Yellow Birdy Base with Red Dye

Dear Shaun,

I’ve read your article “Choosing winter bait” and I want to ask you have you used other ingredients like salt, sugar, betaine, monosodium glutamate with the Yellow Birdy Base Mix and The Sting oil mix at Patshull Church Pool in the ‘80s?

Also, haw many drops per egg mix do you recommend? On The Sting label is written 6-12 drops per 4 egg mix.

Another question is about the size of the hook? In one of your answers to a question about the hook size you said:

“One thing I do though is to counterbalance the weight of a big hook with slightly more buoyant hook bait to my free offerings”. What is the relation between the free offerings and the size of the hook?

All the summer and autumn I used Smart Point SP310 size 4 and it worked great for me with 10mm boilies and a small pop-up, usually a yellow plastic maize. But when the water temperature dropped below 6 degrees I realized that I have lost many more fishes. Yesterday I received my order of the Smart point SP310 size 6 and I will try this weekend to see if something will improve.

Thank you,

Adrian,

Romania.

Hi Adrian,

I have used salt, betaine and M.S.G. over the years in the Yellow Birdy Base/Sting Oil blend. I can’t remember using sugar with it but have used liquid sweeteners. The Maldon Sea Salt is my favourite out of the various salts.

I used to use my Sting Oil blend at 9 drops per 4 eggs.

I too drop to a size 6 SP310 once the temperatures plummet and the carp’s metabolism starts to slow down. I feel the 6 pricks them a little easier than the heavier wired 4. I do wish they produced that hook in a size 5 though as it’s quite a big jump from the 4 to the 6.

When using the smaller hook with bottom baits and/or snow man set-ups I like the gap on the hair between the bottom of the bait and the hook to be at least the length of the shank to allow it to drop into the mouth.

Hope this helps

Best fishes

Shaun

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