Anglers' Net - The UK Online Fishing Magazine: Hubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble... Ten easy steps to making your own boilies

Hubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble... Ten easy steps to making your own boilies
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Rosie-Barham on 04 September, 1999 04:00:00
 
1. Clear the sink. Or get your wife/partner to do it for you since it is womens
work, washing up. My chief angler recoiled in horror because there was a fork
left in ours  Cant do anything until the sinks cleared, he said  and
walked away from it. Seems that if you have a willy, you cant pick up cutlery.
Del Barham - Carp fisherman and boilie maker!2. Wash hands scrupulously clean
in sink now full of hot, soapy water. Nothing can be allowed to contaminate a
boilie mix. Strange how he never washes his hands before eating, making
sandwiches, or anything else come to think of it.
3. Half fill a very expensive, top of the range, only used at Christmas for
puddings, 6 pint cooking pot with water and place on hob to boil while you read
eggs. i.e. study the little dates printed on each one in an attempt to get hold
of the very freshest ones  the family can consume the others, theyre not so
discerning as carp.
4. Pour several table-spoonsful of boilie mix into an Ikea mixing bowl then add
two eggs  complain, gently, at this point that the eggs do not bounce as
really fresh eggs should.
5. Hands in. Stir it around a bit then add a little more mix so as to get the
whole glutinous mess into some kind of dough. If its too wet add a little more
of the base mix.
6. Wash hands before allowing the bag to slip slightly, thereby accidentally
adding a little too much mix then exclaim Oh Shit! before adding another egg.
7. Wash mix off hands  by this stage in the game there will be more mix in the
sink than in the mixing bowl  but the final product should be just damp enough
to roll between finger and thumb.
8. Is that too wet, do you think? (poke, feel, roll) Like I can tell just by
looking at it - Im not allowed to touch. When convinced that the texture is
perfect, roll into small, but perfectly formed, balls, using shop bought
boilies as a guideline for size.
9. Place a dozen on a wide slotted spoon and lower gently into the now rapidly
boiling water, holding the spoon just below the surface. Be vigilant. The
movement of the boiling water will cause the boilies to dance on the spoon and
the effect can be like one of those computer games that require hand to eye
co-ordination. The spoon must be constantly jiggled in order to retain the
cooking boilies in their rightful place and therefore not lose a life  or a
boilie into the bowels of the pan - but only for about forty seconds.
10. Continue in this insane manner until all the boilies are cooked. The
finished items should be placed on spread out newspaper on the floor to dry
off, and become cool before being placed in small plastic bags and frozen.
Del Barham with a Carp caught on a 'home-rolled'A couple of tips, here. When
you get fed up with rolling to scale you can change tactics and create little
baby ones for freebies to throw round your hook bait. And you can mix
flavourings into the basic mix or dip them in something unspeakable before you
freeze them.
And finally  leave the kitchen in a terrible mess, then tell the wife that you
have cleaned it all up. She will tell you, next time, to leave the clearing up
to her since she has to do it all again anyway, after your pathetic attempts at
housework.
Oh yes  and this is what you can catch with home-made boilies. The
satisfaction of boasting that you actually made the bait yourself is,
apparently a man thing and boosts a flagging ego no end.
Go on, then! Off to the tackle shop for a bag of mix. Let me know how you get
on.