Billingtons Molasses (sticky powder form?)

[big gus]

Chaps, google brings up nothing so I'm in your hands.

 

Long story short, I'm on the Broads next week. Happened to mention to the missus that I needed to find a petshop to get some molasses. Without me knowing (she thought she was doing me a favour) she'd picked up three packets of Billingtons molasses from Tesco which is in sticky powder/sticky sugar form.

 

Can someone tell me the best way to prepare this for groundbait. Ive got 20kg of brown crumb, 3kg of cheap frozen sweetcorn and I'll add a packet or two of casters nearer the time (maybe some 3mm pellets??). Oh, and three packets of this molasses (3 x 500g bags).

 

These are the ingredients, can I make up the mix a couple of days before leaving home as the boat with family will be tricky!! Not sure how to make the mix so any help or pointers would be great. Presumably just a bit of water added to the crumb until stodgy (stodgy enough to ball up and throw out?)

 

Final question for the broads...using this groundbait, should I just use corn as hookbait? Bream is obviously the dominant fish at nights...I have some larger pellets - or should I stick to corn/worm??

 

Sorry for the long post.

Gus

[Phone]

big gus,

 

Kind of hard to answer from this side of the pond. I'll have a stab. There are 4 grades of molasses. The last one "blackstrap molasses" isn't even sweet. It is the liquid remains after the last extraction of sugar. Any of them can be dried into flakes.

 

Molasses in general isn't used as much for its sweetness anyway. It has a high concentration of the amino acids alanine and lysine. Both of these are "favored" attractants in fish bait.

 

Certainly you can't add to much. Throw "cost" out the window and plop it all in your mix - especially if you are making up all 20 kg. Don't rely on it as a sweetner without some label information however.

 

Can't really help you with hookbait suggestions.

 

Phone

[big gus]

Thanks for replying, phone. 70-odd views and no help, I was getting worried!! Not really sure what to do. I may end up just adding water to it and see how much it takes to get a liquidy-type result.

 

Guessing?!!

[Phone]

big gus

 

The label on the package should tell you which pressing and what the sugar concentration is.

 

Phone

[lutra]

Ive never fished the Broads or used power form of molasses, but if its anything like the sweet treacly form go easy with it. To much will make your mix very slow to brake down and bream don't seem to like it that strong anyway. Just enough to make the water you use to mix with look like black tea is more than enough IMO.

 

Don't think you can ever have to many hook baits with you to try when bream fishing, but i would deffo have a few maggots with me as well.

[RUDD]

Mix the molasses power with warm water to create a liquid feed - then mix your groundbait with the liquid - simple.

Dont worry about using to much - being a natural product I would not think you could over do it.

 

In the past I have used sticky brown cane sugar and melted it using warm water as above.

As long as the liquid you make is not sticky you can add to groundbait the same as you would water.

[John Weddup]

Hi Mate

 

Rudds description is spot on with the molasses.

 

As for mixing it a day or two early be carefull if it gets warm after making it with water. The molasses and often other additives will start to ferment quite quickly. You could start a whole new post about if its better fermenting or not but on holiday in an enclosed area you don't want that.

 

Take everything dry and mix as you use including the molasses powder.

 

You do need some white crumb otherwise your brown will not bind enough to get it down. Mix 75% brown 25% white should do it. I would add a sachet of brasem or vannilla powder from a tackle shop. Mix this in dry and it smells lovely. Even the wife will think so.

 

Definately take maggots as the bream are not always in a strong feeding mode as it gets cooler. Also bread flake or my preffered crust can be very good and easy to keep.

 

But my no 1 broads bait is sweetcorn. I use plain tinned easy and no waste and also flavoured either scopex or tutti fruiti. Both can out fish plain on their day. One bought tin of each and keep them in a tupperware type box will last for a few days. Just use them as hookbait.

 

Hope this helps

 

John

[Phone]

big gus,

 

You say your night time target will be bream. What do you want to catch in the more civilized daytime?

 

Phone

[big gus]

Hi Phone,

 

Daytime is tricky on the Broads (due to the boat traffic) butalso past experience has taught me that early morning and dusk are the two best times.

 

That's not to say I won't be fishing in the day (!). I'll be float fishing/trotting for roach/silvers for as many hours as my other half allows. Maggots/casters on the float. The dream is that she'll entertain herself at the shops or somesuch - the reality is I'll have to do family stuff... with a few snatched hours here and there.

 

Night time and early morning I'll have to myself.