Carp see hempseed as little snails and can become obsessive about them. Soaking hemp produces an oily liquid which works beautifully as an attractor and contains amino acids and omega oils. They are great to start a swim before using boilies to get a bite. The hemp makes the carp start looking for food which can be your boilies.
How to prep your hemp
It’s really important to prepare bait carefully, otherwise you can pollute water ways and even kill fish! Big bites only come if anglers care for the fish. You can cook hemp from dry or leave it to soak for 24 hours, (keep the water used to soak the hemp as this makes great attractor) whichever you choose you will then need to cook the seed following these instructions.
- Put the hemp into a pan of water and bring to the boil. Stir occasionally and make sure the hemp is covered with water at all times.
(If you want dark, black hemp seeds add bicarbonate of soda to the water, 1tsp per pint of hemp.)
- Boil for 5 to 10 minutes and keep watching for the hemp to start splitting (when this happens you will see little white shoots will pop out of the seed) then turn down the heat and simmer until most of the hemp seeds have split.
- When most of the hemp has split, drain the hemp and tip into a container of cold water. This stops the hemp cooking any further and splitting wide open. If the hemp splits too wide it gets a lot harder to hook. After about half an hour, drain and rinse the hemp again and it’s ready to use.
