A interview with Dave Chilton for CarpolgyTV, I wonder how many special memories K products hold for us?
Very special to me, I like the section on heavy metal, might explain why copies are crap.

Edit, properly keeping it real.

click here

In reply to Post #1
I was watching it about 4pm this afternoon but I fell asleep but i did get the putty far into it

In reply to Post #2
Fell asleep, fair enough, each to their own, imagine Rod Hutchinson getting that critique 👍
Asuming the falling asleep isn't a 'diss' on Carp Angling history, but if so, shame on you (imo).

Edit, I don't often nail my colours to 'a mast' but DC has surely fixed his place in Carp Angling history, to say not is surely 'nonsense'.

In reply to Post #3
Absolutely not a diss

In reply to Post #4

In reply to Post #5
Well that wasnt too bad
Only missed the last 2 minutes so now finished it

In reply to Post #6
Not too bad....Guess I'm on a diff planet, and I'm quite happy there
I keep seeing refs to folks in modern Carp fishing peeps who've not impacted in such a way on the whole as DC, give me DC anytime 👍

Edit...losing a bit of faith tbh ....sad state of affairs :-(

In reply to Post #7
The video was great. Dave is an absolute legend. A proper old school pioneer. It's kind of sad to see him age really, but I'm happy he is still getting on the bank.

A true giant in carp fishing history. If England had a team in the World Talking Championship, Dave would get MotM each game, a winners medal and knighthood. Top man.

In reply to Post #1
Great interveiw sound like s top bloke in the interveiw too

I still use my original kryston heavy metal black tub,even though its original putty is long gone..

Its got heavy metal in it,but not THE heavy metal....


Kryston Ambio,anyone remember that..?

Who bought Kryston before Summit that Dave obviously wasn't happy about?

In reply to Post #12
Stephen Taska ,of Taska tackle fame ,absolute w****r bought kryston along with nutrabaits .

In reply to Post #13
Ah right, is that why Nutrabaits are ****ed then, big big shame

In reply to Post #1
What an interesting interview.
Dave is still most insightful, and his creativity back then helped me to catch a lot of fish.

Nice mention of the great Harry Haskell (RIP), too.

In reply to Post #1
Enjoyed the video .

I still have a few bits , Heavy metal , silkworm ,ill have to look to see what else is in the shed

I still have some Merlin, Snakebite, Mantis, Mantis Gold and real Heavy Metal left.

I bought a few spools and Heavy Metal when I heard Kryston had been sold.

Nutrabaits and Kryston being bought up totally killed them as far as I reckon.


I do still have another interview on DVD that Dave Chilton did, might be a Kryston product DVD.

I can remember Dave telling me a tale regarding his first venture with PVA bags whilst he was fishing the Mangrove in the 80's he had sourced the first batch and took them to the lake was telling all the anglers about this new delivery system for putting bait out with the hookbait handed a few packets out to some of the rota to give them ago and get some feedback, in the morning one of the anglers came back to Dave and said those bags are ***** they don't melt like you said they would you can have them back, it transpired that said angler had tied up the plastic bag in which they were given and cast it out rather than the PVA bags inside.

Comedy Gold, mind you even back then there were a few that were a little bit hazy whilst bankside.

In reply to Post #1
Really enjoyed it, love a bit of old skool. Well done Dave & Carpology.

In reply to Post #18


old original Kryston was great, probably all our first forays into braided hooklinks.

Used to love Merlin as was weedy grean and quite heavy - having fished weedy waters at the time was a great strong hooklink to use.

Kryston Ambio - used to add to my own baits / use as part hookbait dip, never found as good as old Nutramino though

My preferred hooklink material is 25lb Supa Nova. When I got a heads up that Kryston would go the way of Nutrabaits, I bought up as many spools as I could find...and bloody glad I did so too! The new stuff is awful.

In reply to Post #20
From memory Ken stated that Ambio IS/was Nutramino.

In reply to Post #22
Ambio is not nutraminio

In reply to Post #23
I didn't think that it was either. I really, really rated Ambio.

Ken, I'd be grateful if you could clarify this please.

In reply to Post #22
Your memory is at fault, MM! Kryston's Ambio liquid food was phosphorylcomanine.

In reply to Post #25
Thanks Ken.

Any idea on an alternative source of the product?

In reply to Post #26
Any idea on an alternative source of the product?

Afraid not, but maybe Paulie will know...?

In reply to Post #27
Not sure if this is the same, as I remember Ambio to be red? (can't tell in this pic), but doing a google search for phosphorylcomanine, this came up:-

Fosfor Syrup

In reply to Post #1
Enjoyed that , memory lane.

In reply to Post #1
Top drawer bloke is Dave.

Talk the hind legs off a donkey but knows his onions with end gear.

In reply to Post #25
Hi Ken sorry your wrong my old friend, PPC was simply one single ingredient contained in Ambio, some of the other all important ingredients were pharmaceutical grade liver, fresh spleen and gastric mucosa. PPC on its own is far removed from Ambio. Also Ambio bears little resemblance and is different as chalk and cheese to Minamino which is basically a syrup, to make a syrup you need sugar...lots of it which is why Minamino contained no less than 95% sugar! Ambio contained zero sugar. Hope you are keeping well and safe Ken.

In reply to Post #31
I guess this was the stuff carp Co sold as ambiol, at one point I really rated it. Can't think why I stopped using it now.

In reply to Post #32
Carp Co sold Aminol.... This was LO30, nothing like Ambio.

In reply to Post #33
Nope, the had aminol(l030) minamino and ambiol (thin pink liquid)

must be well out of date

In reply to Post #34
Ah, fair enough, didn't know about the other one!

Bit cheeky calling it Ambio with an L on the end!

Hi all ..... Had a reply from the man himself on a page elsewhere regarding Ambio...Its protein/amino profile when listed seperately is astonishing.. IIRC ,I think its downfall was its own success. Once the individual components became harder to source or buy at a sensible cost, it became impractical to produce as Kryston would have been running at a loss on its sales .

Had a good chat with Dave at one of the 5lakes shows,where he showed me a nice neat adjustable loop knot. Once snugged down it was very tidy Unfortunately I have forgotten how to tie the damn thing lol

In reply to Post #35
When we launched Ambio one of its greatest advantages was when soaked in absorbent baits like fish meals the liquid leached out of the bait to remain on the bottom and slowly spread in the vicinity of the bait. At that time Minamino and many of the other soaks floated to the surface only to be driven by the wind well out of the location of the baited area. Judging by the results that followed there is no doubt that Ambio broke the mould at the time breaking numerous water records up and down the country. Ambio as a pure liquid food was totally unique. We were the first to tell the angler exactly what he was getting for his money by giving it's typical analysis on each and every bottle.

This pharmaceutical reference was a stone wall guarantee that every bottle contained each and every single ingredient but also their exact quantities and measurements...In other words it's guaranteed recipe. I remember getting a call from a Northern bait baron at the time saying we were crazy to give out such information. I then got an irate call from a very well known bait guru who was a prolific writer of books and articles, he was incensed and didn't believe the PPC ingredient existed. I sent him proof and heard no more. He was I believe miffed that such an authority such as himself should have known about it rather than some string maker on the other side of the Pennines. Lol. I published the TA because unlike many bait companies it wasn't made in house or bottled by ourselves but produced for us by a leading pharmaceutical company in tamper evident bottles straight off their production line. in other words we couldn't tamper with it or water it down.

When you buy medicine you will see lots of information and warnings in the supplied leaflet you will also find the products typical analysis. The TA can only be given by acknowledged pharmaceutical companies. Since my retirement I have published on many occasions it's formula on various social media sites and still amazed that that Ambio has never been replicated by the big boys. I can only conclude that it would be too expensive for them or is it that they cannot fiddle with it? Lol. . Ambio came to an end because of foot and mouth disease which ravaged the whole of Europe and many parts of the world. Pharmaceutical grade liver then only became available in Canada and Argentina and due to its scarcity and demand its price increased almost 100 fold. This would have meant that we would have had to increase the price way beyond what the average angler could afford so sadly as good and as groundbreaking the product was it had to come to an end. Yes we could have bought liver powder but which liver? Bovine liver is the key, poultry liver is readily available but miles behind bovine and king of the castle is pharmaceutical grade bovine in terms of its effectiveness.

Couple of things you didn't know about Ambio. We had to add a raspberry scent to it otherwise we wouldn't have sold a single bottle. One of its major ingredients was fresh spleen, fresh spleen was once described to me like the smell of opening a twelve week old grave! The stench apparently is horrendous, if you think Monster Crab would empty a house fresh spleen would vacate a bloody street. When I spoke to Bernie about Ambio he said he loved it as much as the carp did...He did do well on it especially the flash and also caught the big un from the small pool that was eighteen inches of water and eight foot of silt lol. Bernie's comments were ‘trouble Is the flies love it'!...When he was catapulting his soaked fish meals out he got covered in the backlash leaving him sprayed. The next thing was every fly in Cheshire descended on him leaving an image of some poor starving African child you see in the charity advertisements. Flies obviously love the fresh spleen even with added raspberry scent.

Now you know a bit more about Ambio...Good luck lads and keep safe until things get back to normal.

Cheers for that Dave Now about that knot......

In reply to Post #38
Hi Andy its a knot I devised and you can make the perfect non slip loop as small as you like even down to 5mm. It's on U Tube somewhere, have a look on Dave Chilton Loop knot. It's the one they filmed at the 5 lakes meeting while you were there. I'll try to send you a link but struggle with these social media things being an old fart.Hope your doing OK fella keep safe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoqPo5UwlwY

In reply to Post #38
Hi Andy struggling to get the link to the knot demo, if your on FB or messenger send me a friend request and I'll post it to you.

In reply to Post #37
Really interesting dave
The fly attracting was what drew me to it, thinking if it draws bugs out of the water it should draw them under it too


I kept reading that heavy metal has changed, tried every other putty available and gone back to heavy metal as its still the best. Has it actually changed though?

Daves loop knot demo

In reply to Post #41
Hi Duggs thanks for sorting the knot link out for me it's an age thing lol. Re Heavy Metal I'm not in touch much with the new owners Ockert in Germany so haven't seen the latest version of it. What I do know is that the previous owner of Kryston (the less said about him the better) made a complete balls up of everything. All of the documentation Ockert needed to make the product somehow went missing. They had the machinery and the raw materials but not the know how. It took me over three years and many trials to perfect it.

I first bought it ready finished in pots from that wonderful angler Harry Haskell But even Harry did not have a clue how to perfect it. Harry had a friend who was some sort of industrial Chemist but importantly not an angler so for the first couple of years Heavy Metal was certainly heavy but not as user friendly as it could of been. We bought it in 30,000 lots because you couldn't make it in small batches. Eventually the mixing company they used went bump so that was the end of it unless we bought the suitable type of machinery, industry heavy duty mixers, extruders and the rest of the stuff to make it ourselves.

After months of trials I found the chemist friend of Harry's had miscalculated the recipe and was using far too much dye to make the green and brown versions which made the end result almost solid and not easy to soften without the aid of a lighter. So bit by bit I added to the original black putty small increments of dye which was four different colours to make the green and five different colours to make the brown. The end result often working till three in the morning was I only needed 10% of the dye to what the chemist suggested. This made the product easy to soften by hand and easy to shape but importantly far more stickier and harden once in water.

When Ockert first made Heavy Metal themselves it did not have the stretch that my version had and I pointed this out to them. It's not easy to make if you've never done it before. It appears because of lack of communication and the previous owners neglect they were using the wrong mix. The all important adhesive which we used for Bogey was the wrong grade giving it far less stretch and stickiness. The good news is I have spoken to them late last year and they tell me they are using the correct grade now so the latest batches of Heavy Metal should be a near example to what I made.

I'm still amazed that all the Far East copies of Heavy Metal that all the brand names seem to buy from still contain wax to make it stick to the line better, it's certainly not a small amount they use but here's the thing. Wax floats!!!...And if you want to make a heavy putty the last thing you need are buoyant materials in the bloody stuff. Heavy Metal contained 98% pure tungsten withoutany wax whatsoever. Hope this helps.

In reply to Post #42
Thank you for the very thorough response Dave, the varied batches explains a lot. I must have luckily skipped the dodgy batches

Driftwood is one product of yours I miss. I managed to get a fair bit of it from clearance bins in my local shops, it can't have been a popular product but I found it so simple to get a very discreet and natural presentation.
I've got a couple of unopened tubs still but I don't know if it'll be any good by now, the lump of it in my floater kit is well past its best

In reply to Post #42
I was lucky that when i got back into fishing, i bought a job lot of someone who was selling up. In that was 4 tubs of unopened original heavy metal. I was going to keep them to retire on, but after trying to use some of some of your favourite companies alternatives, I've had to use 1 lol.
Although he must have used huge pop ups if he needed 6 tubs of putty, 4 of yours and two of the others..... 😂

In reply to Post #43
Hi Duggs if you find your Driftwood has hardened due to its age not all is lost, using finger and thumb simply work a small amount of vegetable oil into it. Apply a small amount first then add a tiny bit more if required. It should revert back to its original consistency in no time at all and be perfectly OK.

In reply to Post #45
Mr Chilton, Good to hear from you on a forum, I trust you are still keeping well. Many Happy memories with yourself and Geoff (RIP), look after yourself. Best regards from SW France.

In reply to Post #18
You say about that; for some reason I bought some Nash PVA bags, and forgot to take them out of my trousers pocket, still in the plastic zip bag.
They went through a 40 degree wash, the zip top bag had opened up, but the PVA was still not dissolved, some of the bags were totally intact.

In reply to Post #37
Great post Dave and thanks for sharing.

Ambio, the best liquid food that I have ever used.

In reply to Post #45
Brilliant posts Dave. Used to love the Ambio back in my bait making Days.

Now are you sure it weren't just Fosfar Syrup...

In reply to Post #49
Haha Kells here's another interesting fact. When the worldwide shortage of pharmaceutical grade liver happened due to foot and mouth disease and it's price went through the roof Ambio could no longer be produced. However at the same time Minamino and it's variants still continued in production, there was no shortage of supply and strangely no increase in price whatsoever. So here's a little food for thought for all of the anglers who believe Ambio was nothing more than Minamino dressed with a new name. Interesting eh'.

In reply to Post #50
Ok... I believe ye...

I'm of the opinion that Minamino worked so well because of its high Sugar content not it Amino acid profile anyway.

In reply to Post #40
Cheers Dave apologies for a very late reply but that horrible thing called work beckoned...(nightshift ugh)

In reply to Post #45
Thanks for the tip

In reply to Post #50
What has always amazed me is that Kryston Klinik was sold at almost zero profit to Kryston. It was probably the first dedicated carp angling antiseptic.

Pretty good darts player as well.

its not often i see threads like this anymore. reminds me how i miss the forums from 15yrs ago. great stuff.

In reply to Post #50
I'm curious now, were you supplying carp Co (or other bait makers) or was ambiol a copy/imitation?

After all those years of innovation, searching for new materials and new ways to use them, are you still developing stuff in your retirement?

And finally, what's your take on the ridiculous amount of packaging in use in the industry today? At my last visit to a show I had a carrier bag full of plastic waste just from a dozen packs of hooks and a few spools of leaders/hooklengths

Is it really necessary to have the biggest brightest boldest packaging in a tackle shop to increase sales in today's competitive market?

In reply to Post #57
Hi Dave....Any tips on how to the lid off my jar of Kryston Bogey....Ta....

I see Dave has bumped this 2-year old thread to post that I have been wrong in my assumption that Multimino-PPC and Ambio were the same product. Dave has assured me of this and I am happy to accept his assurances. Though it is not an excuse, I am not/was not alone in believing this to be the case. My sincere apologies, Dave.

I think the majority of the bait buffs would agree that Minamino was not the Golden Elixir than we at first took it to be. Our own bait buff, Serenity, has ocassionally called out this misapprehension.

In reply to Post #59
Thanks Ken, that has partly explained the mystery to me of why my memory of the smell was so different between the two.

In reply to Post #59
I would have thought the Nutrabaits Nutramino was a more like for like match Ken? spleen and all the horrible bits, dark stinking liquid.

Minamino is basically Fosfor syrup to my understanding

In reply to Post #61
Wrong way round mate. Nutramino=Minamino.
Multimino=PPC=Fosfor Syrup, and was a part of Ambio.

In reply to Post #62
Not sure about that?

I will see if I have some left in my shed later today

Nutramino was the liquid food, the dark one with spleen and liver etc

Multimino was the sweet one, fosor syrup type plus a few bits, pinkish liquid

I am talking Nutrabiats here

I believe the thread was bumped back up because it was claimed that Ambio was just multimino / fosfor syrup but then it was explained that It was not, far from it, a liquid food

In reply to Post #62
Ambio... was NOT Fosfar syrup... even though there very similar in make up..

Nutramino is/was rebottled Minamino. I don't know what Multimino is/was. Originally it was labelled Multimino (PPC) (see photo)



It then changed its labelling to just plain Mutimino though the PPC component was mentioned as an ingredient. Confused? Me too!

In reply to Post #65
I'm confused now, hope i still have some in my shed to satisfy my mind

Nutramino was a dark stinking liquid, high amino

The multimino in the top picture was pinkish liquid as i remember containing PPC, Phosphorycolamine, fosfor syrup blend i would say

They were both out together, i used them for quite a while, rolled a lot of bait with them in, otherwise I'm going nuts

In reply to Post #66
That's how I remember it as well

In reply to Post #67
You are both correct. Nutramino was re-labelled Minamino. Same product plus carp tax! OK, not very altruistic but the world and his wife did the same and contunie to do so.

Nutramino/Minamino:



Multimino was indeed a redish/pink liquid that was much denser (in water) than Nutramino. This could be observed in tank tests where the redish liquid would pool on the bottom around a free offering or a hookbait.

Nutramino/Minamino is much sweeter.

I seem to remember that Mainline offered a very similar product, though I cannot recall the name.

In reply to Post #68

In reply to Post #68
Spot on Ken

I checked my shed, none left so could not verify

I have some old Mainline Meta amino (Nutramino ish) and Meta stim (minamino ish) i think it is

In reply to Post #70
can you still get ppc it was a good additive ?

In reply to Post #71
Nor sure about Nutrabaits, you can get forfor syrup which contains PPC

The mainline Multi-Stim looks VERY similar to me

Like Ken said, I'm sure it will be about under some guise or another, with carp tax

In reply to Post #72
Can any of you Kryston Super Mantis users please tell me how the new batches are compared to the older batches when Dave Chilton had the company? Thanks. Want to buy some Mantis Dark but I won't obviously if it doesn't compare to Dave's version.

Does anyone know if the current Minamino that various bait ingredient companies sell is anything like the minamino from back in the day? I think minamino was a bit sweet?

In reply to Post #74
I believe Ayrton Saunders the company that produced Minamino stopped selling it a while back. They might still be producing it for bait company's, who knows.. wouldnt of thought it would be to hard to copy as it was mainly Sugar..