How To Create The Perfect Boilie Dip

There are all sorts of dips, glugs and soaks available on the market today or for the more adventurous; various flavours and ingredients for you to make your own, but what’s the best way to prepare a dip and how should the baits be stored? In this piece Gaffer gives some tips for creating the perfect hook bait;

Most people I know pour in all the liquid to a dip to totally cover the pop-ups. However, I do something slightly different (as always!). I drizzle some liquid over all the pop-ups, and then shake the tub, making sure that all the pop-ups have generous coating, but that's all. Leave the coated pop-ups lying around (in their tub) and give them a shake every once in a while. Every couple of days you will find that the pop-ups have soaked up all of the liquid. Simply drizzle some more liquid over the top again and shake.

Keep repeating this process until the soak-up rate of the pop-ups slows down In other words, stop pouring liquid over the pop-ups before they stop soaking up the liquid altogether, so as to not over load the pop-ups with liquid, which may effect their buoyancy. You can use the pop-ups at anytime during this process, which may take a week or two. After a couple of weeks the pop-ups are 'loaded' with liquid and look and feel 'dry'. The absorbed liquid will leak-off nicely in the water, making them ideal single hookbaits for any time of the year, particularly during the colder months. The pop-up-ability(!) of the pop-ups will not be effected using this process.

The pop-ups and liquid will be fine if kept dry (not damp) in their tub. No need to air-dry or anything. The drizzle technique is one that I've used for years. I usually use the left over liquid for coating trout/halibut pellets by putting all the pellets into a big plastic dustbin, drizzle over some liquid, stir up and leave for the liquid to soak in. Repeat every couple of days the same as you did with the pop-ups. The flavoured pellets that you buy, that have the same flavour as the boilies are just pellets sprayed with the liquid anyway, one of Mainlines tricks!

Garth 'Gaffer' Barnard.
March 2006

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