Making Expander Pellets with Strawberry Jelly

‪@MarkWintleFishing‬ A favourite bait of mine for stillwater fishing is expander pellets and I like to do these the day before with a strong mix of strawberry jelly which makes them much firmer and less likely to be knocked off the hook by small fish. You can add colouring and flavouring as well as the jelly. I've started using Swim Stim Red Krill exoanders and these work well.

[@blenny47]

Hi Mark thanks for that certainly got me thinking 🤔

[@chrisdado]

Nice idea with the syringe Mark. If you want even tougher pellets try Pork Gelatine powder and your flavouring/dye of choice. Its more effort than jelly but it makes them very tough (they develop a skin), and don't float so a few can be added to loose-feed. If you dampen the pellets and leave them to stand for an hour before pumping they almost double in size with this method. Thanks for the videos, tight lines.

[@MarkWintleFishing]

The jelly I'm using has pork gelatine in it. The pellets I've done do develop a skin.

[@marklamb931]

Didn’t know you could do that, thanks Mark

[@EddiePedalo]

Genius. Have you ever tried sponge (the kind you wash your car with)? It's been a revelation to me. I cut it into small cubes and marinade it. Marmite is my favourite marinade. I love using marmite. It catches everything. It even makes cereal baits like corn attractive to perch when used as a glug.

[@philgale1752]

Mark you made the jelly .. do/did you use the jelly liquid hot or or tolerable or warm as the the thicker the jelly the less it will be absorbed . Also does hot jelly damage the pellet (mush). suppose I'll experiment .. like you .

[@MarkWintleFishing]

It's still fairly hot but doesn't seem to damage the pellet. I cill them in a fridge before use to get the jelly to set. You can freeze them but DON'T microwave them to thaw them!

[@MarkWintleFishing]

I did some in a hurry yesterday without the jelly (normally I do them the night before and the jelly has time to set) and they worked fine, both the krill and sweet ones. What the jelly adds is more robustness to stop tiddlers destroying the pellet.

[@philgale1752]

Is it Krill , strawberry jelly or the combination ? .

[@MarkWintleFishing]

I used strawberry jelly with plain expanders for years and they worked well. Th ekrill also works . I just do them like this and they catch fish which is good enough.

[@DepakoteMeister]

Is this a species specific bait Mark?

[@MarkWintleFishing]

No, so far I've had carp, tench, bream and roach on them. With the similar pellets I've done in the past I've also had crucians as.

[@DepakoteMeister]

@@MarkWintleFishing Thanks Mark.

[@philgale1752]

Don't use your thumb , find a bung . Find something the right length to hold the suction you require and place it between the top handle and top of the .syringe .. No sweat .

[@MarkWintleFishing]

I'll have to find a bung - good idea.

[@waynenippard5933]

Save the hassle and just get Sonu Pro Expanders, no pumping necessary. Just put them in a pot of very cold water and leave them overnight in the fridge. Colours, flavours etc. can be added to the water or even once they are ready.

[@MarkWintleFishing]

It was the abject failure of the Sonu Pro expanders that has brought me around to these pellets. I simply couldn't catch fish on them despite a number of goes last year. I wanted to replace my original very old Sonu pellets all along. These Swim Stim ones, once jellied, have proved far more effective.

[@stevebrand1619]

@@MarkWintleFishing I have some of each type sonu baits pro expanders and the dynamite baits ones that require pumping can't see any difference in my catch rate using either and i don't jelly mine,cold as ice water pump the dynamites or just soak the Sonus and place in the corner of a plastic bag with bare minimum of water twist bag to tighten them up and place in the fridge overnight job done.