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I often get asked about what baits and rigs people use for carp here in Oz? To begin with bait; I touched upon the fact that there are no local sources available to purchase boilies, or any other conventional bait ingredients in my previous article. In the future I'm sure that we will see Australian tackle retailers carry some of these products.
But for the meantime we have to improvise with homemade bait, either in its entirety, or in part, with the addition of imported ingredients such as flavours, sweeteners and certain boilie additives.
 I've long since given up making any type of boilies here in Perth, simply because they're a turtle magnet. The 'Ninjas' (as they're known colloquially) are a huge problem here, and using boilies, regardless of the type of flavour is surefire way of tangling with them! Once they've sniffed out your bait they're relentless, and all you can do is move swims - which isn't always ideal or convenient. For this reason I now fish almost exclusively with particles like sweetcorn or maize, which they seem a little less interested in. If I'm stalking then I'll just use bread or worms, though the Ninjas will have both of these 'old school' baits as well, if they're left static for too long.
 So my rolling table doesn't see much action at all these days sadly, unless I fly over to the other side of the continent with it to go carping in South Australia or Victoria, as I've done quite a few times now when things have got me down in this sandpit. After years of transcontinental carp commuting I've refined my traveling bait to a very simple recipe that I've jokingly named the 'Tourist Boilie', which in essence it a primitive ground cat food biscuit, semolina and polenta base-mix, with some Solar flavour and sweetener.
The criteria for my travelling recipe was based entirely on finding an easy way of sourcing all the ingredients once I'd landed at my destination, aside from the 100ml bottles of flavour and sweetener that I smuggle across in my checked luggage. I have flown interstate and carried boilies and pop-ups in my hand luggage before, but not only are you restricted by weight, there is always the risk they'll get seized at the airport to leave you at square one anyway. With the advent of the 'Tourist Boilie' my Aussie away from home boilie making has been made a lot less stressful indeed.
I shudder to think of the time and money I've wasted trying to concoct a 'winning' bait after landing at the destination, which has only added to the pressure to catch against a ticking clock. There have been a lot of failures and blanks preceding this recipe, believe me! As there was no reliable way of perfecting it here in WA first, what with the Ninja problem in addition to the complete absence of commons and mirrors on which to test boilies. This forced me to conduct all the field-testing on site as it were, which wasn't the most efficient way to go about it on waters foreign to me - but I got there in the end.
 Now, I can step off the plane and easily pick up everything I need from any supermarket in Australia, and very quickly whizz up a few six egg batches to be in business. Then, I can lob up to virtually any eastern states water and at least be one hundred percent confident in the bait. Which when used in conjunction with a PVA bag of pellets and boilie chops, has proven time and time again to be devastatingly effective on our uneducated Aussie carp.
As far as rigs are concerned Downunder, there have been no new advancements compared to what is commonly used elsewhere else. And there's certainly no real need to over complicate things, even the simplest running rig with a mono hooklink will catch. Though, I prefer to use a slightly more sophisticated on-the-side rig, incorporating a coated hooklink material, a safety clip, a homemade sand coated lead, and leadcore leader (as depicted). Or a standard choddy setup if it's very silty. Which is all extremely basic stuff, and is reminiscent of when I very first started 'proper carping' in the 1970's, back in the UK. In Oz however, it all still works!
Catch ya later
Andy Wallis AKA Niblet |
