HOW TO MAKE BREAD BOMBS

How do you get winter carp actively looking for food – which makes them more likely to get caught – without filling them up?

A partial answer is to use a bait with quite a lot of volume but little food value... liquidised bread.

Put through a blender, the flaky crumb of a loaf becomes fine, fluffy particles. These expand quickly to produce a slow-sinking feed that is perfect for incorporating into PVA sticks, drawing attention to the hookbait.

Because it is so easily washed away there’s no point in piling in liquidised bread. Much better is a small PVA parcel called a ‘bread bomb’. The wash from carp moving around the swim will lift a cloud of fine flavoursome particles, drawing attention to the presence of some grub.

1. Remove the crusts from a few slices of medium-cut white bread.

2. Liquidise three slices at a time, making sure that you get rid of all the lumps.

3. Add half-a-teaspoonful of powdered dye of your choice to the bread crumb.

4. Make up a 50-50 mix of stick mix and liquidised bread.

5. Add a level teaspoonful of white sugar to the dyed stick mix and bread crumb.

6. Add some of the mix to a narrow fast-melt PVA stick.

7. The finished sticks should be about the size of a 50p piece