Piecing it all together - Part one - Essential Baits

PART 

ONE 

PIECING 

IT 

ALL 

WORDS: MIKE WILLMOTT 

[ ] 

TOGETHER 

PHOTOGRAPHY: Mike Willmott and friends 

He wrote the best seller Carp Life. 

He then took a back seat from the 

media. But then CARPology 

managed to convince him to 

start tapping the 

keyboard again. Welcome 

back, Mike Willmott 

Lee Willmott ‘playing out’ a 

big fish in a rich weedy water. 

042 OCTOBER 2008

I’ve always looked at my carp 

fishing as one great big jigsaw 

puzzle, and the more pieces I can put 

together, the clearer the overall picture 

becomes. Every single piece of that 

puzzle provides a vital piece of 

information, but in short, the harder you 

study and the more time you spend 

looking at the pieces, the quicker it all 

falls into place. Carp fishing is very much 

like that, only not quite as simple! We all 

know the basic picture we are trying to 

create and where most of the pieces fit in, 

but finding those last few pieces to 

complete the puzzle can often be a 

frustrating experience. 

That said, there is no greater feeling of 

satisfaction than when you’ve finally 

achieved what you’ve set out to do, but 

unlike a jigsaw puzzle, the picture is 

always changing. There is no final piece 

to the puzzle, only the feel good factor of 

achieving your goal before muddling up 

all the pieces and starting all over again! 

For example, I was recently speaking 

to an angler on the bank who’d been 

fishing the venue on a consistent basis 

since the spring. He explained that 

although he struggled at first, eventually, 

after a fair amount of hard work and 

endeavour, he slowly started to get 

amongst the fish. He thought he had it all 

sussed, but then, for no apparent reason 

at all, the action just dried up! The fish 

were still there, still showing over his 

baited spots, still active in their 

behaviour, but he was now pulling his 

hair out because he couldn’t buy a bite! 

He was a really nice bloke as it 

happens and as we sat there chatting a 

drinking tea we tried to solve the dilemma 

and piece it all together. After asking him 

a few further questions it soon became 

clear that a definite pattern had emerged. 

During the times he was catching the 

Martin Finan with 

one of his many big carp. 

All the successful anglers I 

know have one thing in common: 

the ability to find carp on 

a regular basis. 

Another piece of 

the jigsaw falls 

firmly into place! 

fish, it appeared that most other anglers 

on the lake were also receiving a fair 

amount of action, yet only a couple of 

anglers were now catching with any 

degree of consistency, this despite the 

active nature of the fish as they bubbled 

and leaped on a regular basis. He had 

swapped and changed rigs with the usual 

modifications of shortening and 

lengthening hooklinks through to bottom 

bait presentations, balanced baits and 

eventually pop-ups, but all to no avail. 

It appeared to me that the fish were 

heavily pre-occupied on naturals and 

were now ignoring his baits. This made 

even more sense when he explained that 

the bait he was using was not of a 

particularly high quality food source, but 

nevertheless it suited his needs because 

he was only paying a fiver a kilo for it! 

Sure, it was working well enough initially 

when the carp seemed to be 

eating most baits put in 

front of them, but as soon 

as their natural food 

larder began to 

develop during the 

late spring/early summer 

months, it was blatantly 

clear to me that 

his chosen 

bait just 

wasn’t a good 

enough food 

source to compete 

SEASONED CARPER 

Rods at the ready, 

but is your bait 

good enough to 

compete with their 

natural food 

alongside their natural food and the 

action slowly dried up. 

The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle 

suddenly all fell into place as soon as he 

told me the names of the two lads who 

were still catching fish on a consistent 

basis. I knew for a fact that they were on 

an extremely high quality fishmeal bait, 

and the reason I knew was because it was 

me who supplied it to them! I was aware 

that the lads in question were reaping the 

rewards of a successful baiting campaign 

but when sending me the pictures they 

somehow conveniently forgot to tell me 

where they were fishing! Oh how I laughed 

when they next phoned! 

The moral of the above story however, 

is more based on the fact that most baits 

will catch some of the fish some of the 

time, but catching fish consistently 

throughout the course of the year is often 

a far more difficult prospect. In my 

experience correct bait choice is the key 

and you need to give them a food source 

that they will continue to eat, perhaps not 

in preference to their natural food 

because we can’t compete with that, but 

certainly alongside it. I have got 

absolutely 110% confidence that the bait 

I use will continue to catch fish on a 

regular basis throughout the year, 

MIKE WILLMOTT 

OCTOBER 2008 

043

Willmott’s 

Finest Bait Edges 

Five indispensable ways to 

catch more fish 

1 Keep ‘em fresh 

If you require your frozen boilies to last for 48hrs or 

more, make sure you remove them from the 

polythene bags once thawed and place them 

where air can circulate. Alternatively, place them in 

a bucket and mix in some pellets. Keep away from 

direct sunlight and as cool as possible. 

2 Cost saving 

Consider making your own boilies if you want to 

save money. By purchasing one of the many 

proprietary brands and rolling them yourself you 

will avoid paying for a labour intensive bait rolling 

charge and should make a saving of at least 30%. 

You can also make your own shapes, sizes and 

exclusive attractor package! 

3 Mix and Match 

To increase attraction and pull more fish into the 

area use pellets in conjunction with boilies but 

better still, make sure you match them up because 

as the pellets breakdown they will send out exactly 

the same food signals as the boilies. Most anglers 

will be surprised at how many more bites you get 

by doing this! 

4 Vary your application 

When introducing bait consider weather conditions 

and angling pressure. High pressure and lots of 

anglers probably means the fish won’t be 

consuming large amounts of food whereas low 

pressure systems and quieter banks will see them 

feeding more. Vary your bait application 

accordingly. 

5 Keep ‘em glugged 

Always keep a batch of hookbaits at close hand 

that have been permanently soaked in an attractive 

liquid food or bait soak. This will significantly 

increase attraction ‘leak-off’ and is ideal for the 

single hookbait approach to showing fish or in the 

winter when you are looking to increase ‘pulling 

power’ to your baited rig. 

providing I put it in the right place of course! 

Now let’s not get this out of perspective, I 

know location is vitally important and all the 

most successful anglers I know have 

perfected the art of finding the fish, but if 

you couple this with giving them a bait that 

they will continue to eat time and time again, 

you will reap the rewards of catching fish on 

a very regular basis. 

Caution to the wind 

I’ve heard references that the fish will eat 

anything once you put it in front of them, you 

just have to find them. I’m sorry but that’s 

total rubbish! Yes, there are times when they 

throw complete caution to the wind and 

seem very gullible. It could be a combination 

of falling air pressure coupled with a really 

good moon phase and a lack of angling 

pressure. I’m sure most of us have fished 

lakes when no matter what method or bait 

you choose it seems to produce fish. You 

look around you and anglers are fishing ultra 

tight lines cutting through the water like 

cheese wire, they’re bombarding the lake 

with bait and making loads of noise in the 

process, yet for some strange reason, they 

still continue to catch fish. 

During these ‘active periods’ I’m sure 

anyone who has half a clue could catch a 

fish, but lets be honest, these situations are 

“A VERY GOOD QUALITY 

FISHMEAL-BASED BOILIE 

CONTAINING OPTIMUM 

LEVELS OF FISHMEALS 

AND PRE-DIGESTED FISH 

PROTEINS WILL CATCH 

VIRTUALLY EVERYWHERE 

AND GIVE YOU A VERY BIG 

EDGE IF THE FISH ARE 

SELECTIVELY FEEDING.” 

very rare. In fact, I wouldn’t mind betting that 

it’s much less than 5% of the year on most 

venues and if you base your approach to 

fishing and choice of bait on this theory you 

will undoubtedly experience some very long 

periods of inactivity during your campaign. 

So let’s break these statistics down and 

just say that for 5% of the year they are 

feeding with complete caution to the wind 

and will happily pick up most food items in 

front of them. Get your location right and 

you are likely to catch, easy fishing if you 

like. Okay, so that leaves us with a very 

large percentage of time when they will be 

feeding with more caution, I call this 

‘selective feeding’. 

Now this selective feeding will vary in its 

intensity. Quite often they will still accept 

and consume a wide variety of food items, 

however, there are periods of time when the 

going gets really tough and its during these 

times that some anglers will reap the 

rewards of using a good quality bait, whilst 

others will sit there scratching their heads! 

Quality bait and 

good application 

can equal some 

outstanding results! 

Shellfish B5: 

probably the 

ultimate food 

source in 

terms of boilie 

production. 

044 OCTOBER 2008

My long standing friend, Jon 

Mac, with one of his many 

big fish from his remarkable 

2007 campaign. Jon used the 

Shellfish B5 throughout the 

year and caught consistently 

wherever he went to 

deservedly land the Carp 

Angler Of The Year award. 

Jason Woods nailed the famous 

Big Dink from CEMEX’s The 

Road Lake when the carp were 

undoubtedly going through a 

selective feeding routine. The 

better baits will always come to 

the fore during such spells. 

Dave Moore was 

instrumental in the 

development of 

Nutrabaits Big Fish 

Mix. Another high 

quality fishmeal 

that has stood the 

test of time. 

Rick Golder prepares for another 

baiting campaign. He realises the 

importance of using a good food 

source and will increase or decrease 

amounts of bait based on weather 

conditions and angling pressure. 


Good baits 

But what is a good bait and what makes 

certain baits seem to catch more than 

others Well, first of all let’s make it clear 

that there are so many different baits 

available to the carp angler it would be 

difficult to define just one, especially if 

you start to bring in the vast amount of 

naturals and particle baits that are readily 

available. Hemp, corn, tigers and 

maggots are all proven fish catchers and 

I’ve lost count of the number of carp I’ve 

caught on these baits over the years, but 

even these can be improved if you start 

thinking outside of the box. For example, 

chopping up the tigers and adding a 

Thaumatin-based Liquid Attractor, or 

substituting them for hazelnuts or 

chopped brazils. Mixing dried groats in 

with the hemp to suck up the juice and 

allow a slower diffusion of attraction over 

a longer period of time. Combining red 

maggots with casters will often prove 

more appealing to selective feeding carp 

and so on. 

So as you can see from the above, 

there are so many variables, but I think 

the question on most anglers’ lips would 

be what boilies seem to be better than 

others. Boilies are undoubtedly a very 

good ‘convenient bait’. They are easy to 

use, nuisance fish proof in the main and 

can be presented at great distances if the 

need occurs. They have proved incredibly 

successful for well over three decades 

and will continue to catch the vast 

majority of carp on virtually every venue. 

Top boilies 

Fishmeal-based boilies are undoubtedly 

my number one choice throughout the 

year. Other baits will catch of course, but 

in my opinion, when it comes to all year 

round consistency, fishmeal-based baits 

still rule the roost by a considerable 

margin and I can’t see this changing in 

the foreseeable future. A very good 

quality fishmeal-based boilie containing 

optimum levels of fishmeals and predigested 

fish proteins will catch virtually 

everywhere and give you a very big edge 

if the fish are selectively feeding. One of 

the big problems we face in the future 

however, is the fact that global supplies 

of fishmeal are now running out and the 

aquaculture industry are desperately 

searching for a viable alternative, so far to 

no avail, but that’s another topic for 

another time. 

It is of course no secret that the best 

bait I have ever used is Essentials 

Shellfish B5. I suppose many would say I 

have to say that but that’s certainly not 

the case. As biased as it might sound, the 

whole reason why I developed it was to 

give me a big edge over other baits being 

MIKE WILLMOTT 

OCTOBER 2008 

045

Confidence in your bait 

can only be built up by 

catching fish consistently. 

Rollin Baits hard at work. I’m very 

meticulous about who rolls my 

bait and trust me, I wouldn’t let 

anyone near it who I don’t trust! 

used and I’m still very confident that there 

isn’t another bait out there that comes even 

close to matching up with the B5, especially 

when it comes to nailing the big ’uns. Take 

Jon McAllister for example, now I know Jon 

has taken another direction within the 

industry and we wish him every success, but 

during 2007 he couldn’t put a foot wrong 

wherever he went using the B5 and 

deservedly went on to claim the Carp Angler 

Of The Year award. He used to call me up at 

silly o’clock times during the early hours 

excitedly telling me about his latest ‘B5 

victim’! In fact, come to think about it, I’m 

actually looking forward to getting a bit more 

sleep over the next few years! 

In terms of the tools (ingredients) we have 

available to create ‘the perfect boilie’, the 

B5 is the ultimate food source when it 

comes to meeting the carp’s dietary 

requirements and has an extremely effective 

attractor profile which not only makes it 

very instant, but also a very effective longterm 

food package as well. 

I’ve spent ten years trying to put together a 

bait that compares favourably to the B5 and 

it has been very difficult because it just 

seems to out catch everything else and still 

rules the roost on so many venues. That said, 

we have recently been putting some very 

interesting variations through their paces and 

are looking for another blockbuster release 

over the next year or two. 

The really good baits will always stand the 

test of time, look at Nutrabaits Big Fish Mix 

as another example, I doubt there are many 

of the modern-day baits out there that are 

anywhere near as good as that one. Carp 

don’t suddenly change their food 

preferences overnight. Once a good food 

source always a good food source and it’s 

often a big mistake to get sucked in to 

believing the latest ‘wonder bait’ is the way 

forward, when in truth it’s just the latest 

marketing ploy. After all, you can’t keep reinventing 

the wheel year after year! 

Alternative proteins to that of fishmealconstructed 

baits will undoubtedly catch 

fish, but will they catch fish consistently 

throughout the year at times when the going 

gets tough Not in my experience. 

Birdfoods, nut mixes and milk proteins are 

good examples. A good alternative from time 

to time, but they don’t offer the same allyear-round 

consistency as fishmeals (yes, 

even during the colder months). The industry 

is looking at potato, rice and maize proteins 

as viable alternatives and I believe some of 

the so called ‘modern-day baits’ are based 

on these ingredients. They are cheaper and 

share some similar values but are they as 

effective You can bet your life they’re not, 

ask the earlier mentioned angler! 

Talking to thousands of carpers each year, 

the one common denominator I’ve found is 

that most are always looking for something 

different or something new. Perhaps it’s just 

our inquisitive nature as human beings, but 

most of the time what we are looking for is 

staring us straight in the face. One of the 

most common calls I receive goes 

something along the lines of: “I’ve been 

using the B5 for the past two years, during 

which time I’ve broken my personal best four 

times, including the lake record twice and 

have been top rod two years running, but I’m 

just looking for something a little different 

this year.” I kid you not! 

There is undoubtedly a great deal of 

advertising hype surrounding the bait industry 

and with so many bait companies around, it 

must be a very difficult choice for most 

anglers. If you can sort out the wheat from 

the chaff there are a few very good baits out 

there, unfortunately however, there are plenty 

of poor ones as well! My advice would be to 

stick with a company that has a renowned 

experience and knowledge of producing bait. 

It’s easy enough to produce a bait that rolls 

well and looks good, but believe me, the baits 

that will give you an edge are the ones that 

have had a lot of thought gone into them, 

both from a nutritional angle and from an 

attractor profile viewpoint. 

Bait confidence 

Stick to what you are confident using but 

don’t forget, confidence can only be built 

up by catching fish consistently. Like I said 

earlier, you need to be confident that the 

bait you choose will catch carp 

consistently, even when the fish are in a 

“THE REALLY GOOD BAITS WILL ALWAYS STAND 

THE TEST OF TIME, LOOK AT NUTRABAITS BIG FISH 

MIX AS ANOTHER EXAMPLE, I DOUBT THERE ARE 

MANY OF THE MODERN-DAY BAITS OUT THERE THAT 

ARE ANYWHERE NEAR AS GOOD AS THAT ONE.” 

selective feeding mode. When all around 

you are catching it doesn’t tell you much 

other than the fact that will eat your bait as 

well as others, but when all around you are 

struggling and you are catching fish on a 

regular basis, it tells you that the fish have 

accepted your bait and if your location is 

good and your rigs are effective, you will 

continue to catch fish on a very regular 

basis. It’s a lovely feeling I can tell you, but 

there are very few baits that can do this 

year after year. 

Whilst on the subject of bait confidence, 

although there are a number of anglers that 

prefer to make their own bait, I think it’s fair 

to say that the majority of anglers these 

days purchase their baits ‘ready rolled’ for 

convenience. Some from shops, others 

from bait rolling companies and others 

direct from the bait manufacturers. My 

advice is to make sure you are 100% 

confident that whoever makes your bait 

does so with the consistency you are happy 

with and can rely on, otherwise a very good 

bait could be ruined! I’m extremely 

meticulous about who rolls my bait and as 

a point of interest everything we roll here at 

Essential Baits goes out fresh to our shops 

046 OCTOBER 2008

and mail order customers. 

Over the years I’ve had a fair bit of 

bait sent back to me from anglers that 

have had our bait rolled by so called 

‘reputable’ bait rolling companies, only 

to find out that the bait is totally different 

to what it should be! In an attempt to 

eradicate this problem, I’m pleased to 

say that Essential Baits are the first bait 

company to make a stand on this issue 

and now offer a free service whereby 

customers can send a small sample of 

their baits back to Essential HQ for us to 

analyse. This latest move has been 

applauded by our list of approved rollers 

and customers alike. Incidentally, just for 

the record, our list of approved bait 

rolling companies are Kent Particles, 

Rollin Baits and Three Counties Baits. 

The above listed bait rolling 

companies go through tons of our bait 

each year and I’m very confident that 

the bait is always spot on. Further to 

this, they have each agreed to the new 

bait testing service outlined above, 

which gives us and our customers total 

reassurance and peace of mind. At the 

end of the day there’s nothing worse 

than sitting behind the rods with any 

doubts in your mind, considering the 

amount of time and effort we all put in, I 

just don’t think it’s worth the risk. 

Priorities 

Having sorted out your bait you now need 

to consider a number of other aspects 

that will help you put more fish on the 

bank. There’s no doubt that bait choice is 

vitally important, but ask yourself this 

question, would you put it at the top of 

your list of priorities This is a question 

that I’m often asked but personally 

speaking, I would have to put the subject 

of location at the top of the pile. I’ve 

stressed how vitally important it is to use 

a good bait, but no matter how good your 

bait is, you’re not going to catch much if 

the fish don’t see it! A good bait will 

increase your catch rate no end, but only 

if you put it in the right place! 

This can be easy on some waters but 

more difficult on others, depending on 

stock levels and angling pressure. Each 

water will be different and in next 

month’s issue we will try to fit a few 

more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle 

together by taking a closer look at the 

subject of location including the effects 

of the wind and other influential factors. 

We’re also fast approaching that magical 

time of the year when the carp natural 

food larder begins to diminish as those 

autumnal low pressures ‘kick-in’. What 

better time to talk about bait introduction 

and application. 

Mike Willmott 


The autumnal low pressures will 

soon be kicking in and the carp’s 

natural food larder will be 

diminishing with each passing week. 

Tune in next month to find out more 

about location and bait application 

during these vital months ahead. 

MIKE WILLMOTT 

OCTOBER 2008 047

Piecing it all together - Part one - Essential Baits

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