also by amateurs. In this article we will talk in detail about how this method of fishing arose, what advantages such common gear for carp - boilies - have, and what types of them exist. Today there are many baits for this fish, but these dense round or cylindrical balls work best.