Big Barbel ground bait cage feeder mix
Just 2 casts into a swim I'n never fished before.
It has become a daily question both in emails and phone calls about my feeder mix I have been using for the barbel I have been catching, so hopefully this will make things clearer.
I have juggled this blend around a little this season but I am now at the stage that I can’t see me altering it for quite some time yet, other than possibly reducing the Special Crab and the Mixed Pellets once the frosts come and then upping the Rahja Spice ingredients to replace the Special Crab dropped off.
Equal amounts of each ingredient ready for mixing
Ingredients required:
- Rahja Spice boilies
- Special Crab Boilies
- Absolute Seafood Boilies
- Rahja Spice Maximum Action Pellets or finely ground boilies
- Special Crab Maximum Action Pellets or finely ground boilies
- Rahja Spice Microfeed
- Special Crab Microfeed
- Mixed Pellet
- 2 x Hemp
I measure these ingredients by the volume rather than by weight so to keep things simple 1 x mug of everything except the Hemp which has 2 mugs.
Stage 1 - Fill the kettle to its maximum amount which is usually around 2 litre but if you have an unsociable sized kettle boil up 2 litre in a saucepan.
Start breaking the boilies up
Stage 2 - Start breaking the boilies up, I prefer 20 mm baits for this and simply squash them between my fingers and break them, ideally getting 3-5 individual pieces from each boilie plus the inevitable crumb.
Mix everything evenly together
Stage 3 - Add the boilies to the other ingredients and mix them evenly together.
Put the mix into a sieve
Stage 4 - Put the mix into a suitable sized sieve and once the water is boiled slowly pour it over the mix letting the excess drain away. Immediately after pour over the Hemp that has been sat in boiling water.
Transfer to lidded containers and leave to cool
Stage 5 -Using a wooden spoon or similar so that you don’t burn yourself on the scalded bait, mix in the Hemp so that everything is evenly spread and then immediately transfer to a container, connect the lid and leave to cool down.
Any surplus mix that isn’t required in the next couple of days I store in the freezer and simply remove it a few hours before I need it.
There you are 5 easy stages for a food source feeder mix. We are just moving into September now and this mix has produced on average a double figure barbel a week all through this season and my barbel sessions rarely last more than 3 hours. Just one bag of each of the above gives me a lot of sessions worth of bait.
This mix is fished in large open end feeders and grips lovely until it hits the bottom and then gives a steady trickle of food out of it.
Tried, tested and proven to work over and over again – definitely not an armchair barbel mix that you think ‘should work’. This one works and it works very well.
Best fishes
Shaun Harrison
About the Author: Shaun Harrison
