Why the ban?

[mancity]

Without slating any clubs/ waters etc etc.............

Why are boilies banned from certain waters Is it plain stupidity and ignorance or is there 'another' reason?

As far as I can tell, If I ran a water/ club I would personally love boilies going in especially the HNV ones as they feed the fish and are good for them.

[Blue]

My personal view is two reasons. The first is as you say is ignorance and the fact that some fisheries and clubs don't like anything thats connected to modern day carp fishing, so Boilies, pellets, floaters and all sorts get banned as result. Thankfully though, these waters do tend to be your match/orange puddle type waters that have about 80 carp per square inch! If you where to ask some of these fishery owners why boilies and the like were banned, you'd probably get the age old answer that they are bad for the carp!

The other thing though with these 'farm type' puddles though is, they don't always lend them selves to boilies anyway. However, because they seem to attract your beginners to angling who might have read that boilies catch carp, you may often get novices who have bought a kilo or two of boilies, turn up, and proceed to dump the whole lot in, whilst in the next peg you may have a matchman whose finely tuned tactics are being ruined by Mr. numpty in the next peg along with his 4oz lead and bucket of bright yellow readymades flying all over the place! Thus, your matchman then complains to the fishery owner about 'Carp anglers' spoiling it with their bite alarms and rod pods etc, we get a bad name in the process and all things carpy are banned!!

The second reason IMO is it's the club ethos to keep a water traditional. Classic example is Fanshawe in SOTAS. The club clearly doesn't have a problem with modern carp angling tactics, and is all for catering for carp anglers on it's other waters, but simply decided to keep Fanshawe as a stalking type water, and boilies are simply not allowed, which I think is fine. Having fished Fanshawe a few times it's nice to turn up with a tin of sweetcorn or some worms, and do a bit of margin fishing with a float for a change

[mancity]

You dont need to look further than Sweetcorn for Fanshawe

Good points mate

[Rainey]

Good points there blue... i was speaking to a match angler and he said he hates boilies as it gives the fish a fat stomach as its pure protein :S

[Stig]

I think Blue has covered most of the reasons but 1 does come to mind and that is that if some numpity decides to introduce a shed load of shelf life boilies and they dont get eaten due to the fact they have preservatives in them they will lie on the bottom and take a long time to break down especially if they are put in ,in winter . I saw an underwater video at some time over the last year or so of the bottom of a water that is/was covered in uneaten shelf lifes .

A problem which comes back to the old angling apprenticeship debate which funnily enough i dont think we need to re-open for the 3rd or 4th time

[Stig]

Originally Posted by Rainey

Good points there blue... i was speaking to a match angler and he said he hates boilies as it gives the fish a fat stomach as its pure protein :S

Very odd for a matchman to say that as when i fished matches i would have loved to have caught a load of fish with fat bellies as they weigh more which when i fished matches catching the heaviest amount of fish was all about

[Rainey]

I think he meant that it ruins the "look" of the fish... he looked at a carp i caught and said ooooooooooo that about 14 lb, i weight it and it was 7 lol

[Blue]

Originally Posted by Rainey

he looked at a carp i caught and said ooooooooooo that about 14 lb, i weight it and it was 7 lol

Important lessen learned there for you Rainey, don't believe a word anyone says about the weight of a carp they've seen caught recently! As in;

"yes mate, there's a 30 pound common in 'ere, my mates nan saw it last year whilst her guide dog took her for a walk"...

Unless you have total confidence in the person telling you what fish are in a lake, take it as a rough guide only..

[Rainey]

Best one was a young lad there saying he caught 5 20s and gets doubles all day... i said next time you catch one bring it here and i will weigh... he reckon one was 10lb i weighed and it was 2lb he thought my scales were wrong lol

[steve hurst]

Originally Posted by Rainey

Good points there blue... i was speaking to a match angler and he said he hates boilies as it gives the fish a fat stomach as its pure protein :S

Well that bloke is talking out of his harris. No wonder boilies have a bad rep with muppets like him around.

Out of all the foodstuffs fish (and humans) consume, protein is the least likely to cause weigh gain.

It's primary role is to maintain and repair muscle and tissue from everyday wear and tear.

Originally Posted by steve hurst

It's primary role is to maintain and repair muscle and tissue from everyday wear and tear.

Spot on, I have a high protien diet as I train hard (for those summer top off carp trophy shots!)
and a having a boilie high in protein will NOT cause the fish to become overweight, in summer however when they are more active the fish will gain weight with a high protein diet but only as lean muscle so that wont cause it to look fat.
And most modern boilies are of an extemelly high standard and contain all the nutrients and minerals etc.. that a carp needs for a staple diet.

[Dan]

A big problem for a lot of committee's is a fear of boilies because they don't understand them. A lot of pleasure / match anglers don't know the difference between shelf-life and the ever increasing better quality boilie. Its up to carp anglers to become a part of these committee's and help make the changes. A lot of clubs locally are run by pleasure / match anglers, therefore rules are made and designed from their understanding. It will only take some input from carp anglers to change this. I'm not saying it will happen straight away but get your feet under the table and start making the changes yourselves.

[IanB]

Surely shelf life boilies go soft and turn to mush in the water same as freezer baits the preservative is to stop then going of in the air not keeping them rock hard in the water??

If thats not true then shouldnt they be banned???

Yet nutrabaits , nash et al sell em.

Once they soften all the little fishes wolf em down, (least they do in my waters) unless the lake is devoid of fish i cant see a problem.

[mancity]

I think fresh boilies will eventually rise to the top and get eaten by birds, but shelfies stay down there moulding mate.

Sure ive read that somewhere

[Bl4cky]

i agree with all of the points above but i think one is being missed and thats spite. i know of some angling clubs and have been in some clubs where the rules and regs are unbelievable and at the time being younger and more hot headed i threw a ticket in an agm just because of the sheer annoyance of what new rules were being made the next year to go with the ones which had already been added. As with what ben says a lot of angling clubs are ran by match and pleasure anglers who are shortsighted in the way of there clubs and i was told by a top baliff of one club that if he had his way he'd flog all the carp in there lake because they're a "bloody pest!". They don't realise that if it wasn't for the carp anglers most of these clubs would cease to exist and working parties would not get done. Much as they don't won't to admit carp angling is rightly or wrongly the future of the sport and in 10/15 years time most of these clubs will be run by carp anglers. Already with the above clubs the trends are starting to change a little and certain bans are starting to be relaxed but it is only from pressure from carp anglers and refusal to do working parties which is allowing them to gain any powers over certain clubs hierachy.
Overall things will get better in years to come but at the moment you have to grin and bear it and obviously if you don't agree with rules and regs of certain clubs and you feel that said rules would drive you crazy then don't join the club. Remember though, you should be joining a club/water to go after the fish and if your innovative enough then there are ways to catch these fish using different baits/methods. It's just a matter of getting your head around it.