Research & Development

Dedicated New Age Carp Baits

Mainline Baits first started to make their presence felt during the early 90s. A range of base mix's, ready-mades and flavours, then a carefully researched, designed and field tested bait called the Grange - with Corn Steep Liquor (parts 1 & 2) - named after the difficult Essex syndicate water it was designed to be used on. The two partners in Mainline are carp anglers Steve Morgan and Kevin Knight. Results on the Grange - particularly in winter - were hard to ignore. I rang and asked for some, which promptly arrived. John Lilley nicked some from my freezer before I'd had the chance to use it. He caught on it, first time out in late October. I fished it that winter and had my best cold weather results ever - far beyond any expectations I had for winter fishing. Since then I have had exceptional results on the Grange, Grange Red, Activ-8 and Assassin-8 PT10. I've asked Kev Knight for a piece on new age carp baits because that's how I look on these complete baits. Not base mixes. Not flavours. Baits. This is it, it works, catch with it. "Dedicated baits" Kev refers to them as. New age is how I refer to them. They have pointed a way forward and opened the door to a new age in dedicated food source baits. It goes without saying that what is actually in these baits and how they work are closely guarded secrets. Our thanks to Kev for the piece, and for the clues he has felt able to reveal regarding the make up of the baits.
Tim Paisley

When Mainline Baits was founded it was a natural progression to look at the highest quality carp baits possible. The best bait is fundamental in a pursuit where success revolves around carp and their feeding habits. Mainline's contacts in the food and meat industries presented us with a whole wealth of opportunities in terms of research and product availability both at home and abroad. We knew that we wanted to create a totally new concept in baits that were attractive to fish, nutritious and digestible for maximum angling performance. Having a wealth of food industry knowledge at our finger tips we spent a long time researching ingredients and talking to nutritionists who were able to point us towards the most beneficial products to achieve this concept and our ultimate goal.

We quickly discovered that there was much more to an effective and usable food source than the old accepted thinking of high protein levels. If an ingredient has a protein rich profile, for example, is that protein readily available to the fish/carp? If so is it available all year round, in all temperatures? Designing carp baits in a logical yet scientific way opens up a whole new can of worms, but the end result can be a bait that proves to be something very special. The principle has been established and continued through a succession of Mainline baits and it is no coincidence that these have proven to be amongst the best the carp world has seen. Lab results or theory are one thing; success on the bank is an entirely different matter. As all anglers know theory alone has never put any carp in the bottom of the net. Our initial research and design involved the use of expert nutritionists, biologists, extensive tank tests and the establishing of a network of field testers, all gifted anglers fishing a variety of waters. Logging results on prototype baits supplied to our field force allowed us to see how these experimental food sources performed against the best of alternative recipes available. It is well documented through the angling press and grapevine that each new bait is tested for at least a period that includes all 4 weather seasons before being released to the shops and so in turn to the public. This trial period enables us to answer all questions regarding the baits effectiveness and performance in all weather and temperature situations, as honestly as we can whilst monitoring the effectiveness of the products.

Ingredients, design, tank testing, field-testing... We know all our competitors are capable of taking all these steps towards the best possible bait. We also knew that the two most difficult areas of mass bait production lay in producing and repeating a hardened finished product (boilie) from the raw materials selected, and doing so in a cost effective way. Careful research and testing produced a bait we were proud of - the Grange. This was designed to tackle a difficult Essex syndicate water and succeeded beyond all our expectations. But if this bait was to be as successful for others then we knew the recipe and the preparation had to be precise. The answer lay in producing what we refer to as a dedicated bait formula. No variables. We would measure the 5 grams of this, 3 grams of that and two ounces of the ingredients which were an essential part of the recipe. Corn Steep Liquor was - and still is - an integral ingredient in the success of the Grange. Corn Steep had been around for some time. Feedback on it was mixed. We researched this aspect and felt that we managed to pinpoint the problem. The hit-and-miss results on Corn Steep were eliminated by means of adding a second profile in the form of the 'Part 2' to protect and modify the tone of the original and for the reason explained below.

When you pass your own precious bait formula to unscientific bait makers who are going to subject the finished product to extreme temperatures you have another area to consider. Boiling can render some of the best carp attractors and foods ineffective - but it goes without saying that boiling is a vital part in the process of boilie production. You can make recommendations for abbreviated boiling times but you know they aren't always going to be followed to the letter. So part of our research programme was to find buffer ingredients which would protect the properties of items that could be denatured against high temperatures. Our nutritionists managed to identify and harness some ingredients to do this job for us, and this aspect has become a vital area of the design of the succession of the successful Mainline 'Dedicated Bait Concept'.

Arriving at cost effectiveness in a bait is a problem all bait manufacturers are faced with. Our food industry ties and our rapid growth meant we were able to combine research with bulk buying to keep costs to a minimum and to enable us to buy top quality ingredients at prices unavailable to others, therefor we were able to produce high quality products at a competitive prices. Successively the Grange, Activ-8 and Assassin-8 have taken increasing advantage of our unique design aspects, our ability to buy the right ingredients at the right price and a marketing policy based on exceptional field testing results.

We knew from the launch of the Grange that we were onto something special and with repeat captures of some of the hardest fish in the country - many as often as ten times in a season - on the same bait there was no arguing that the food sources we were offering were very acceptable to the fish. To our delight the balance of initial recognition of the bait as a food source and acceptance of it over a period of time had been harnessed to a remarkable extent!

So what's in a Mainline dedicated bait? Instead of relying on the cornerstone ingredients used by and available to every other bait firm we looked further afield. Whilst milk proteins, birdfoods and fishmeal's are all valuable ingredients (which we use) there were plenty of others that didn't fall into quite such convenient categories and had amazing potential in terms of both attraction and nutrition. Correct levels of these ingredients - both liquid and dry food sources - are essential in order for the baits to perform to their optimum. Put bluntly some interplay of ingredients can produce baits that are constantly changing in both attraction and nutritional profile and get the bobbins flying like never before. No longer does a bait that has been immersed for 24 hours need to be considered less attractive or acceptable than one recently introduced. However one wrong move in the mixing process and the advantages can be easily lost. I'll emphasise the point already made. The simplest way to ensure a perfect bait is produced every time by an angler in the kitchen is to take the measuring and weighing of ingredients away. The principle of the dedicated bait mix has been born. Making these baits available as freezer baits has been a further stage in ensuring that the bait has been prepared correctly for optimum effectiveness.

It goes without saying that we are reluctant to give too much away about our hard-earned secrets and the basis of our successful concept. Taking this one step further, and with a new train of thought as well as new ingredients, the second of our dedicated mixes was born in the shape of the Activ-8. During trials we noticed a greenhouse effect occurring, with sugars being formed surprisingly early from the active ingredients in the bait. Again the problem of protecting the more delicate ingredients was surmounted and the projected activity within the bait harnessed to occur when it is most needed, when the bait is being used for angling purposes! It is noticeable that both the Grange and Activ-8 are often at their most effective when they are apparently "turning", which is actually part of the interplay of active ingredients rather than a deterioration in the quality of the bait. Due to the 'working' and active ingredients within the baits, our research proved that the best method to suspend this activity was by freezing them as opposed to any other method of short or long-term storage.

Assassin-8 is our latest in the line of our concept. We found some new ingredients we wanted to incorporate in a bait to take our concept a stage on from Activ-8. The problem we had here was not in the bait design, but in cost. Again with the help of our extensive contacts within the food industry, we managed to achieve the right balance between nutrition, attraction and cost effectiveness. Assasin-8 is proving to be as successful as its two predecessors, and then some!

We pride ourselves on our products. All the hard work has already been done by Mainline, all you need to do is accurately mix the eggs, base mix and liquid. Not only does this principle make things easier in the kitchen, but it does away with a list as long as your arm of ingredients, additives, palatants, flavours and enhancers for inclusion in the bait. The cost is kept as realistic as possible for anglers who want to use our products.

An interesting aspect of features built around our design concept is that the baits are clearly fish attractors, not simply carp attractors. We have had record barbel plus countless specimen tench, bream, chub and roach reported on a regular basis. All fish seem to recognise and benefit from the valuable food sources within the baits and on many carp waters that have been baited by teams it has been noticeable that carp weights have gone through the roof.

Many carp anglers are wrongly under the impression that as baits catch carp they automatically lose their long-term effectiveness. Mainline's dedicated baits question that philosophy. Being such outstanding food sources the more they are used on waters the better they seem to perform, as results in the angling press week after week, and season after season, will testify. We see little need to sell a magic new recipe every season when our baits have been shown to perform better during the second season of widespread use than the first. The nation's most famous carp fall for them time and again.

Anyone can string words together to convince the bait buying public that their products are the best. At Mainline we are proud of our achievements both at home and abroad since the introduction of the dedicated bait concept. For example from April 2000 to Christmas our baits have produced over eighty 40s and ten 50s in the UK alone, 80% of which have been caught on the Assasin-8 within less than 1 year of its release. There have also been thousands of personal best's, Lake Records and 30's to carp anglers of all ages and ability, both here and abroad and including the biggest name circuit waters where carp are subject to maximum pressure and the widest choice of baits imaginable. There can be no finer testament to Mainline's ability to stay one step ahead of the competition in offering ground breaking, innovative, new age dedicated carp baits.

Good luck and happy hauling.

Mainline Baits