A ball maker, suitable for compressing a bait mixture to form bait balls, comprises two mould parts (12, 10) movable relative to one another. The mould parts can be separated to bait mixture to be loaded into one of the mould parts. The parts may then be mated with one another to contain the loaded bait and as they are moved to their closed position they compress the bait to form a bait ball (22). In the invention, at least one axially extending slot (30, 32) is provided in at least one of the mould parts, to enable part of an elongate object (34) to be embedded within a compressed ball and the remainder of the object to project laterally from the mould cavity through a said slot, the elongate object being removable from the mould cavity with the compressed ball by sliding axially along the slot after the mould parts have been separated.
