Imperial

It began in 1994, fishing next to a mate. He had been given a bag of unwanted flavours and powders and had knocked up a 6 egg mix of Premier Baits spiced fish with a strange flavour that had not long been released.

The flavour (which was made of natural products but very potent) had been added at far too higher level but there was something about it that left me thinking that it was quite special and this was stored in the memory bank.

In 1999 I had embarked on a winter campaign on a day’s only water in Cheshire using a homemade fishmeal base mix that a good friend of mine had developed. The liquid package was natural and I caught fish from the off but for some reason I decided to add something extra from mid-January.

The very same flavour that my mate had been given back in 1994, I always knew one day I would buy some and give it a go and this seemed as good a time as any. I kept the level very low and along with the savoury liquid I was adding the finished bait smelt of a lamb dinner complete with sauce.

The bait was doing the absolute business and by the end of season I had caught seventeen winter carp from this very difficult venue. Regular pre-baiting helped but on occasions I was unable to get on my areas, despite this, hardly any carp were caught by other anglers. I returned the following winter and topped off another campaign with a 64lb brace of carp caught on a cold February evening in 2001, a huge feat in Cheshire at that time. They happened to be the lakes two largest residents “The Bream” and the Big Girl” as they later became known.

The foot and mouth outbreak at the end of February 2001 had pretty much shut down the fishing in the North of England but I was fortunate enough to be accepted into a syndicate that despite being located on a private farm remained open to fishing. I had fished it for a short spell several years earlier with some success but had left many fish behind in the urge to pursue new adventures. It was a tough venue, snag infested and deep. I made some alterations to the base mix I was using and decided the only liquids I was going to add were the eggs and a small amount of the natural flavour that I was now very confident in. Although it was still in the testing stage as far as my angling went. That season I banked forty two carp from the syndicate, a good season at the time was ten to fifteen carp.

Soon after I joined a group of three others on a week long trip to Birch Grove in Shropshire, this was prior to the fish kill and at the time it held a mega stock of some big, very cute “seen it all carp”. There was no shame if a group fished the whole week without a single bite, it happened quite often. We landed twenty six carp out of thirty one takes, ten of these came to zigs but none the less sixteen carp were caught off the bottom and we were all using what I had by now christened “The Imperial”. We caught most of the A-team, including the biggest, The Video Fish, Big Scales, Starburst to name a few. It’s fair to say the bait was a bit special, it caught well from everywhere it was taken to the point where a number of very successful anglers from the North West who had bait deals were asking to buy the base mix and liquids so they could have it rolled up for themselves. We talked it over and my friend decided we should keep it for ourselves.

I continued to use the bait for a number of years, tweaking the mix but the flavour level always stayed the same summer or winter. It proved devastating on all but one venue, one that contained loads of tench ! Where it was standard practice to catch up to six tench in 24hrs on the water, I was catching up to twenty five. There was clearly something they found very attractive in the bait as a couple of other mates were using the same mix with other flavours/attractors added but were not experiencing anything like the number of tench that I was, it could only be one thing. This factor intrigued me as I knew the flavour was made up of three ingredients.

My group of angling companions were not shy to experiment when it came to pop-ups but one of them was in another league when it came to bait knowledge, his keenness to try different and new ingredients in the pursuit of the ultimate bait knew no boundaries. I was not shy when it came to joining him and the hours we spent talking bait could be measured in many weeks, he certainly had a wealth of knowledge on the subject.

We discussed the flavour in question at great length and one of the three ingredients it contained had been used in bait for many years, it still is but had certainly never set the world on fire for either of us and we had fished a lot of waters.

The winning ingredient or should I say the most appealing to the carp was clearly one of the remaining two. To find out which one it was I had to wait a long time, over ten years, not that it mattered. All good things come to those who wait!

Unfortunately for me, lack of time to roll the amount of bait I needed eventually resulted in me confining my favourite bait recipe to the archives and committing the cardinal sin and buying rolled bait from a bait company (how times change). Over the years I often reminisced about my favourite bait, it was unique and deadly effective, I often longed to use it again but was not set up nor did I have the space for a mini bait factory at home. Little did I know that many years down the line I would have a hand in establishing a bait company and here we are.

It has taken far too long to get to this point due to circumstances beyond my control but I’m really pleased that we can now make it available, for me it’s been a long time coming. We have made a few new tweaks to the base mix which from the very beginning was packed with taste and nutrition which is always an important factor of any good quality food bait. It is full of goodness, very digestible, passes through the fish easily and is a 365 day of the year bait as the mix will be adjusted for use during the colder months (winterised). This is something I did as autumn arrived every year and I firmly believe I got the best from the bait regardless of the time of year.

There is no wonder bait out there, like there are no wonder pop-ups. But there are a few that stand head and shoulders above the rest; this is one of those baits, The Imperial.

Neil McComb 

Available in the following sizes

*12mm,*15mm, *18mm, 20mm,24mm & Barrels