Bill Cottam Nostalgia 18-05-2026

Bill Cottam's '90s Photo Collection

Previous Nutrabaits owner Bill Cottam looks back on carp fishing’s boom years across Europe, told through 30+ remarkable images

I have always considered the nineties as being a great period for carp angling, and certainly I have very fond memories of those dark and distant days. My fishing was taking me to a host of new and exciting venues, and I was beginning to travel overseas with at least some regularity. My business life was also beginning to make considerable strides in the right direction, and by the end of the decade Nutrabaits’ had over 220 retailers in the UK, were supplying products to over 50 countries worldwide and had sponsored anglers in over 25 of them.—BILL COTTAM

Quite why I ever thought three sessions on Foret D’Orient would make sense as my introduction to French carp angling, will forever remain a mystery to me. Unprepared, under-gunned and not at all ready for it only begins to tell the story!

Nutrabaits’ first products were launched in 1986 and were Addit Attract, Taste, and Digest in 75g pots. I think it’s fair to say the price point initially stopped a lot of people in their tracks! Some years later, The Addit Range was also made available in 30g pots.

Early nineties and an ‘out of the blue take’ on a bitterly cold November morning produced a new lake record from a Hampshire gravel it. I was on a guest session!

Nothing would kerb my year-round enthusiasm in the eighties, and I have lost count of how many times waters froze up on me in the frozen North.

Early Carp Society fish-in at The Poplars at North Scarle in Lincolnshire. I spent a few seasons fishing Pops and used to run a winter syndicate on there in the eighties. The venue is now known as Lowfields Holiday Retreat and is home to four lakes and more caravans than you can count.

I was driving home from a dog show in Scotland in December of 1992, when a telephone call from Richard Skidmore brought news that Dave Cumpstone had just landed Mary from Wraysbury and in doing so, had caught the UK’s second fifty-pound carp. I called home for my camera, went to Skiddy’s and then we headed South. We did the pics, the three of us went for breakfast, and then we headed home!

I did quite a bit of time on The Mangrove from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties, and I loved every minute of it. A stunning lake, lovely fish and great people. Brian Garner and I had a couple of great years on there with home-rolled Ener-vite, Leek Oil and Nutramino.

The Rotherham ‘Dirty Dozen’ went South to the mighty Wraysbury and hit the jackpot in the early nineties with Tony Hamshaw landing Mary’s Mate and Dave College landing a 39lb mirror during the opening week of the season.

The release of shelf-life ready-mades necessitated a move to bigger premises and changed everything for Nutrabaits overnight. The initial range consisted of Strawberry, Cream & Bergamot, Pineapple & Banana, Tutti-Frutti, Cranberry Nutrafruit and Chocolate Orange.

It would be no exaggeration to say that Trigga changed my life, and the fact that it also changed the lives of numerous Nutrabaits’ users continues to give me a sense of enormous pride to this day.

The Nutrabaits premises on Fife Street in Sheffield. We inherited the building from a screen printing company, but originally it was a CO-OP. It is now a hair-dressers and a beauticians.

I was sat at home one evening, minding my own business, when Richard Skidmore rang to say he had caught the then big ‘un from Rod Hutchinson’s Wold View fishery. I was at the lake within an hour!

The European shows played a huge part in the worldwide growth of Nutrabaits in the nineties, and although they undoubtedly got harder work as my tired legs grew older, we always maintained our presence at them.

The move to multi-language packaging for Nutrabaits made for a great deal of work and expense, but it certainly put us ahead of the game for a while. Nowadays, the regulations have changed, of course.

A landmark fish for me: my first fifty!

My great mate, the late Gary Scott, looked after much of our flavour packaging before his untimely passing at such a young age.

The Commons Lake: one of my all-time favourite venues. Great memories of glorious commons, stunning linears and baking hot afternoons sat under the trees.

Where it all started: my rather smelly bait cupboard in Mum and Dad’s utility room.

The Reed Warblers swim on The Mangrove. Unbelievably considering it was such a great swim, I think I am right in saying I only fished it twice. Having said that, John Lilley was a permanent fixture in there for many years!

Ray Marshall and Andy James busily packaging base mixes soon after our move to the Fife Street Warehouse.

1987 and premises number one: Mum and Dad’s double garage! The neighbours were great, but the smell was a little odd and the constant arrival of artics did cause a bit of chaos. A lot of people who used to come to the garage to buy bait were still buying from me when I left Nutrabaits in 2018.

The spring of 1995 was an exciting time for Nutrabaits, with Nutrabaits users Roddy Porter and then Alex White both catching the same fish a few weeks apart and in doing so, breaking Chris Yates’s Britsh record. The fish came from the mid-Northants fishery. Alex is pictured.

Muggins very often got the job of bottling Garlic Oil, Onion Oil, Asafoetida Oil and N-Butyric Acid in the early years of the company. Mum and Dad’s neighbours loved it!

One of my first overseas trips was with Brian Skoyles to a canal in Drunen in Holland. The trip was reasonably successful, but we had problems keeping our unpreserved baits in good condition. I decided on the ferry, on the way home, that Nutrabaits simply had to add shelf-life baits to the range!

Giving them some bait at Fishabil! The easy-to-prepare combination of oat groats, flaked maize and parti-blend is perfect for this type of approach and has served me well on a number of waters over the years.

The Graviers: it feels, smells and behaves like an English gravel pit. I just wish it was in Rotherham!

The late Nick Elliott and I, along with Tim Paisley, fished Darenth Tip Lake in the eighties, and although our efforts proved largely fruitless, Nick did have one incredible result catching two fish in one horrendous winter’s night, the bigger of the two being The Pilgrim at thirty plus.

Going in for one at a Carp Society junior fish-in at Waveney Valley.

More junior fish-in duties, on this occasion a bait-making demo.

A bit of Lymm Dam success. I learned so much from this lovely water and often think about going back over to Cheshire for a few days for old time’s sake.