Another innovation from UPPET LABS.

[Pferox]

Good thing I can't add music to this posting because I could have a ball with this one.  We used to be called Muppet labs, but copy right infringement forces us to a name change. 
Dum ta Da Dum Dum .......

The problem: 
Fresh dead shrimp has gone up from $4 a pound to $6 a pound and rising.  When the bite is good you can go through a lot of pounds of fresh dead shrimp.  On a bad day of fishing, lots of bait stealers and crabs, you can go through a lot of pounds of shrimp.

The solutions:
    Use Lures! 
Works great when wading or on a boat, sometimes when on shore, but not a consistent fish getter.  Always do it when bait fishing anyways, when we're not busy re-baiting after every cast. 
     Move: 
Easier when on a boat, especially when shore access is at a premium and it seems nobody works anymore and fills the premium productive areas with lines..... Even during the week ..... In other words, you got your butt in there, better not move because you will loose it.  AND bait fish means that predators could be around, which is what you want.
    Use the Bait fish as bait: 
Great idea, when feasible using a cast net is a go to option, although some areas the cast nets can get destroyed from what is on the bottom.  A Sabiki rig is another option.  But you have to tip the rig with bait ..... hmmmm ....  fresh dead shrimp!
    Use tougher bait like Squid or Fish Bites: 
Great alternative, sometimes works, sometimes not.  Interesting observation is that some toothy bait stealers like pinfish will clean off a fishbite as fast as a piece of shrimp.  And that stuff is getting too expensive to just feed bait stealers.
     Stretch the Shrimp:  (Insert triumphant music)
They did it during the depression, used to stretch the meat in stews and soups.  Hmm, might be hard to get shrimp stew on a hook ..... probably even harder to cast any distance ....    But when I was a kid when worms were hard to find we would make a dough bait and add chopped worms to it, it caught catfish and bluegills like the real thing!    BUT we couldn't cast it very far, and long casts are mandatory with shore fishing around here.  THIS can be another viable alternative in the arsenal. (Insert triumphant music)

The Mission: (Dum dum dummmmmmm)  Make a castable dough bait!

After some research we discovered that this is actually being done in European fresh water fishing, they make a dough ball and blanch it in boiling water anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes and are able to cast this bait over 100 yards, although I haven't seen it done in salt water, but what the heck we can try it, I have time on my hands, and some stuff laying around here.

They call it a BOILIE, go figure.

..... Next episode: The search for a salt water boilie .......  Stay tuned ........

[Mike Cork]

Interesting? Something that would stay on the hook during log casts would also survive currents? Making a great catfish bait here on the red river

[Pferox]

THE SALT WATER BOILIE ....... Experiment one......

For this episode you will have to add your own music, I'm having trouble figuring out how to put in the right dums and das and tas to get the idea across.

So to make this boilie we need a few things:

A dough recipe:  I make good biscuits so why not use that one, just don't use self rising flour.  Have to make sure it is not water soluable so no water of any kind in the mix.
Flavoring: Something that fish like.  Chopped shrimp?  Better yet liquified shrimp (easier to mix)!!!!
A boiler:  One of our pots and some water will suffice, I guess.
A plan:  Warn the wife, and do it while she isn't around.  I still like to stay married and she does have a sensitive nose, don't know what will happen, something just might blow up.  Also start early this way there is time to clean up in case something does blow up.  Did I mention I live in an apartment and don't have an actual garage lab anymore?

Notice how WE became ME, it seems that all the other members of UPPET LABS, including the pups, are nowhere to be found when there is a possible fallout with the wife, although she was supportive about this especially when I mentioned that it would save bait money, or she was just humoring me, not sure which.

Anyways I decided to go where no fisherman has gone before and continue the search.  As most Southern households are (I guess) the back of the bottom shelf is where all the flours, meals, etc are kept.  This is one of those places where things get lost for years.  I got down there and started pulling out partially filled bags and found a cornucopia of mixes and flours, but NO plain old flour. What a sacrilege, no flour, guess we go to plan B. There was a bag of tortilla mix there that was dated in the 60s so I figured I would use that, and if needed some corn meal that was a little fresher.

Next was how to flavor the boilie, I went to the freezer and dang no frozen shrimp!!!! Oh wait a minute that is why this experiment is going on.  In the cupboard amidst a stack of sardine cans in various flavors I found one packed in oil. We'll just liquify that ..... where is the old blender we stored away ......



YES WE DO HAVE VISUAL AIDS!

So into the blender goes the can of sardines, including the oil, a couple of eggs, and some more vegetable oil to make it kind of liquid.  I put a couple cups of the Tortilla Mix in a bowl, add the wet ingredients and mix, adding more of the flour until I get the right consistency, then knead and end up with a ball of oily dough.



So far so good, nothing exploded and it doesn't smell that bad, although I haven't seen the dogs around and they usually are underfoot when the refrigerator door opens.

Next came the shaping of the dough.  In my research they have actual tools, one look like a caulking gun that makes a "sausage" which is placed on a table with channels cut into it, you put a matching cover on it, push down, jiggle it a little and little balls come out.  Well, I am just going to do it by hand, kind of like making meat balls.

So I roll out the "Sausages" and cut them up into smaller little pillows or pellets and start rolling.  After about 10 of these I came up with the conclusion that fish wouldn't mind that they weren't round.  I also noticed that as the big dough ball got smaller, the pellets got bigger, so now I know why the tools are around for consistency.  I also noted that the stuff looks like something I pick up from the lawn each morning, so I think if there is a next time, I am going to add food coloring.  In the beginning it didn't roll out very well, I discovered that when you make an oil based dough you have to knead the heck out of it, and keep adding flour to absorb the oil that permeates out.  I don't need to mention that the oil smells just like sardines.



OK, so now I have everything ready for the next step, I get the old pot out of the cupboard, did I mention everything is now smelling like sardines? And start the water to boil.  I drop the first batch of boilies into the water and they sink to the bottom, I stir and they are sticking to the bottom ... panic .... I am dead meat .... I just totaled the pot ..... then suddenly they start to pop up to the top, just like frying fish!  I give them another few minutes to boil and take them out.

As I was cutting the things up I was putting them into a little bowl, I quickly found out that they will stick to themselves this way, so now I'm taking these things apart and placing them on a plate in preparation to putting them in the boiling water.



The hot boilies are sticky, and very wet.  So I put them on a towel to dry out a little and cool off, bad idea now I am pealing the boilies off of the towel leaving the good part on the towel.  Glad I didn't use the good bath towels.



I then discovered that the longer I kept them cooling the easier they were to get off of the towel.  I also noticed that they are expanding, so now my neat little pillows are turning into queen sized pillows, guess I'll just use a bigger hook.  Next time I will make sure there is no self rising stuff in the any of the mixes that I use.

It didn't take long to make up the batch a couple of hours tops.  They came out OK, and as they said on the internet they now had to dry for a day or so then can be frozen and kept indefinitely.  Only problem was that I was going to test them the next day, so I decided to put them in an open top container in the fridge, shake them every couple of hours and quicken the dry time.

That actually worked, when I remembered to shake the container.  All the ones exposed to air turned out into tough little, er uh ok larger pillows that were almost rubbery.

So far so good, except, I started too late and the wife came home from work.  Fortunately the kitchen didn't look like a normal Uppet Labs experiment.

Surprisingly, she was actually kind of really good about it. She kicked me out of the kitchen and cleaned up the dishes, only complaining about the smell of the mixing bowl. AND started talking about how they came out.  She mentioned that it didn't smell bad and gave suggestions on ways to change the color.    She was actually getting into this experiment.  Hmmm wonder if the dogs will keep me company in the kitchen while I'm doing the next batch now.

Ok, so now we have product, and testing is planned for the next day.  So next installment is the actual test!

[Dark3]

Cant wait to see your results! Very entertaining read, you have me intrigued

[Pferox]

THE SALTWATER BOILIE .....  The Test.

Ok, so I now actually have a working sample to test, after sitting in the fridge and being shaken periodically, they actually are looking good.  Its about time a first run from UPPET LABS is looking promising, AND the dogs are actually sniffing them and thinking they are treats.

During the week another member of UPPET LABS, one of the chickens, my buddy Robert talked me into a road trip to the Texas City Dike for a bait run to BOYD's ONE STOP and a couple hours of fishing time.

Since I'm still not allowed to drive very far because of the surgery I took him up on it, and saw it as a good way to test the boilies.

I take a couple of handfuls of the bait and put it into a plastic bag.  I noticed that they are still a little sticky where they weren't in contact with the air, but nowhere near as sticky as when I first put them in the fridge, a couple more days and they will be totally dry and ready to freeze.  I also noticed that the dried areas are changing colors.




So we get to the Dike and unpack our stuff, I quickly put a boilie on the hook of my most sensitive rod and give it a great long cast. ....... I watch the splash and note there were no other splashes or things falling out of the sky, this is promising.  I quickly retrieve my line and ..... THE HOOK IS BARE!

This CAN"T be a total fail, not AGAIN!!! I then took a piece of shrimp that we bought and did the exact same thing, I felt little taps on the fall.  I then reeled in and the hook was bare again!!

OK, so it isn't the boilie, there are bait fish out there, AND they like the boilie. But they're like Mikey, they'll eat anything.

So to make a long story longer, I didn't catch a dang thing on these boilies, but then again I didn't catch a dang thing on fresh dead shrimp either.  Only thing that stayed on the hook long enough to catch anything was half of a freshly caught bait fish.  BUT they were castable, and if I retrieved them in fast enough could cast them out multiple times, so that is a plus.  Maybe if I made them the size of a softball there will be enough left for the larger fish to get.

Another product of UPPET LABS are our own hand tied Sabiki Rigs, which Robert tested that day too.  We tipped a couple of the #12 hooks with small hunks of boilie and they did catch bait fish, so we are still seeing positive results.  And, Mike, a couple of those fish were 1 and 2 inch hard head catfish!



So I went home kind of triumphant, the test was quite positive.  I'm going to try them in the Bayou where fresh dead shrimp and hopefully the Boilies will stay on the hook a little longer.

My wife came home and after dinner we discussed fishing, she actually asked me how the boilie tests went.  (This is getting scary now)

I told her that using the doggie bag container from red lobster probably isn't the best drying rack, she suggested we get some cheap cookie sheets from dollar store for the next batch. (NEXT BATCH?)

I also mentioned that putting them in a plastic sandwich bag and sitting for a while in the sun created condensation inside and started to make them sticky again and the Europeans make a mesh bag to hang them up on so air can get around them and keep them kind of dry.  She mentioned that they make little mesh bags for washing unmentionables that might fit the bill. (This is number two!!!)

She then mentioned that food coloring is cheap,  and that they might work better if I actually grind up shrimp,      THEN she said she wondered if they make a shrimp flavoring that can be ordered instead.  (I'm falling out of my recliner now.)

I mentioned to her that in my perusal that I found a guy in England that is grinding up squid, but says that it stinks so badly that his wife threatened to divorce him if he tried to cook that stuff again.  She said that we have air freshener.  As I got up off of the floor I told her that I would make sure I use the old containers that weren't used for our regular cooking anymore.

All in all the tests are ongoing, and after I use up this batch another will probably follow.

There are base mixes available on the internet, and even some flavorings, (have to find shrimp flavoring, I think the Brits call them prawns) but with their cost, add the shipping, you are pretty much over the present $6 a pound for real fresh dead shrimp, so I think I'll keep fiddling with this home made stuff, although when I get the extra cash, might invest in the manufacturing tools.  Wonder if they have one soft ball sized.

If I ever actually catch a fish on this stuff I will post, hopefully it won't make it into the archives by then.  So stay tuned, there might actually be another episode on this stuff.

[Pferox]

Cant wait to see your results! Very entertaining read, you have me intrigued

Thanks, I wanted it to be light hearted because that is kind of the way we looked at it, although now it might be getting serious, especially since my wife is interested.  I come up with a lot of stuff especially when it comes to rigging, and many are total fails, although some do work well.  That's how we came with the UPPET LABS thing, now I need a picture of the Swedish Chef to go on the logo, since I am now cooking bait. 

Interesting? Something that would stay on the hook during log casts would also survive currents? Making a great catfish bait here on the red river

That was in the back of my mind also, kind of the basis of starting this.  AND it did catch little cats, maybe the bigger ones can be around the corner.

[Pferox]

Well, I got a chance to do some in depth testing while at the Bayou yesterday, and it worked.  I'm pretty stoked for it being the first attempt.  Next batch will see more improvements.   This was a learning batch, I guess.



The first thing I learned was the drier they are the tougher they are.  Next time I will arrange them in a way that air can get around them and let them dry more.  They also get darker as they dry.  Next time I'm going to try food coloring just to make them look prettier. 

They cast great! I can whip those boogers out as far as I can cast little hunks of fresh dead shrimp.  They stayed on the hook about as long as the shrimp stayed on the hook too.  At first I thought they were melting off, but I was able to bring one back and saw small nip marks in the ball where bait fish were taking off pieces.  They are actually firmer to the touch than shrimp.



Some of them crumbled apart when trying to hook them, I am sure this is because of the boiling time, just don't know if it was too long or too short, since I boiled a few until they floated, and others longer up to 3 minutes.  I read in a few threads that if you micro wave them they will float, hmmm will have to try that.  Based on what I read, I probably used too much oil, but I figured that the oil is what spread out the scent, so I don't think that was a problem. I did notice that it didn't take long for the fish to get on to the bait, I wonder if it was because of the extra oil content.  I also read that you have to make sure you keep the percentages of ingredients consistent, which means I'll have to start measuring and writing things down.

Crabs love them.    I don't know why, but I can feel fish hitting the shrimp where as I can't feel when they hit the boilie, although I can feel when there is a hook up, which might be a good thing with false strike indicators.  Line watching does indicate bites though. Did I mention crabs love them?

AND they catch fish!!!!  Just as good as shrimp from yesterday's test.  It was a slow, almost backward bite although bait was being eaten all day long, I only caught two Croakers, one on each bait, so I guess they are neck and neck now.



I see some benefits to this bait in any kind of water, you can flavor them any way you want.  It is a good way to use up old bait that is too mushy or whatever for a hook bait, just hold your nose and puree it in a blender.  You can customize the size for the hook, small for crappie or baitfish, softball sized for catfish, shark.  Make a cookie cutter and you can even do shapes.  Do I see a new jig bait in the works? 

The Wife mentioned that I was making boilies at work and one of her drivers got all excited about it, and wants a pile to try out.  I guess he is a beginner carp fisherman, go figure.

Whew, I actually caught something on it before this thread got off of the first page, let alone got archived, I guess that is saying something about the bait as quickly as threads move around here. 

[Dark3]

I remember reading where you mentioned the word "rubbery". Have you considered adding or replacing an ingrediant with a gum type substance?

[Pferox]

I remember reading where you mentioned the word "rubbery". Have you considered adding or replacing an ingrediant with a gum type substance?

From what I have researched, Semolina flour is used in most of the recipes, I think that is the ingredient that gives its resilience, not sure, will have to find some and try it. This stuff was pretty springy when you squeezed it though.  I think the ones that crumbled weren't cooked completely inside, kind of like dumplings or hush puppies.

[Oldfart9999]

I see a new career in your future. 
Rodney

[Pferox]

I see a new career in your future. 
Rodney

I dunno, lots of these guys come and go, think I will just play with it a little and see what happens.

I did think it would be a great alternative for crappie and bluegill guys, I know that Berkeley and others make different baits that look to me like just basically dough baits with color, flecks and flavoring. Wonder if you add creamed corn to the mix would it work for those species.

Its a lot like lures, there is a great feeling when you catch something on a home made rig or bait.

[Pferox]

Now that I have made a few, a lot of the stuff I have been reading about is starting to make sense. 

The carp guys use these as a "Feed" also.  That means they spread a bunch of these around like chum, so they make sure they are high in good stuff, like a vitamin pill, or power bar.  This is also how they are attributing their carp staying healthy, long lived, and huge.  I have some body building powder that I was using during chemo, wonder if I can add a little of that into the mix.

They theorize that fish can sense the amount of food value a food they eat is, so the healthier a bait, the better it will attract.  Don't know if that will work with American fish since many of them eat McDonald's French fries. 

The boiling process is actually what gives the bait its toughness, it creates a skin on the dough, kind of like deep frying does with batter (hmmmm, Southern Fried boilies ... Fryies?)  The longer it is boiled, the thicker the skin is, making it tougher.  Wonder if I can boil it long enough to turn it into a super ball, or super pillow in my case.

I have some real bait now so I think I'm going to make a few small batches with different flavorings to see which one will work best, although I bet they will be seasonal.  If something goes wrong, like it sinks too much, I might have to post from Tap Talk since I will be living in the truck.  But hopefully I will have something to add to this thread in the coming days or weeks.

The saga continues ..........

[Elwood]

Very entertaining post.....I'll will be following your progress....Thanks

[Pferox]

Well, I am taking a break in another bait making session, just have to wash the dishes now.  I learned a lot this time around.

Some of the initial things I learned are:
The vacuum cleaner I got the wife sure works good, even on the kitchen floor. 
The zip lock bags that come from the dollar store aren't worth a flip. 

After the positive results from the first attempt, I decided that I had better refine this a little and get a recipe that I can reproduce every time, I also need to get a process together so I don't forget anything. I want to add some color and different flavors to the bait this way there will be some visual attractant and variety.  I also want to make them as tough as I can get.  AND I want to make one that floats. I have been mulling this over for a while, and decided since I am grounded with rain for the next few days, this is the time to act.

The first thing was to make them a little tougher, one poster on a site mentioned using wool fibers in the boilie kind of like fiberglass.  I don't like that idea because I want them to be edible and good for the fish and I am sure that wool fibers aren't all that good for the digestive system, I know I wouldn't want to eat that stuff.

I thought about adding something like Fiber Con to the mix, most of those have little "hairs" of fiber that might work.  Only thing with that would be a problem if it would work like it does with people and we would have a bunch of fish with the poops.

Then I remembered that there is a fiberglass repair out that uses small glass balls for strengthener.  If I could find some kind of edible little particle that might work ..... hey .... how about corn meal, that stuff is pretty course and should help hold stuff together.

Since I had planned on making small batches of various variants, I decided to make a large amount of base mix and then add different ingredients to it to see what will happen.

So I went with that, I got a zip lock baggie and added equal parts of flour (the binder) and corn meal (the reinforcement) zipped up the bag and shook to blend, after the cloud cleared up, I realized that those bags don't seal too well, and that there was a pretty thick mess on the floor.  After cleaning up the lab, we went back to work.

So now we have a basic base dry mix.  The next thing was working with the flavoring.  I have some shrimp and a blender so the first attempt was half a dozen raw shrimp with the heads pinched off, sort of thawed, blended with some cheap cooking oil until a liquid concoction could be obtained.  It almost came out like a mousse, was kind of hard to get out of the blender, but was sort of liquidy.



I also decided to try a couple of batches without eggs to see if it will work.  Making a pile of this stuff with eggs was starting to look expensive.

Jan also found a set of food colors hidden away so I figured what the heck might as well use them up.  Which wasn't very hard to do since most of them had dried up, but I had blue, red, and yellow so I could come up with something.

So the first batch ended up being yellow colored with shrimp flavoring and a 50/50 mix of self rising flour and corn meal. 



Those are the yellow ones in the picture above.  They were a fail.  They want to crumble apart and just weren't right.  Then it came to me that there wasn't enough binder in it, so I changed it to a 2 to one mix of flour to corn meal.  I also didn't throw the yellow ones out, heck I bet there are some hungry fish who will love to come and get those, and then go after my other bait on the hook.  I also took a few to try to make floating boilies out of, I'll talk about that later.

So the second batch was the new base mix, 2 cups flour and 1 cup corn meal, and freshly pureed shrimp.  This time I forgot and added water to the puree, which did have a little effect on the mix, but made it a lot easier to get the shrimp stuff out of the blender.  I made those orange.  This mix came out better, although it was quite oily, and they boiled up nicely with the exception that they almost doubled in size, after I use up this batch, I won't be using self rising flour anymore.

For the third batch, I decided that I was going to puree up some squid, that is another popular flavor with the fish around here.  I had some shrimp left in the blender so I just cut up the squid, removing the cuttlebone, and started to blend the heck out of it, adding gallons and gallons of oil, OK, maybe not that much but it sure seemed like it.  I made the most perfect Shrimp Squid mousse I have ever seen.  This ended up being the flavor for this and the last batch.



I tried to color this batch purple, but I think because of the black ink that was in the squid it made a pretty funny color.  I also overcompensated for the puffing problem and ended up with some very small hook baits, so small that they fell through the drying rack that we found laying around.  The dough came out a little oily and soft, but was pretty easy to work with.



The last batch got what was left of the shrimp / squid liquid, an egg that I had taken out of the fridge when I started all of this and forgot about, being daring I added about a teaspoon of black walnut flavoring and a bunch of red coloring, and then added the dry mix.

The dough came out like Play Doh, which is what it is supposed to come out like according to the boilie sites, it was a little harder to roll out, but all in all it worked well.  As I was carrying some of the cooked finished product to the drying rack, a few of them fell on the floor.  Before I could get to them, Princess one of our dogs had them eaten, AND she was begging for more!!!!  Hope it works that way when I put it on a hook on the bayou.  This batch came out so good that I made a few balls and put on the side to make some floating baits they call pop ups.  I'll write about that one next post.



They actually came out kind of sort of pinkish, go figure.  I'll be glad when I go through this older color, then I'm going to try some of those new style neon food colorings.  Look out Chartreuse boilies!!!

Well based on all of this I have actually come up with some sort of recipe and here it is:

4 cups of regular flour.
1 cup corn meal.
1 cup other dry ingredients (use corn meal to top off.)  That is for things like protein powder, ground nuts, stuff like that.

Put dry ingredients in a bag, blow into bag to puff it up, seal TIGHTLY, shake like heck until the ingredients are well blended.

About half a cup Pureed bait (shrimp, squid, bait fish fillets) add oil to liquify ingredients.
One or two eggs.
1 table spoon Liquid flavoring.
Color. (Liquid or powdered)

Blend all of the liquid ingredients in a bowl thoroughly.

Add a small amount of dry and mix with a fork.
Add more dry and mix.  When mixture gets too difficult to mix with a fork, start using your hands.
Add increasingly smaller amounts of dry mix until it becomes a non sticky ball of dough, similar in consistency to play dough.  It may be oily, or not depending on the amount of oil needed to make your fish liquid, but that is not a problem.

Roll pieces out into a "sausage" cut into hunks, shape.
Place shapes into a pot of boiling water, and boil until they float, if you want stiffer pieces you can boil up to 3 minutes total. The longer you allow the boilies to boil, the more flavor leeches out into the water.
Remove from water, place on towel allow to cool.
Place on drying rack for up to 24 hours, then package and freeze.

Thaw before fishing, put into a mesh bag and hang, keeping moisture from building up on the boilies.

Feed fish with them.

I'm keeping water out of my boilies, but many other people add water and water based ingredients including fruits and veggies, and their concentrates.  Really anything goes for flavoring if fish will eat it.

Since just about all of the major salt water baits (fish) are oily, I figure I want to have a high oil content in my boilie, this seems like a better way for attractant to leach out of it, dunno, just thinking.

I still have a thawing bag of finger mullet, some good stinky stuff.  Since it is supposed to rain tomorrow too, I think I am going to test my recipe as it stands.  I'll let you know what happened.  I probably will be able to test these baits on Friday, provided the weather holds, stay tuned for that.

I better go finish the dishes before the wife gets home, otherwise I might not be able to make another batch.  When I get done, I'll tell you about the pop up experiment.

[Pferox]

Ok, everything is pre-washed and in the dish washer, waiting for the dinner dishes so I can run it and get ready for tomorrow.   

When I started this Uppett Labs experiment, I was a little apprehensive.  I remember posts kind of kidding around about the smell and it being grounds for divorce, especially when referenced to squid.     Surprisingly so far, it hasn't been too bad, I wonder if the next experiment is the big one.  (Hold your nose!!!)

Here is a little background .......

Boilies are used as a feed (chum) and hook bait.  The carp guys don't actually put a hook through them, but tie them on to a piece of line that is just above the hook shank. The way carp feed is to suck in stuff, and then filter out the good stuff as they are spitting out everything, the way the hook is tied allows the point to hook the fish in the bottom lip on the way out.  There are various ways they have come about to tie these boilies on to a hook, and give different presentations.

One of these presentations utilizes a bait that floats or has neutral buoyancy.  A buoyant boilie is called a pop up, and a neutral buoyant bollie is called a wafter.  And here I thought a wafter had something to do with gas and a blanket.

There are actually some salt water rigs made to target certain species, like the Pompano, where a buoyant bait would make rigging much easier.  Since that is the case I decided to try to make a few.

There are three ways to make pup ups:
One is chemically, which I guess is one of those "don't do this at home" kind of projects.  Instead all of the do it yourself bait making companies make a mix that you add your favorite flavors, an egg or two, mix, shape and boil and ta da you have a popup.

Another way is to add cork dust to your regular recipe.  I have no idea where I can find cork dust around here.  I know I wouldn't want to eat cork dust, so don't think I want to feed it to the fish I plan on eating.

The last way is to take your normal boilie and instead of boiling it, microwave it.  Although there is a procedure for it, to me that is doable.

The procedure is as follows:
Put unboiled baits on a microwaveable plate.
Nuke for two minutes. Check for signs of burning.
Nuke for 15 seconds. Check for signs of burning.
Continue nuking for 15 seconds until you see signs of burning, then you are done.
Hey, not everything is a set in stone kind of cooking thing, right?

So I take a few of my first batch and prepare to microwave it.  This is before I knew it was a bad mix.  I put a few balls into the bowl and microwave it the two minutes. All is good!  The house is starting to smell like I am making hush puppies.  Yummmm  Wonder if that is what they were talking about, heck that ain't bad at all.
I nuke it for another 15 seconds and check .... all is well.
I nuke it for another 15 seconds and as it is nuking it starts to smell like I just burnt my hush puppies.  I guess we are done!

I pull the plate out, and wait because from the steam coming off of them I suspect those boogers are hot.  After they cool off I grab one .... Can someone say GOLF BALL??  Those things are harder than the rocks that David used to kill Goliath.  AND on top of that, if I squeeze them a little they split apart into a thousand pieces.  Guess I have to be careful with these....  Maybe they will work with toothy critters. 

So about now, I'm pretty bummed out about my pop up experiment...... Fast forward to the end of the day.  My last batch of boilie mix comes out like it is actually supposed to!!!  Sooo I get brave and decide to try another batch.  This time I'm a little more cautious.

I set the microwave for a minute, put the boilies in the oven and hit ZAP ME.
The fantastic smell of fresh hush puppies starts to fill the room, then suddenly the burning smell shows up!!!  I hit the stop button.  There are little black spots on those boilies.  They look like red eyeballs.  Too bad I didn't do this for Halloween! 



I let them cool, and then check them out.  They don't smell burnt, and only the ones that were touching each other are burnt, whats up with that?  They are hard as rocks though.  I then remember that every time I have seen them talk about these popups, they are either tieing them on or soaking them in some type of flavoring.  I wonder if you have to soak them a little to soften em up enough to put a hook in them. Guess I'm going to do another Uppet Lab experiment.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves, if they don't float we won't be doing anything else.  So now comes the big test:



Well, the yellow one didn't float, but I didn't expect it to, but look at the red or pink or whatever color it is, now we're talking!  I really don't know what to do with them now, maybe crunchy dog treats?  How about drill a hole in them and thread a hook on em.  Armored bobber anybody?

If I get around to making another batch of baits, I may try again, this time only nuking for 15 second intervals from the beginning, maybe also make them bigger, more to nuke.  Dunno yet, stay tuned.

[Pferox]

Ok, so this is day two and final of my bait making rally for a while.  I am kind of pooped.

I found this mesh bag that I was going to use to make a floating live bait well, but decided to put it to more immediate use.  If you let the cooked boilies cool down and dry up a little then put them into a bag like this, gently mix them around a little, they dry very nicely in about 48 hours in my house, mileage may vary.  I used a couple of those hangers for skirts or something, they are actually pretty useful for other stuff too.



First batch for today was going to be Mullet.  It is a very good baitfish, quite odoriferous, and oily.  I figured that since my blender was pretty old, I should Fillet them to liquify.  I also used water this time since I was getting low on oil.  I should mention that they have been in my fridge since last week's fishing trip, they were a little soft but their eyes were still very clear.



So I put 4 little fillets in the blender, some water and whipped them up.  NOTE TO SELF:  NEVER stick your face into the blender when liquefying mullet.  That was some nasty smelling stuff, I will tell you.

I was planning on making a couple of batches of bait today to finish off the mix I had and just kind of end it all until I could test those baits.  So I mixed this batch with water, no egg and a little oil.

The dough came out OK, but I had a hard time rolling it.  I find out that my blender doesn't like fish skins, and it turns them into little threads that are tough as nails and not very cooperative.  I still got them rolled out although there are a few hairs of skin sticking out of a few.  Did I mention that this stuff stinks??  It smells like a good bait, just have to figure out a way to make them outside next time.

I tried again to make a purple batch but it came out like this instead.  I think I need some different food coloring.



Next time I do mullett I will make sure it is freshly caught.  Also use bigger, bull mullets when they are legal to possess.  Then I'll just fillet and skin them like I was going to eat them, but process instead.  I anticipate this to be a fantastic bait based on the "bouquet".

Well, I used up all of my base mix, but got kind of interested with how a base mix with regular flour would work, so I made another batch of dry.  In the middle of it I ran out of corn meal, so I started to look for something to substitute, and I found this weight lifter supplement stuff that somebody gave us, I had asked about using something like this on the carp site, and they were very enthusiastic about it.  Although I seriously doubt that they would want me to put in almost a cup and half of the stuff.  I emptied that thing also.



Now my mix is smelling like sweet vanilla, don't know how the fish will like it, but it sure killed the mullet smell in the house. 

Now I'm looking for something to put into another batch to test out this new mix.  In the back of the cupboard is an envelope of tuna.  I remembered it came out of a box of MREs we had from the hurricane that we broke down because the date of manufacture was over 10 years old according to the website, when we checked a few years back.  I also found in the fridge some sweet corn that I had been using as bait to no avail a couple of weeks ago.  The nose test came up that it still smelled and looked like sweet corn.

I opened the envelope to the tuna and man does that smell like tuna, not rotten tuna just very very strong tuna.  Sounds like great bait to me, so into the blender it went, the whole house smelled like tuna now.  I added the corn and blended, but all that did was make more of the tuna smelling stuff.  Now I have enough of the stuff to make two batches.   

This is starting to sound more like a carp recipe than a salt water bait, so I also added to the mix some almond extract, and colored it yellow.  I figured if it didn't work for bait at the bayou the guy that carp fishes at Jan's work could make use of it.  After mixing it up, it wasn't too bad.  The house smelled like I made a vanilla almond cake and a tuna casserole.

They rolled out OK, but man was the dough sticky, no matter what I did.  Maybe that is why you add some oil to the mix.




Once again the last batch seems to come out the best.  I was low on color so I just added all that I had into the mix.  I also added an egg to this one.  I didn't forget the oil either, I just had enough to put three tablespoons in, man did that make a lot of liquid, I was afraid that I was going to run out of dry mix, but everything came out OK.  I don't know how it happened but they came out looking like chocolate chunks that smell like sweet vanilla tuna. although they didn't look like that when I was rolling out the sausages.  I will leave the visual to your imagination.



Overall this session went pretty well.  I found out that regular flour makes a much more dense and solid bait over self rising flour.  I can actually boil them for less time and get solid bits. I found out the hard way that they also come out about the same size as they go into the boiling water, which now that I know, that is a good thing.

I'm also very glad that I am using glass mixing bowls and blender because I bet anything plastic would never get rid of that mullet, tuna smell.

I also miss corn meal in the mix, it think it gives it something, just don't know what.

I will also not use as much of the energy powder stuff in a mix (I have like 4 big jars like that of the stuff).  If I ever have to actually buy some of it again, I will try to find unflavored, because I'm not sure how this vanilla is going to go over.

Well now there is some drying, packaging, freezing, and testing left to do.  I'll let you know if the wife asks me if I made tuna casserole and a cake when she gets home.

Hopefully next time will be some fish catching reports.

[Oldfart9999]

Yep, a new career is born, international sales, single handedly solving the flying carp problem, finding new uses for gobies.
Jim this is an interesting thread even if I don't salt water fish I find this interesting.
Rodney

[Pferox]

Thanks Rodney.

The wife and I were talking about this last night.  She says I can play with dough as long as it doesn't break the bank or stink up the house, so far so good.

After talking about it, I made a lot of bait pretty cheaply, almost all of the stuff was found in the back of the fridge or cupboard, and put to some good use other than seeing the trash can.

Even if I had bought the stuff, it would only be a bag of flour and corn meal, some food coloring, and a smelly fish - meat, and some oil.  Pretty cheap in my book much less than the $6 a lb shrimp costs.

All the other additives would be important for carp fishing, but not a big thing for other fishing.  It is also a universal bait, if you think about it.  Cat fishing, crappie and other panfish would go for it when flavored right, I bet even some of the predator fish too.

[Pferox]

I've been running this thread here, but have been having a lot of interested parties from other sites that I posted the link on (they are the Texas site I'm on, salt water, and catfishing) coming in and beginning to ask me questions, so I figured I would answer them here to keep it consistent.

You have to dry them to get them to work the best, up to 24 hours.  I came up with pretty good compact drier system that is very cheap.

When they come out of the pot they are hot, soft, damp and kind of sticky, you have to put them on something soft and absorbent.  I use an old bath towel inside of a pan.



After they cool, I transfer them to another drier for an hour or two to free up the towel for the next batch.  They will stick slightly to the towel but after they have cooled aren't too difficult to get loose.  They are just a couple of grates used for cooking shrimp on the outside grill placed over a plastic tub to catch what ever ones fall off of the grate.  I am looking as some plastic baskets from the dollar store that are meshed all around, insuring good air flow.



After they have dried enough to be less sticky, I put them into the mesh bag and hang them up.  The bag is nothing more than a mesh laundry bag hung from a couple of skirt (I think is what they call them) hangers.  I have no more than a buck each invested in these driers.  I hang them in my fishing / computer room and every time I walk past them I give them a little gentle shake, this helps in the drying.



After they have dried up to 24 hours you need to freeze them since they don't have any preservatives in them.  Fresh and wholesome, even if they do stink a little.  Just separate them out into freezer bags and toss in the freezer. They can be refrigerated for a few days also if you make during the week for a weekend trip, for example.  I have refrozen a couple of batches, but can't say how well they will hold up yet.

Of course they have to be thawed out before use, they also have to have air circulating around them after being thawed, otherwise the moisture builds up and they can develop mold quickly during a day's fishing.  For this I use another expensive item from the dollar store, it is a lingerie washing bag.  That is also a good size for drying if you plan on only making smaller batches. 



I've been kind of color coding them so I can keep each experimental batch straight, so throwing the whole day's cooking into one bag isn't a problem.  This set up is cheap enough to get a few bags if you want to keep them separate.

The drying thing sounds kind of elaborate, but it is the best way to save space and still not damage the things after boiling.  If you have the room, you can stop with the grates or what ever and put them aside to dry, shaking them periodically, this helps to expose new areas to the air to dry.

Ok, so I think I covered all of the questions so far, so until next time ...... I'm still testing.

[bigfishseeker0078]

If you want to add color get powdered dyes, they work extremely well. Do some research about hair rigs since that is what the carp guys use that is so effective. 3/4 cup (6 oz) semolina flour, 3/4 cup (6oz)soy flour, 1/2 cup (4oz) yellow corn meal, this is your dry ingredients. Mix 4 eggs, whatever you want for flavor or smell, and color. This mix is what I use and it works very well and is simple. Any other questions just feel free to ask.

[Pferox]

If you want to add color get powdered dyes, they work extremely well. Do some research about hair rigs since that is what the carp guys use that is so effective. 3/4 cup (6 oz) semolina flour, 3/4 cup (6oz)soy flour, 1/2 cup (4oz) yellow corn meal, this is your dry ingredients. Mix 4 eggs, whatever you want for flavor or smell, and color. This mix is what I use and it works very well and is simple. Any other questions just feel free to ask.

I've looked into hair rigs, it is very difficult to find a smaller heavy wire hook that is also salt water friendly around here, there is also the problem with reef species and circle hook laws.

I have yet to find Fluorescent powder dies, especially chartreuse, which is one of the most popular and productive colors around here. Bright orange is another one.  I have found them in liquid form though.

I like your mix, and when I can find those ingredients that when combined come out to less than $6 a pound, will go that way.  Right now I am pretty much at around a dollar a pound give or take on my mix if I use caught bait liquified.  This is meant to be a very inexpensive way to use excess bait so it can go a lot farther.

My mix is similar it is 2 cups regular flour, 1 cup corn meal, flavoring, a couple of eggs (don't need as many because my flavoring is pretty wet) and color.

[Pferox]

Ahhh a super beautiful day to test my baits and I have to get laundry done.    But it gives me some time to do some documentation, and maybe if I get done in time, may get to wet a line later, if not well then there is tomorrow I guess.

After some discussion about how well they will last I decided to do a test.  And here are the results.  I used regular tap water and stirred them periodically, I also poked them to check their softness.  The smaller bait was made with self rising flour and the larger bait with regular flour.

After 5 hours in the water.  There was an oil slick forming on the top of the glass, which is telling me that scent is being released, they both are firm, although kind of rubbery.  The larger one seems to be holding up better than the smaller one.



After about 10 hours in the water.  They are still holding their own, getting slightly softer, and still giving off attractant.



After about 15 hours in the water.



After 28 hours in the water.  They are still firm, although spongy, they can be damaged when squeezed, and can be broken.  Most probably they would have been washed off by now by current, or bait fish, crabs, me changing baits, etc. so I stopped my test here.  As you can see it kept giving off attractant during the whole test.  After I broke open the large one the inside looked like it did when I dropped it in, suggesting that it had a long way to go before it totally broke down.



I did get a chance to test this last few batches on Saturday, I didn't catch anything, but then again neither did anybody else on the seawall.  The crabs still liked them, and although I am not completely sure, don't think any of them melted off, although a few that were out there a while might have gotten pulled off while dragging them through the grass.  I know the birds enjoyed the few I threw out, and they kept coming back looking for more.   


I had three lines out, rigged differently.

This rig started out with the only pop up I brought.    I put it on just a plain old fish finder rig, flounder / redfish rig, Carolina rig, lots of names for the same basic setup.  It didn't actually float after putting it on the hook, but it had a super slow fall.  I casted it out three times, the first two had a hit on the fall, but no hookup.    On the last cast, it had a violent jerk and was pulled off by something, don't know what it was, but man it worked at it for sure.  After that, I couldn't keep the crabs off of this one with the bait sitting on the bottom.




This one was kind of like a Santee Cooper catfishing rig, with it floating and moving around, the crabs had to work harder to get at the bait, but they eventually would get on to it, and then drag it off for a meal, you could actually see what was going on by the way the line acted.



The last rig out was a simple, although long single dropper rig, it worked well, and kept the bait away from the crabs for a bit, but not like the Santee Cooper rig did.



I was kind of bummed because this was the first skunk out I have had in a long, long, while, but then again there wasn't anybody hooking up, even though there was bait moving around.  I probably would have tried to hang around a lot longer but it got very chilly and drizzly, and after I got the chill it was time to go home and warm up.  Of course as soon as I turned on to the main road from the bayou, the sun came out again.