Getting your particles out to the desired feature proving to be a problem without a spod rod, then try our technique for short to medium range groundbaiting. With necessity being the mother of invention, and neither of us owning a spod rod, we were straining the grey matter to try to solve this problem.

The solution was starring us in the face as we fished a local lake, match anglers throwing in large balls of ground bait at short distances. Could this technique be modified to suit the modern carp angler?

This was the problem that confronted us and how we went about solving it.

We started by thinking of the ingredients that would go into a particle mix that would then be spodded out by carp anglers to the desired distance. We would be able to use the same base mix, but would not be able to reach the same long distances.

The base ingredients that we decided on were hemp, trout pellets, sweetcorn and boilies, to this would be added oils and other flavours that suited the fishing we were doing. Now the hard part, how to get it all to bind together, so that the balls could be catapulted up to 40 yards.

The amount of each of the ingredients that we used was very much hit or miss to start with, but like anything it gets better with age. The first time we mixed it all up we had about 1 kilo of boiled hemp, 1 kilo trout pellet 1 kilo of sweet corn 50 boilies cut into assorted sizes with some crumbled to a powder. To this dry mix was added 10 ml salmon oil 10 ml of blended fish oil 10 ml of corn steep liquor and 2 eggs. This left the mix dry but with an oily texture. We then took 2 kilos of trout pellets and put them through a blender to form a powder.

Some of the mix was taken and transferred into a second bucket, a little water was then added, stirred up, and the ground trout pellet was slowly added until the mix started to stiffen up. Now comes the time you get messy, we grabbed a handful of the mix and started to mould it into balls the size of cricket balls with the mix seeming to bind well, once the ball had been created it was rolled around in the ground trout pellet to dry of the outside. We continued with this until all the mix was gone.

Now the proof is in the eating or so they say. Off to the lake with rod and marker float to test it. Out went the marker float to about 20 yards, and 1 of the large balls into a whopper dropper catapult, it reached but only just, the balls were to big for the catapult. The next ball was broken in half to about the size of a golf ball, this when launched from the catapult soared past the marker float with ease. Distance was now no problem, but accuracy was. The next job was to reduce the size of all the balls to see if we could improve the accuracy.

The marker float was recast to about 30 yards and we started to bait up, we found was the first couple of balls are a bit inaccurate until you get your eye in then we found we could cover a 5 foot square around the marker float with ease..

Now to borrow the lake owner’s boat to see how it had settled on the bottom. Arriving over the marker float we could see the oils that had leaked out of the mix, and started to form a slick on the surface it had also started to cloud up the water,

After waiting for a few minutes for the water to start to clear we could see that most of the balls had broken up upon impact and had covered a nice large patch of the bottom of the lake, this was not like a blanket as you would get with a spod but scattered.

Some the balls were in quite large pieces but when prodded with a bank stick seem to almost explode, causing the water to cloud up again. It would have been nice to witness fish feeding on the mixture to see the effect on it.

The ingredients and the finished article - bombs away!

Now this method might not suit everyone, we just saw it as a way to overcome a problem, which it does seem to do. What's interesting is the different ingredients that can be used with this method, since writing we have added marvel powered milk, Nesquik, caster sugar, maggots placed inside the balls, tiger nuts boiled then ground up and these are just a few of our ideas,I am sure there is lots more room for scope

This method of putting out particles has now been tested at Anglers paradise, 19 mirror and 20 common, and from St Johns at Oxford where a 28 and a 15, where taken within an hour of each other. Pictures can been seen in the gallery. We are still field testing at present so you will have to watch this space, but going on the effort we have put in and the fish we have caught we may be on to a winner… try it and see if they like it?