Gelatine (Jelly) Baits - Part 2

Following on from my last blog entry in which I looked at jelly baits, I want to revisit this concept, this time incorporating seeds and micro particles

Hopefully, the photos will be self-explanatory but a brief description of each may help.

In this article, I am going to create a jelly bait using 250g (dry weight) of a 50/50 blend of Haith's Hemp Seed and Haith's Red Band Pigeon Conditioner.

The tiny particles are soaked for 24 hours and then boiled vigorously for 15 minutes.

Now weigh out 100g (4oz) of granulated sugar. This is needed to smooth out the sometimes bitter taste that gelatine can impart to the bait.

After preparing the particle component of the bait, allow the liquor to cool slightly before adding the sugar.

Stir to dissolve the sugar and then strain the liquor into a measuring jug, keeping the particles to one side for a moment. If necessary top up the jug with water to a level of 500ml. (If there is more than 500ml of liquor, pour off some of it until there is 500ml left.). Return the liquor to the pan and heat it gently.

Measure out 1 dessertspoonful (15ml) of Liquid Robin Red.

Add the LRR to the liquor that is still heating gently in the saucepan.

Weigh out 100g of gelatine.

Now add the gelatine to the saucepan. The liquor should be too hot to touch but not boiling.

With a whisk stir in the gelatine. At first, it may form a sticky sludge on the bottom of the pan. Don't panic! This indicates that the liquor is not warm enough, so continue to apply gentle heat. When the whisk comes up clean with no sludge sticking to it, the gelatine will be fully dissolved.

You can now add the prepared mini particles to the gelatine-enriched liquor.

Next add any flavour you fancy. I find that fruity flavours always seem to compliment a jelly bait.

To stiffen up the finished bait, I like to add either an egg biscuit type ingredient such as Nectarblend or perhaps Haith's CLO as seen here. About 200-250g should do the trick. Add this to the pan and using your whisk blend everything together.

Now pour the contents of the pan into a shallow baking tray.

Bang the tray on a flat surface to get rid of any trapped air. The bait should spread out, filling the tray with a nice even layer.

Use a ruler or straight edge to cut the slab of jelly into cubes according to your preferred size.

This is how the finished baits should look.

As for a rig, well I cannot suggest a better way of mounting a jelly bait on a hair than with the Enterprise Tackle Meatmate system. 

Finally don't neglect float fishing. Under the right circumstances, a small cube of jelly bait mounted on a size 10 hook and fished over a bed of larger cubes of the same bait can be deadly. This 'parrot' with a massive tail came out of a North Devon reservoir and fell to a float-fished jelly bait, back in the day - before my hair turned grey and started to fall out!