Groundbait is used in coarse fishing to attract fish to the fishing area in which you're positioned. Match anglers in particular use groundbait mixes to hold fish in a certain area, by feeding them small mixed food items. The fish will visit this area and feed, whilst the angler uses another bait to catch as many of them as possible. The bait can be anything from small pellets to maggots, and it's very useful to have similar baits and attraction in the ground bait mix.
The goundbait mixture should contain various natural ingredients. For example, the first ever produced groundbait was breadcrumb, but nowadays there are many options and different mixes target different species of fish. Fishmeal is one of the more important ingredients, as is hemp, small pellets and flavour attractors. With a little water you can mix the groundbait into balls, adding sweetcorn. Alternatively, you can use the mix in a method or feeder so when you cast the groundbait lays around your hook bait.
Slow Releasing Carp Bait
These balls are then thrown out into the water at the fishing spot. Depending on the groundbait mixture, the balls may break up quickly and create a "cloud" of particles in the water - attractive for mid-water feeding fish - or sink to the bottom where they slowly release feed - attractive to species feeding on the bottom. When they're used by match-anglers, the amount of groundbait being introduced is designed not to over feed the fish, but to simply attract as many as possible to the area, hold them there and stimulate them to feed.
Ocean Fresh have produced two top ground bait mixes for just this purpose; the Big Fish Method Mix or the Active Feeder Mix. Both contain high protein fishmeal and have a binding ingredient to make balls, method or feeder mixes.