Well, this has got to be the first review that I’ve done for AnglersNet where I didn’t want to share the results with anyone!
I had been looking for a hookbait for about two years that Carp would just love, yet would stand up to attentions of Crayfish.
I’ve tried everything from painting and drilling pebbles to carved wooded boilies, Solar’s ‘Jail Baits’ to injecting paste into drilled ping-pong balls before boiling them, but nothing worked consistently enough for me to feel confident in using.
Then in a chance conversation I got to hear about a new ‘wonder bait’ from Berkley called ‘Power Naturals Carp Bait’ that would solve all of my problems. (If I’d got a quid for every time I heard that I’d probably be a millionaire!)
After a few phone calls to ‘those in the know’ a parcel dropped on my doorstep containing the Carp Bait. On opening the jars of hookbaits I was shocked to find that they had a firm rubbery feel to them, and weren’t rock-hard as I thought they’d be, totally the opposite. Carp Bait’s are very tough, so tough that they won’t tear, rip or be crushed to destruction by hand. Even my fingernails couldn’t make an impression on them.
That weekend saw the Carp Bait fished along side my usual rock-hard boilie hookbait. Immediately the tell tale two-bleep lift followed by a two-bleep drop-back on both rods signalled the unwanted attentions of a Crayfish. After 20 minutes of double bleeps the alarms sat silent telling me that the Crayfish had consumed my hookbaits, or so I thought. By the way, on this particular water for a boilie to last an hour is pretty damn good!
Both rods were reeled in and sure enough the boilie had gone, but the Carp Bait was still on the ‘hair’, I was most impressed, the Crayfish just gave up on it! I now had a massive edge over other anglers on this water, no more setting of alarm clocks every hour through the night, all I had to do now was catch!
That night resulted in two Tench, one just over 7lbs and the other just over 8lbs, both caught on the same Scarpex (Scopex) flavoured Carp Bait hookbait, which went on to last all night smelling and looking as good as it did when it left the jar.
It wasn’t long before a Carp fell to the Carp Bait Hookbait in the shape of a feisty Mirror weighing 14lb 2oz.
Not the biggest fish I’ve ever caught, but pleasing all the same, especially when the angler in the next swim commented that it’d been 3 years since he’d caught his last carp on this difficult Cray’-filled water!
Both baits after 30 minutes of Crayfish attentions! Carp Bait, left. Rock-hard Boilie, right.
The Power Naturals Carp Bait is biodegradable and won’t harm the Carp internally should one be swallowed. Unfortunately because of their biodegradable make-up they can only be used once. Having said that, one tub of Power Naturals still lasts me at least twice as long as a tub of my usual pop-ups!
Carp Baits come in a variety of flavours and complementary dips such as, Strawberry Hit, Scarpex (Scopex), Fish Protein, Asian Spice and Natural Organic.
Berkley Power Naturals Carp Bait can be bought from most good tackle shops at a price of around £6.50 per tub. The dips should be around £4.99.
Garth ‘Gaffer’ Barnard
November, 2002
