The advent of the Boilie

The advent of the “Boilie”

Around that time, carp angling was really taking off and many new ideas and baits were coming on to the market. This was to cause a “revolution” among the angling fraternity. A young new age set of anglers were arriving on the club scene all over the country. They discovered that carp could be galvanized into feeding frenzies by using amino acid flavoured baits. These baits were boiled and formed into various sized little balls of various colours. They were called “boilies” and the fish loved them.

The catch rates for carp rocketed for a few years. There were  a couple of problems surrounding these types of baits though. The first was the fact that other species such as tench and large bream also took a great liking to boilies. When they were introduced to these amino acid baits, they switched off other traditional baits and made any other type of fishing very difficult in lakes that boilies had been introduced to.

The other thing that happened was that bait manufacturers produced what was to become “shelf life boilies”. They had a limited life of freshness but became a very cheap buy for anglers. Because of this carp anglers could buy hundreds of them for a session and would feed their swims with abandon. The amino effect started to diminish on the shelf life types of boilies and the fish started to ignore them.

We would hear stories of the bottoms of lakes being strewn with rotting boilies and many clubs sent down divers to help clear their lakes up. These clubs then made rules that only a certain amount of these types of bait could be introduced in any one session.

There would be no going back though as decades later the fish that were scoffing boilies were putting on vast weights. This included carp, tench and bream.  As catch weights on boilie waters got higher and higher, many new young anglers started their fishing lives fishing for the big carp.

Many smart business types, Entrepreneurs Nash tackle etc; started to come forward and see a niche in the market for both carp rods and tackle. They also knew that there were not enough waters to cater for this invasion and many new carp only venues started to appear all over the country.

 To ensure almost instant success for these new wave anglers the new carp venues (referred to as commercials) stocked with high numbers of fish and there was a lot of competition by owners to stock larger and larger sizes of carp. Many of these were exported from other European countries. As the opportunity arose for anglers to catch these giant fish the owners were able to charge a lot more for their day ticket venues.

Thinking back on it all, I reckon that they changed the face of angling forever. Whether that’s a good thing, or not, I am not quite sure. I do think that having fished before and after that revolution, a bit of magic which was there for the new young angler in my youth has been left behind.

A young angler these days seems to go straight into catching double figure fish without ever knowing the joy of catching the other smaller species of fish, each with its own beauty and fascination. It’s a bit like serving an apprenticeship before moving on to higher things. So much joy in an anglers life as he goes from boy to man, moving on from one species to another has been lost in my opinion.

Whilst I agree with Gordon's thoughts above - in fact to this day I would rather catch 10 lb of Roach than a hundred pound of Carp. Indeed I would rather catch a two pound Roach than a 30 lb Carp.

There is a bit of joy in Carping and using a Boilie - see below. Gordon with a 20+ lb Mirror from Anglers Paradise. Ed