Most carp anglers seem to be very wary and about bait and its use when water is cold and perhaps under about 6 to 8 degrees Celsius. Sensibly anglers attention to bait and its use is much more focused as carp move much less and eat much less in general in lower water temperatures. In these conditions, the goal of generating even one take is of paramount importance and skilful exploitation of bait is a very serious edge especially at this time.

It seems to me that cold water fishing is generally approached by carp anglers with a mixture of fear of over-baiting and more than a little misunderstanding of exactly what free baits truly are being exploited to do to carp behaviours! A skilful single bait approach either with critically balanced baits, pop-up baits, zig-rig style baits or bottom baits can all work in the right circumstances, spots in swims, times of day, depths of water and proximity to special underwater features or not as the case will be. Bait is like any component of success, something that can hugely influence a successful outcome just as much as the right location, fishing approach or style, rig dynamics and materials used on the day and so on.

In low temperatures taking account of the different carp behaviours is central to success but differing carp behaviours in winter and spring compared to summer need not put anyone off; in fact far from it. Once you get much more familiar with the special requirements of cold water fishing your confidence levels can really rocket as you begin to understand so much more and know more reasons why you are catching or not. Some anglers will put there confidence in fishing more around times when natural food items arte more obviously active such as fly hatching around the time of a changing moon.

Ultimately what really matters is not just if the air pressure is falling or rising or the air temperature and humidity or light intensity is this or that; but being there on the bank, as carp are very prone to changing our rules! There are unseen complications in conditions and fishing situations that can really change the outcome of you fishing. The rise in water density just around the point water is freezes is one such phenomenon which can actually turn carp on big-time.

Even the onset of a new snow storm can turn fish on as pressure may suddenly drop and air temperatures may rise relatively significantly compared to previously, and so on. But what has this kind of thing to do with bait and its impacts on carp? Well bait is a massive subject and there are core issues of what to choose to manipulate carp feeding responses and even to pre-program carp movements and location to a large degree by regular pre-baiting and so on. Of course the main job is to get your hook inside the mouth of a carp and the substances you choose really make a huge difference especially if your carp have never previously been hammered on such bait.

Much of the problem with winter and spring fishing today is that the average angler fishes to a standard approach where he simply finds a swim, perhaps in front of a popular island feature and proceeds to introduce ground bait such as pellets, boilies, spod and method mix etc. But just how much real thought has been put into exactly carp are behave towards this done by all those anglers previously in that swim and how carp will behave to it if you also do it is very often over-looked because most anglers seem to have no other carp fishing style.

If enough anglers use almost any fishing style approach and bait enough then fish will be caught but this simply does not reflect the true potential of what can be caught when much more attention to detail in terms of understanding and manipulating carp behaviour is applied!

Putting out significant quantities of relatively insoluble or less easily digestible free bait while actually fishing, is not something most experienced cold water carp anglers seem to favour very much and this is obviously no surprise! If a carp has an little extra energy requirement on any day of just 3 or 6 nutritionally valuable boilies, then it is a very good idea to have you hook bait right next to them!

In the past it was often the method to bait up with hundreds of high protein boilies and fish over a bed of them and in cold temperatures carp can obviously fill up on these without even coming across your hook bait (which really defeats the object and thus the fear of over-baiting of anglers today.)

This is where the exploitation of PVA string and bags has spelled success so frequently in cold water, but there is so much more you can do than just the modern conventional fishing approaches.

Even the newer ever so fashionable and popularised maggot rigs and their PVA free-baiting tactics have rapidly producing a diminishing returns in results and even produced fish weights reductions,) where they have been over-used by so many anglers! Again we get back to the fact that carp are dynamically responsive creatures capable of long-term memory (in more simplistic forms to human memory.)

Fast-dissolving pellets, maggots, method mixes, active slop mixes and so on all supply plenty of attraction for carp to home in on. One of those unseen things regarding water is the fact that it is the most abundant solvent on earth and that one characteristic of all known living things are in part composed of water and without it will die.

The polarity of water means that it is an extremely efficient solvent and added to its mechanical forces it can break down the hardest rocks over time. When you think about it, the effectiveness of your bait is very much linked to precisely how it reacts and interacts with water; even locally altering its pH, polarity, colour, flavours, smell and even carbonic acid content and so on.

Carp are renowned for their unbelievable sensitivity to not just substances in the water, but to extremely subtle changes to the water. Just imagine what might be occurring electrically in water as a result of your bait being there and interacting with all those dissolved minerals and salts naturally in the water for instance. Consider the exchange of ions between 2 electrolytes or between an electrolyte solution and a matrix.

Just one way of looking at your bait is like it acting like the copper plates inside a car battery. Depending upon the make-up of your bait it can have more or less significant electrical impacts among very many others (all interacting and intra-acting with each other.) Fishing lake water and river water is not pure and distilled so considering it more like mineral water will help understand its true nature and dynamics!

Just from a very simple perspective, it makes a great deal of sense to specifically seek out and apply liquid substances with a high polarity (or at least relatively good solubility) in order to alter the water around your baits effectively. Of course there are many substances with great impacts on carp which do not fit this category such as the oleoresins; which are so very effective in winter and can turn a very cold bite less night into a most memorable one!

Some of the known ingredients in Robin Red and the other various black peppers and chilli peppers and related varieties are just a few of many hundreds of very effective oleoresins used in baits!

I have made easily available a unique list of liquid substances that are compatible when mixing with oleoresins with which to produce your own outstanding homemade bait flavours, glugs, soaks, boosters and dips etc (in a recent bait publication of mine.)

Solvents might be classed in very general and rough terms (applied within carp fishing baits,) as anything that can dissolve into water or absorb water. This is for instance by absorption or adsorption; and exploiting both of these effects in your baits will help bait performance and even improve carp bait digestion.

A classic example is of glycerol (glycerine) which is so especially able to mix with water to the degree it is fully integrated as it were. In cold water when mixed with other sweeteners glycerol can very much aid the effective hydration of baits and effective releasing of many bait substances needing more water contact to be effective and being viscous but a lipid can create an effective halo of feed-stimulatory attraction in close proximity to your bait.

As glycerol is a calorific sugar as sweet as table sugar its success is no surprise either and combined with protein based sweeteners is even better as they work synergistically at carp receptors so prolonging more intense and longer sustained stimulatory impacts! Another example are the Lactose B type of products, such as the Ccmoore one which is outstanding especially in colder temperatures; one sniff and your senses are hooked!

When considering bait substances, why not try to detect exactly where you sense and feel their stimulation, to what degree and for what sustained duration. Does it produce a response in your nose, gut or tongue? In fact some substances are so potent they will blow your head off with just a light sniff and in a bait you will simply not smell or taste it at all but your carp will certainly know all about it!

The saying if you can smell it in your bait there is too much are very wise words in regards to many natural substances and not just so-called solvent-related and synthetic ones... How substances react in air but change and differ in how they are and impact on senses in water is also something worth pondering!

In fact with Ccmoore products it is very difficult to find products not ideal for cold water conditions apart from the very obvious oil based ones (use betaine and GLM or green lipped mussel along with Red Venom for instance) Their new Feed Stim XP is their best ever attractor so Ian has told me, and do look out for the new N-Gage coming soon as it will become as legendary knowing a little of its make-up!

Liquid lecithins are absolutely ideal for improving carp baits for cold water conditions and although it has low water solubility it is a surfactant and emulsifier of very well proven effects in baits. You will do very well to incorporate in your bait soaks and baits, the feed-triggering highly bioactive product (particularly high in phosphatidylcholine,) from Carpfishingpellets. (Ask Phil for details!)

The viscosity, density, solubility, bouyancy, molecule size, surface tension and so on of any or all of your bait substances really make such a difference! This is especially in the ways they can specifically interract with each other in water and at all those vital internal and external carp sensory receptor sites where they really do their job!

Many substances have characteristics that can really improve bait performance and the very high hygroscopicity of glycerol or glycerine is just one example. Another such example is of water being drawn into a substance even from the air, such as with salt or malt extract for instance. Most carp anglers are familiar with how effective many alcohol-based flavours are in cold water but forget to think a little further in regards to why this is and how to apply similar thinking to other substances and uses to create other effective baits. For example, essential oils may be condidered by many anglers to be merely oils like fish feeding oils used in summer for instance but this is so far from reality.

Many essential oils and their natural components compose flavours of many kinds and anglers do not even realise it; in fact when using essential oils in baits the vast majority of carp anglers under-dose them. Natural and synthetically-produced esters too are extremely water soluble but for some reason carp anglers seem to have the need to associate a flavour substance with a fruit of some kind and have to actually like it themselves before they will use it.

So lets get bait into less of an angler perspective and much more from a carp perspective as this is where it really matters! It may be remembered that carp are highly attracted to amino acid-rich fresh geese droppings, but I do not see goose dropping named flavours on the fishing shop shelves; it makes you think I hope... (For unique carp bait secret ebooks read on!)

By Tim Richardson.

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