Best carp bait mixes and groundbaits

There are so many carp baits out there, from boilies to chunks of meat, people literally use anything as a carp bait. But a single bait often won’t do the trick, often it requires multiple baits in order to hook a fish. 

Bait mixes/Groundbaits is an effective way to get your swim swarming with hungry carp. It usually consists of a mixture of small baits, a few examples are crushed boilies, hemp, sweetcorn, pellets, and a few other bits depending on when and where you are fishing. Ground bait is very effective as you can use it within many different aspects of your fishing, it can be used as a spod mix or in a PVA bag.

Since carp are omnivores and like such a large variety of food, trying to guess what they want is really hard which is where bait mixes come in. Bait-mixes combine multiple elements to create a bait which is versatile and caters to whatever the carp want. 

These are some of our favorite groundbaits/bait-mixes for carp fishing:

Basic bait-mix

This is one of our favorite bait-mixes and is a staple whenever we go carp fishing. It is a very basic mix but can be adjusted and tweaked depending on where your fishing. For example, you can add boilies, hemp, and whatever else you like!

Step 1: Pour some ground-bait into a bucket, we use the Sonu super carp method mix, its a general all-round good groundbait and we use in many of our baits.

Step 2: Pour small amounts of water into the groundbait it is slightly damp, add the water slowly because you can’t take water out but you can always put water in. Adding too much water to the mixture could cause the groundbait to be too gloopy which means it wouldn’t hold shape when squeezed together.

Step 3: Thoroughly mix together the groundbait so that the entire mixture is damp and there are no large clumps of groundbait. You can tell if you have achieved this consistency if your groundbait holds shape when you squeeze it into a ball but still disintegrates into a crumb when rubbed between your hands.

Step 4: Add a handful of pellets to the mix, if there are a lot of nuisance fish in the lake you’re fishing, its better to lose the pellets because silver-fish will come hoover up pellets if they can get them in their mouths.

Step 5: Then add drained sweetcorn to the mix and mix it once again until everything is well incorporated

Step 6: Once the bait has been fully mixed it is ready to use. Remember, this is only a base, its very effective but there are so many more things can be added to make even more powerful

Particle-mix

Ingredients:

1. Mixed birdseed
2. Sweet corn
3. Chickpeas
4. Jelly crystals
5. Hot water                                                  

Step one) Add you Mixed bird seeds into a large mixing bowl

Step two) Add boiling water into the bowl and allow the seeds to soak up all the water

Step three) Empty the soaked seeds (with the water) into a pot

Step four) Add tinned sweetcorn and tinned chick-peas into the pot and mix thoroughly

Step five) Cook the mix, bring it to a boil and cook for 15-20 minutes

Step six) once you have finished cooking, drain most of the water and empty back into a mixing bowl for it to cool down

Step 7) Add jelly crystals to the mixture and combine thoroughly, then leave the mixture to soak overnight, then it is ready to use

Spod Mix

Ingredients:

1. Chili Hemp
2. Sea salt
3. Tinned sweetcorn
4. Canned tuna
5. Fine pellets
6. Crushed boilies

Step one) Add your chili hemp into a mixing tub

Step two) Add some sea salt to the hemp (Don’t add too much as it can be bad for the fish) and mix thoroughly

Step three) Next add a tin of canned sweetcorn with the juices and mix well

Step four) Add a can of tinned tuna to the mixture, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in oil or brine

Step five) Then add some fine pellets to the mixture and mix well

Step six) Add some crushed boilies into the mix and combine well, boilies can easily be crushed in a food processor

Home-made pack bait

Ingredients

1. Shredded Wheat
2. All-purpose flour (Any flour that has gluten in it)
3. Jelly crystals
4. Eggs
5. Creamed corn

Step one) Crush up the shredded wheat finely until there are no large bits in the mix

Step two) Add the shredded wheat into a mixing bowl and add a handful of all-purpose flour

Step three) Add a packet of jelly crystals to the mix and combine well

Step four) Add two whole eggs to the mixture and combine well

Step five) Then add a tin of cream corn and mix thoroughly if the mixture is too sticky add some flour and knead the dough until you are satisfied with the consistency

Best ways to use bait-mixes

Handfeed/Slingshot

Another common way to use your ground bait could be to use it as ‘chum’ this pretty much means throw your ground bait mixture around your swim and it should get the fish feeding and lead to a more active swim and hopefully more bites.

However, there are many devices on the market to make this job easier and more effective than when you throw the bait into the water by hand. Slingshots are a great way to accurately disperse your bait around your swim at much further distances than what your arm would be able to accurately do. We use a guru slingshot and it’s worked incredibly well over the years.

Nuisance fish can sometimes be a problem when fishing but when using a ground-bait the smaller fish get distracted with all the particle bait and can even attract the big carp over.

If you’re fishing a lake that does have lots of nuisance fish it’s good to use larger baits in your ground-bait so the carp will actually get to them instead of roach and Rudd.

Our favorite sling – Guru Catapult (check price on Amazon)

PVA Bags

PVA bags are another way you can use ground bait mixtures to your advantage. They dissolve in the water meaning you will have a pile of bait close to your hook bait just like a method feeder, however you can choose the breakdown rate with a PVA bag by using either a solid bag or a mesh bag.

The concept is essentially the same as using a feeder but when using a PVA bag the fish will not suspect anything out of the ordinary as there is nothing there. The feeder may work wonders in some fishing scenarios but smarter and sometimes larger carp will deter from feeding in an area where they can see a big method lead in the middle of all the bait!

You can find PVA Bags here – Solidz PVA Bag System (check price on Amazon)

Spodding 

When fishing for carp spodding your swim is another great way to get a good amount of bait around the area you are fishing. Ground bait mixtures are perfect for this job as they can easily be put inside a spod and sent out into the lake in no time.

A tip when spodding is to give the bait inside the spod a little squeeze. This will make sure it does not come out of the spod when casting and when the spod tips upside down after hitting the water the bait will fall altogether.

Our favorite spod – Spomb Bait Rocket (check current price on Amazon)