I have been
kindly asked by Keens Tackle and Guns of Bridgend, Wales to conduct a review of
some of the Manilla bait range produced by Sticky baits. Ok if I must.
Sticky baits
are a bait company that if you are serious about fishing for big carp then you
have probably heard of before, their Krill range is starting to become
legendary in certain circles and I have been using it for the last few months with
improving results. They have been expanding
their bait range this year and there was a massive buzz on social media
surrounding the new bait range the ‘Manilla’.
Now if you
were not aware then, Manilla is not your normal boilie flavour, it is based on a
peanut protein that is exclusive to Sticky and they have mixed this with other
milk proteins and bird foods to make the base.
This is then added to with the insertion of a Madagascan Vanilla flavour
to make a unique all year round bait mix that fulfils all the carp’s dietary
needs.
So as I have
already alluded to Keens sent me a small care package to try out and now that I
have used most of the items in the box I feel qualified to say what I think
about them.
I am going
to start with the pellet, I received the 4 and 6mm pellet to try and I was very
impressed, they came out of the bag with a sweet nutty small which as you might
expect had a distinct vanilla undertone.
I decided to conduct a small breakdown test with some of the 6mm pellet
and found that even well after an hour they were still in pellet form with a
hard centre. I believe that they are
made by covering the extruded pellet in another layer of flavour and this would
seem to prolong the breakdown time. This
is I my mind a good thing, I have come from a match background where we expect
pellets to be completely saturated and soft within minutes so a lot of the
crunch factor is gone from the bait very quickly. This will not be an issue with these baits, I
used them as part of my pva bag mix in the recent Interservices Competition
where my Partner and I went on to win our section by around 600lb in
48hrs. It may not have been all down to
the pellet but they certainly didn’t put the fish off.
Bait
spray: This is a quality little product
and comes in a small spray bottle, I have been using it on my hookbaits of late
and again there have been certainly no detrimental effects to my catch
rate. Again on the Interservices after
the first 12 hours all my hookbaits were either getting sprayed with this or
glugged as it was reducing the amount of time that we were waiting for bites. It is also light enough that you can soak it
into pop ups for prolonged periods and it has been designed not to affect the
baits buoyancy.
Bait
Glug: This has been designed so that you
can take a hookbait and small pva stick and dunk it straight into the bottle,
my only complaint is that the neck of the bottle is not really big enough for
all but sticks and bags barely bigger than a 24mm hookbait. Other than that the actual bait product is
again perfect for the job that it was designed.
It is viscous enough to stay around the bag on the cast and when a small
bag was thrown in the edge it leaked off really well for a good time making a
nice halo of smell around the area.
Paste: Another attractor product and something that
I had only ever pottered with in the past, it is designed to be wrapped around
a hookbait to add a slow breakdown layer of attraction and this it does very
well. I was struggling for a bite over
the weekend but put out a hookbait wrapped in paste with a small pva stick of
active mix and it resulted in the only bite of the session a couple of hours
later. It was the only bite off the lake
that night that I am aware of, again it had to be in the right place at the
right time but there would have been a small amount of leakage still falling
from the paste as the fish came a sniffing so it certainly didn’t put the upper
double off. The only downside of this product is that straight out of the jar
it will not take a very powerful cast, but wrap it in pva and it will be fine,
after all we are not always chucking to the horizon.
Pop
ups: I was given a pot of the 12mm pop
ups and these are fantastic small baits, they take a good amount of weight to
sink them and they stay popped up for longer than I have needed them so far. I
have taken to using the 12mm pop ups on chod rigs with size 5 hooks to increase
the hooking potential and these sticky ones are still sat proud after 12 hours
so far. Again the small of the bait is just like the feed bait and they have
been given a slightly lighter colour than the standard boilies so that they
look as though they have been washed out for a short period of time.
Wafters: The wafters have also been a successful hookbait
for me on the Interservices, although most of my fish were taken on micro corn
I went through a period of losing fish in a snag so I upped the hookbait size
to a 16mm wafter in yellow and continued to hook carp, although it was easier
to land them on the more robust tackle that I was now able to get away with.
They also come in the lightly washed out natural colour as well and they are
really good hookbaits, easy to mount and they stay buoyant for long periods.
Hard
hookers: Although I have not had a need to use these yet they certain look and
smell the part, and it is almost impossible to break a hook bait in your
fingers so that bodes well for when I fish somewhere with crays or if I have to
try and put a single over the horizon.
Active mix:
I have saved what I think is the best until last and that is the Active Mix, I
am a big fan of using pva sticks that are full of flavour to try and protect
the hook point on the cast and this stuff is certainly full of flavour. It is also very fine so I have found that
mixing it with some liquidised boilies makes for an awesome stick mix. It is full of high leakage attractors so when
coupled with a few pellets and some crushed boilie makes a small bag with a lot
of punch. This is my favourite product
out of the lot as I would also use it in spod mixes both for fishing on the
deck and up in the water and also as a base for a PVA bag mix as well.
So that
concludes my review, in short the bait is not your normal boilie and it has
certainly not stopped me from catching wherever I have been of late. I am
always reluctant to say that it is because of the bait that I have caught as I
still believe that location and timing are far more important, but, having said
that I am still very impressed with the range as a whole.
I would like
to say thankyou to Keens Tackle and Guns for the opportunity to try the bait
out as I would have probably waited for a bit longer to try it, but is
certainly going to be getting added to my arsenal especially once the water
starts to get a bit cooler in a few weeks.
Keens Tackle
and Guns
117 Bridgend Rd, Aberkenfig, Bridgend CF32 9AP
01656 722448
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