Tare, this seed is certainly one of the most difficult seeds to prepare that is to prepare correctly time and time again as the cooking process especially using a pan on the stove is painstakingly long and tedious to produce a tare of the right cooked quality, the best way to cook the tare with a degree of ease and certainty is to use the microwave method which is not dissimilar to cooking the hemp in the microwave only the tare must be cooked to a defined point and then removed and cooled quickly to stop it cooking.

Boiled tare (microwave method) You can cook a small amount of tares using this method quickly and confidently for the next mornings session just reduce the cooking times below to suit the amount of tares that you are cooking, a process of trial and error will teach you allot about getting the time and consistency to amount right so be prepared to experiment, place the amount of tares that you wish to cook into a large plastic tub, I like to cook a good amount of tares at a time so that I can pack them into small parcels and freeze them until needed, unlike the hemp they will freeze and refreeze time and time again without any detriment so before the start of the season I cook about four to five pints and pop them in the freezer in readiness for my angling excursions, flood with at least four times the amount of boiling water and leave to stand for about an hour, add more water where necessary then place in the microwave for ten to fifteen minutes, remove and replenish any water that has been absorbed and leave to stand for around ten minutes, place back in the microwave and repeat process until the tare can be squashed between your fingers without splitting in half, this is the defined point where you must be careful as if you cook them to much the tare will turn to mush and be useless so it is best to cook for around two or three minutes at a time testing and leaving them to stand for at least five to ten minutes as they will continue to cook when removed from the microwave, when the desired softness has been achieved rinse off with plenty of cold water and drain to stop any further cooking, package in small batches of around 100-150 tares as they only need to be used as hook baits and not fed in, place in the fridge if required over the next two to three days or in the freezer to keep indefinitely, if you want to produce a dark black tare add around 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda per half pint of tares near the end of the cooking process, leave to stand overnight add two to three teaspoons of sugar, reheat until warm and leave a further 20 minutes rinse well and leave to air dry for around two to three hours, the tare will begin to darken as soon as the oxygen gets to them but you must remember to keep turning them and to keep them moist, I don't believe that a black tare fishes any better than a dark brown natural tare and I have found little evidence to contradict this whilst fishing but it is a bit easier on the eye and if it boosts your confidence then why not the choice is yours, you will need to reduce the cooking times to the amount of tares that you are preparing the above method and cooking times are loosely based on around one and a half to two pints using a 850 watt microwave oven.

Boiled tare, (pan method) follow instructions above in regards to water quantities bring to boil and simmer for what will seem like forever constantly checking and topping up with fresh water, adding bicarbonate of soda with this method will increase the cooking time by about half again as you must do it when boiling and skim off all of the residue created every ten to fifteen minutes or so this is the way to achieve a jet black tare, be warned this method is very difficult at the end of the cooking process you will need to be extra vigilant and keep removing and testing the tares so that you do not overcook them and end up with a pan of pulp !, when cooked repeat process of packaging and freezing above, good luck ! .

I like to cook my tares so that they are just soft enough to put a hook through especially when I require them for waggler fishing so if I miss a bite the tare is usually still on the hook and can be recast without the need to bait up again but you may find that when you are pole fishing you want them a bit softer so that a fine wire hook will penetrate through the tare and into the fishes mouth without bumping it, use hook sizes 18-14 with a wide gape and you may need to undershot your float to accommodate the tare, fish off the bottom or just touching in normal circumstances but you may find times when a tare fished over depth about six inches will work especially on running water with a big pole float sizes 1.5 to 6 grams depending on flow, the best way to fish the tare for quality Roach or Chub is to constantly feed hemp and fish tare up in the water on waggler or pole to hand.

Maple peas, these peas can be prepared in exactly the same way as tares and hemp and can be used in conjunction with both, this is possibly one of the best big fish seed hook baits that I have found, they take flavour well and are capable of catching most fish, when cooked the maple pea will swell to almost four or five times its size ending up between 10-15 millimetres depending on quality of pea bought, these can be purchased from selected tackle shops or from most seed merchants, they can be fished straight on the hook but are best used in conjunction with a hair rig on the bomb, feeder, pole or waggler using hook sizes 14 -10 or multiple baits in twos or fours, it may take a while for the fish to start to respond on this bait but when they do you will be quid's in.

Wheat, again a fantastic bait for Roach, this bait can be prepared in the same way as above but it is best to soak overnight first before starting to cook as this will half the cooking time, wheat will take colour and flavour well and is probably the cheapest bait around costing only about six pounds per sack (around 25 kilos), use this bait as feed and hook bait on a size 18 -14 hook works well in large quantities as a big fish holding bait especially for Bream, Barbel, Tench and Carp using bigger baits as hookers such as corn, chick peas, boilies or maple peas.

Chick peas, this bait is fantastic for big fish it will take colour and flavour well especially red or yellow, second to none for big Bream, Tench and Carp fishing, you can buy this bait again from a good seed merchant or most supermarkets uncooked although you can buy chick peas canned already cooked which is a fairly easy way to buy them if only required in small quantities, this bait must be soaked in water overnight before boiling to allow the pea to swell and soak right through, it can be cooked in the microwave or in a pan quite easily after it has been soaked, if you wish to flavour or colour the bait then this is best achieved whilst soaking to ensure that the bait is coloured or flavoured right through although you will have to add extra flavour once the bait has been cooked, fish on a hair rig with hook sizes 12-8 over a bed of hemp or wheat feeding only a small amount in as hook samples.

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