This is an interesting subject because actually the world is open to you; basically you can put anything edible into a boilie.

The boilie originated in the UK. I am going to start off by saying a boilie is any boiled bait, with its fuction being that of keeping nuisance fish at bay.

The very first boilie recipe was bread crumbs, one egg, mixed up to a paste, hand rolled into balls and boiled. Just by looking at this recipe we can see how far we have progressed in attempting to get that perfect big carp bait. For me there is nothing more satisfying than landing a carp on a boilie I have made myself on my own recipe. It is almost as good as a new PB.

Boilies, they can frustrate you and give you pleasure, it is also a natural progression to want to make your own boilies. Most of us start off by rolling our first boilies by hand. Once again, as with most things in specimen angling, its better to go all the way or not at all.

Lets have a look at what you will need.
Boilie rolling tables, 16mm 18mm and 22mm
Sausage gun or a sausage table/boilie table.
Spare nozzles for sausage gun
Grams scale and measuring cups.
4 litre pot.
A chip pan net (Can be round or square)
Mixing bowl, glass or plastic.
A drying rack.




That’s the hardware out of the way, what do we do with all this stuff, well that is easy and hard at the same time.Let me also say you do get bigger tables and smaller tables but I found these are about the most used sizes.

I would say for the first few tries use a base mix that has been made by a good manufacturer, then just follow the instructions on the pack. The reason I say this by using a known proven base mix you get the “feel” of the mixture, this is important.

There is one sort of unknown in all boilie mixes and that’s the eggs, because of the different sizes. The unwritten rule is use standard size eggs for all your mixes, then a tip always try to use the same brand name or farm name when buying eggs for boilies.

So how do we use the hard ware we have now purchased?
The drying rack not really the start but one you might have to make for yourself, I took a old braai rack covered it with chicken mesh, 10mm holes, the chicken mesh has nice nearly round holes so it holds the boilies nicely.

I just want to warn you here if you want to stay married clean up the kitchen when you are finished or the first batch could be your last.

Place all the dry ingredients into a plastic bag and give it a good shake, make sure it is mixed through properly. Into a bowl break the eggs, add sweetener if called for in the recipe, add the flavour if liquid, add oil, give this a little stir to mix it all. The colorants should also be added to the egg mix, leave it to settle. When mixing the eggs use a fork to prevent air bubble forming in the egg mix.

Empty the dry mix from the plastic bag into the mixing bowl, add some of the egg mix to the dry ingredients, and mix. I use my hands here, but you can use a wooden spoon or a mixer. Keep adding from the eggs mix until you have a nice reasonable stiff mixture in the bowl, now here comes the feel part if you take some of the now mixed “paste”, and pull it apart it should stretch and then break, unfortunately this does come after a bit of practice, you will soon get the hang of it. Now take the mix and break it up into balls and place them in the fridge to rest.





While the paste is resting, get the boilie table ready, and bring the pot of water to the boil. Me and this is personal, I always add a teaspoon of rough salt to the water and a teaspoon of olive oil, give it a good stir so the oil dissipates, it makes the water a whitish colour.

Place your first paste ball into the gun or onto the table and make sausages. If using a gun start on the left and lay the sausage on the table. Make sure your sausages is a bit longer than the width of the boilie roller. Place a sausage over the width of the table, ensuring the top and bottom lines up correctly, start rolling slowly in a forward and backward motion. You will note when you start rolling the motion tends to be sticky, but as you continue it will become a smoother action. Lift the top part of the roller to expose your first round boilies.

Place them into the chip net and into the boiling water leave them there until they start to float, don’t worry they will be a little swollen and the colour could be a little lighter than you expected. The longer you leave the boilies in the boiling water the harder they will get. Take them out and place them on the drying rack, keep them in a cool place that has good ventilation, not in the sun, they will crack.

Keep turning the boilies on the drying rack with each new batch you add to the drying rack. Now leave them for at least three days, the boilies should have taken on the colour you expected by now and be quite hard, I and again this is personal, now put the boilies into a orange bag and hang them from the rafters in the garage, with a date on a little tag.
If I did not add a preservative after a week I will then place them into freezer bags and freeze them, I normally add a little liquid flavour (50ml /kg) to the boilies before freezing.
So in a nutshell that is how to make your own boilies

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