Spice Pit Specials

Following up our collaboration earlier in 2021, me and Wayne decided to give it another go and bring his own Spice Pit Mix back to life. When Wayne described which attractors went into this mix, I wasn’t eager to get going… This stuff has been lingering in my skin for weeks. If anyone ever wants to give it a try – Mexican Onion oil is NO JOKE! Here goes Wayne:

'I guess the Spice Pit Specials connection came about in the late nineties. I was fishing a relatively unknown pit at the time, an 11 acre gravel pit that soon became known to us under the pseudonym of the “Spice Pit”, to keep the lake hush hush.

The lakes residents, at that time, had very little angling attention and certainly had not been used to bait in any form.

Initially, the fish had responded better to Fishmeal based baits and I had reasonable success on them, then several friends of mine got together one closed season and suggested a Fishmeal based mix that contained a couple of real old school attractors, one of them being Mexican Onion essential oil and Hutchys Monster Crab.

This new “Spice Pit Mix” proved to be an instant hit for me, in fact, the first fish that slipped up to this unusual and slightly obnoxious attractor combo was the Spice Pits largest fish, an incredible dark marble like mirror, a capture made even more rewarding because it was one of only a handful of fish that was of an original Leney strain.

 
We forged on throughout the colder months and the Mexican Onion & MC combo proved to be a consistent attractor during the colder months also.

Even when temperatures were still low in the spring months of March/April the Spice Pit mix continued to produce some fantastic fish with the added advantage, of using quality Fishmeal based baits, that the fish banged on the weight making them even more of a tantalizing target.

Later, we also experimented with the color of the base mix using the all-conquering Haiths Robin Red. This seemed to move it up another level and sometimes switching to natural Fishmeal base mix half way through the season got the odd extra bite.

 Another noticeable advantage the Spice Pit mix had was the fish seemed to accept the bait with little or no pre-baiting. This may have been the pungent combination of the attractors, an added advantage when early in the season the metabolism of the carp was still slow.

The pit held some magnificent linears, in fact, it was these fish that propelled the Spice pit onto the big carp scene. Between a small group of us, we probably caught most of the stock on the old Spice Pit specials, which was a true testimony to the natural attraction of the combination of attractors and ingredients.

I did some considerable work with the long time bait company Specialist Bait Supplies (SBS) and resurrected the Spice Pit Specials under the name of the M2, which was designed to be a follow on bait to the mega successful M1, I had also worked on with Tony Mills and then owner of SBS, Des Taylor.

I asked Des why the M2 had not taken over the popular M1 bait , he laughed and replied;

“The rolling guys absolutely hate rolling it, often complaining that the smell lingered on their clothing for days” !!!

So, there you have the history of the bait and the transformations over the years that led to the evolution of this bait. It will always be known as the “Spice Pit Mix” to me, but be warned the resulting smell isn’t for the faint hearted but it simply is a terrific fish catcher.'