Kent based Fishing for Schools coach, Kevin Durman, delivers weekly sessions to young people at Orchard School. With the winter weather scuppering a planned session on the lakeside, Kevin runs through a classroom session on homemade baits.
With overnight temperatures dropping to -7 during the week I knew fishing was unlikely to take place on Friday. Sure enough all the lakes had lids on of thick ice. Knowing this would be the case I planned accordingly with a classroom session. The pupils often ask me what's in the baits we use and how they are made; here was the perfect opportunity to find out.
We used ingredients from Mainline. First in the bowl went one egg, to which we added 2ml of pineapple flavouring, 1/2ml of intense sweetener, 1ml of hemp oil and 1/4 teaspoon of orange colouring. This was thoroughly mixed. We then spooned in a ready made powdered 50/50 basemix and began to form a soft paste. Basemix continued to be added until the mix was stiff enough to form in to small 8 to 12mm balls, of which we rolled hundreds.
We moved to the cooking room and got a pan of water on the boil. The rolled baits were added and boiled for 1 minute. This skins and hardens the baits. We then drained the water off and put the baits on a towel to dry. In a few days’ time they'll be properly hardened and ready to use.
It's going to be fantastic next week when we get to use these handmade baits and catch some fish on them.