At last, the secret to making pellet hookbaits is revealed

Making pellet hookbaits to match the new Robin Red & Garlic high attract pellets...

For this blog I’m going to concentrate on the Robin Red & Garlic High Attract pellets as these require no other liquid additives (from my point of view). All that is needed is some of the new Robin Red & Garlic base mix, pop up mix, egg albumin (I use powdered egg white from the supermarket), a flour sieve, 1 egg and your normal rolling equipment.

The pop up mix provides 2 functions for me:

1) It lightens the hookbait (I don't like a blatant pop up whilst fishing pellets it’s been done loads of times).

2) It makes your hookbait look washed out.

The pop up mix I use comes from AA baits so with other companies pop up mixes you will have to experiment for yourself to get the right amount of buoyancy that YOU require. The egg albumin is in there to toughen up the bait for an even harder bait just use 2 liquid egg whites along with the egg albumin.

So let’s begin...

1) Weigh out the Robin Red & Garlic base mix (150 gm), pop up mix (50 gm) and egg albumin (2 sachets = 16 gm or if buying from a bait firm 20 gms) and add to a large strong freezer bag and blend the lot together. Depending on the size of the egg used there should be some dry "base mix” left over, this can be saved ready for your next batch.

2) Sieve the base mix to remove any large items i.e. lumps of powder and any seeds that may be in the base mix. This is done to ease the mounting of the pellet onto the hair. As because the baits are small in diameter any large items could break the pellet when piercing with a baiting needle. To minimise this I also use a baiting needle that is classed as a maggot needle. (The lumps of powder can be pushed through the sieve but any seeds can be discarded).

3) Blend again...

4) Next is exactly the same as when I made my bait in my last blog entry.

5) Rolling the pellets is just a matter of making the sausage at least 2 sizes smaller than the rolling table that you want to use, i.e. 8mm sausage 12mm table 10mm sausage 14mm table 12mm sausage 16mm table. Although there is nothing to stop you from making longer pellets like 8mm sausage and 14 or 16mm table. The choice is yours; here I have used an 8mm nozzle and tables of 12mm and 16mm.

6) Boil the baits for the amount of time you want, I boil mine for 60 seconds.

7) Allow the baits to air dry for 24, 48 hours.

8) And there we have our finished pellet hookbaits. I have never counted the amount of hook baits that a mix produces but, as can be seen, it must be close to 200.

9) Place 30 or 40 of the baits into a glug pot and add a small amount of liquid Robin Red [to be launched by Haith’s in 2015]. As they are basically freezer baits then the rest can be frozen when running short in the glug pot just take some out the freezer allow them to thaw out and add to the pot and add more liquid Robin Red if needed.

A pellet hookbait attached to a rig over a small amount of feed pellet

Although this is about the Robin Red Garlic pellets, you can do exactly the same with the Robin Red Chilli or Robin Red fish meal pellets and add the same attractors that you use in your boilie fishing but in pellet form over a bed of pellets.

Well I hope you have found this interesting and not fallen asleep again?

Brian Mills
Haith’s Baits tester

Written by Brian Mills