For so many years carp anglers have been catching carp on baits made predominantly with a combination of semolina and soya flour with any of a mind-boggling range of added flavours. This is about the crappiest bait (nutritionally speaking) that anyone could imagine, yet it catches carp of all sizes; even an ex-world record carp from Rainbow lake.

The very cheap soya and wheat combination of ingredients is very practical because it binds very well on its own or with eggs as its glue-like gluten content is suitable for this and so rolls very easily to form boilies etc - and is obviously very acceptable to carp senses. Gluten is the proteinous substance that forms the bud as it were of new plant life in seeds and beans etc. Nitrogen is the basic building block of new life and the amino acids that compose it. Look into bacteria, or fungi, or cells in a plant or animal and you will see that nitrogen is a vital aspect in with amino acids yet many other aspects of nutrition can be exploited even instead of whole proteins or amino acids and peptides.

You might expect that the soya and semolina combination represents some sort of protein bait and that protein is the stimulation the carp are after. The protein contents of each ingredient are relatively poor and the benefit carp get from these is even worse than you might think; so protein attraction in such baits is not much of an issue and just one reason why such baits do much better with added flavours and sweeteners and enhancers etc. The average hard durum wheat product often called semolina averages only about 11 to 12 percent protein if that; often the white stuff is used which has even less potential energy value because it has had its fat content removed.

Soya flours can very much vary in their protein content and quality too, and can have over 30 percent protein. This maybe seems quite a lot until you realise soya contain enzyme inhibitors that prevent protein digestion in carp and in humans too. The combined available protein in a soya and semolina bait once boiled is laughably low and very little of it actually gets digested and assimilated inside a carp! In fact if you want to know the healthiest option then use of soya is like that of cabbage; you derive far more nutritional value from fermented cabbage than fresh cabbage and exactly the same is true for soya. It might be noticed by readers with their brain more switched on that enzyme-treated whole foods contain a much higher degree of solubility. This characteristic of bait substances is so important it cannot be missed!

Note: I recommend you use soya flour or meal that has been treated against the impacts of trypsin inhibitors! Why not mention my name to Denzil at Formula-Carp (online) and get this special form of economical soya ingredient. The South American rain forests are being cleared faster than ever to produce bio fuel crops and soya beans for human consumption. Therefore soya as a cheap bait ingredient is not going to disappear any time soon!

Far too many bait-company owning bait boys push fish meals in carp bait production but in complete contrast to soya, maize and poultry protein for example many fish and other marine species completely unsustainable not just as bait making ingredients for as human food. The prices of many fish and marine species are really rocketing as over-fishing and scarcity kicks-in!

The popularity of lampreys for various types of freshwater fishing is just one prime example of the way many bait ingredients will be going very soon; try getting lamprey today at a cheap price - or any price for that matter and see what they cost as a direct result of useless EU fishing quotas which in practice are a joke and create over-fishing! UK fishermen are actually being pushed into having cameras put on their boats to observe their fishing practices and treatment of incidental bye-catches because their fishing is simply so disastrously wasteful in terms of immature fish and other marine life that gets killed by crap fishing practices. I really enjoy eating natural wild salmon, natural wild bass and legal sized shore-caught cod because I realise their days are numbered!

Carp bait is much more about getting bites than growing big fish! Yet a procession of carp bait buffs keep on spewing the same old ideas about protein and baiting triangles etc; there are even certain carp bait company proprietors who claim their baits catch tremendously better than so-called inferior baits because their baits have been sorted down to the third limiting amino acid. This in theory is meant to enable carp to digest and utilise more of the bait so it is more energy-efficient and converts into carpy goodness and well-being more than competing baits and gives carp more incentive to take these baits more. Frankly though if such arrogantly called ultimate genius carp baits were really so great they would be catching ten times the number of fish than any other bait at all can catch. The truth is that the actual importance of protein has been well and truly blown out of all proportions and many other factors make a great carp bait besides amino acids and bait conversion! (Yes great baits can be made without any deliberate focus on amino acids!)

In an age where the majority of commercial bait makers are using protein-rich ingredients chosen for their suitability to carp digestion still so-called crap baits containing very little if any protein carry on catching big carp. Ultimately baits are about getting bites and definitely not about giving carp the most protein-rich diet in the history of their species that converts into the most bodily carp mass ever. Carp bait nutrition is all about providing competitive edges over other baits and giving carp reasons to actually mouth baits as opposed to rejecting them as if they were totally non-existent. Ironically enough there are many protein-rich baits that get hammered on carp waters and then do get ignored as if they did not even exist - certainly until they have broken down enough to represent no threat!

The big picture is that is in the vast majority of cases carp respond to mass baiting of free baits over time because they instinctively exploit fresh blooms of even minimal nutrition food because they have to be as energy-efficient as possible in order to survive. This means any basic energy a bait provides that satisfies basic energy for vital functioning will obviously be exploited. The art to bait making with very nutritional value ingredients that offer few nutritional reasons for carp to try them is to choose ingredients that trigger carp senses internally and externally perhaps in a range of ways at once.

Think about the junk food culture that is producing people of elephantine proportions today all over the western world. So much of this basic food is just supplying basic energy value in carbohydrates, sugars and oils and usually over-loaded with salts and taste enhancers like MSG, yeast extract, paprika extract, lactose and so on. Most of these extra additves and ingredients when consumed in bulk over time can have negative impacts on the body. Carp are basically diabetic anyway but the huge increase in the dosing of all kinds of foods with refined sugars teamed with the massive increase in consumption of cheap carbohydrate foods as in snacks, fizzy drinks, fast food and ready meals is all directly contributing to the obesity epidemic. What most people think makes them fat is saturated fats, yet consuming too much sugar and too much polyunsaturated oils both massively add to the equation of fat-building.

Carp process proteins far better than humans in many ways and certainly do derive energy from their proteins. It is no surprise that carp are especially highly attracted to certain amino acids and specific combinations of them, but not all these amino acids are essential to carp and in fact many non-essential amino acids are feeding triggers. This point does show that making nutritional baits does certainly not have to mean providing every essential amino acid for carp, but instead can mean providing a low nutritional bait packed with non-essential substances that are feeding triggers.

Anyway, in regards to carp getting energy from carbohydrates, when was the last time you saw a carp with a natural diet consisting primarily of carbohydrate food?! Aquatic plants although cellulose based are rich in all kinds of minerals and other factors that carp essentially require. Carp will eat almost anything if it has some benefit. The mud and sediments on the bottom of a lake can contain a huge amount of useful minerals and so on, and not just a layer of extremely rich algae or a concentration of benthic organisms. One of the aspects of liquid protein type additives used in carp baits is purely the solubility of such substances and their ease of detection by carp, yet the same can be said of salts, flavours, minerals and many natural and synthetic liquids all with various degrees of solubility or adsorbability etc.

I have even observed koi carp feeding very enthusiastically on grass while lying half out of the water, but for carp this kind of behaviour is far from unique! This is one incredibly important reason why fish originally evolved enough to become amphibious and grow lungs instead of gills, grow legs to move about out of the water and ended up walking on land to exploit food sources on the periphery of their world of water; and thus result in human bipeds!

By contrast, humans have evolved to survive predominantly on terrestrial food sources which being plant based tend to contain lots of carbohydrates. Compared to the packed and tinned dead foods of today the big point about human foods is that naturally we would eat food only in season straight from the tree as it were. This meant that natural food was still alive still packed with all those potent live enzymes and bioactive factors that actually maximise food digestion and assimilation and produce balanced metabolism, boosted health, vitality and immunity to diseases that ensure we were built to survive! To be honest the average couch or computer potato of today is slowly killing themselves on the majority of lifeless rubbish sold as food in supermarkets a lot of which takes more energy to digest than they actually provide thus stressing the system and causing imbalances of many kinds that sap natural vitality. You know something is badly wrong with humans when they cannot do anything without getting eating a biscuit or chocolate bar or having a coffee, a cigarette, any fatty, sugary snacks, or even drugs before or after doing whatever humans do on a daily basis - that is how messed up our vitality really is!

Personally most of the real food I see in super markets are in the health food section! But often even these foods get stuffed with completely unnecessary sugars among other things. Unless you are already a diabetic with a heart condition I would advise to read your food labels or you probably will be (if you have a sedentary lifestyle especially and if you like your beer!) Also beware; if you want to chomp on a healthy hemp seed bar instead of Chocolate Digestive check it is bound by honey not refined sugar! Note: if you think chocolate is good for you just try the terrible flu-like symptoms you get when you give it up that are caused by all the substances which act as toxins in the body! (Ask yourself why dogs die when given chocolate and why their doggy treats are made using carob and not chocolate - you might have thought that humans would have figured out chocolate is not as great as all that despite its high antioxidant potency!)

Anyway, 4 years ago when I brought out my first bait secrets ebook on a forum someone stated in response that there is no such thing as addictive carp baits having not even read any of my ebooks. I did not bother putting this idiot out of his ignorance. Most carp fishing forums appear to be places where far too many smug carp fishing copy cat egomaniacs have infantile wars behind keyboards! This is as opposed to actually posting original first-hand experimental testing and research that can potentially be of great value in terms of helping their fellow anglers. It takes a huge amount of time and effort to do this right and it is obviously much easier for many people to jump on a bandwagon of hilariously misguided and ignorant comments instead! There are very few forums on baits that do not have a bunch of infantile egos spewing insults at each other. No-one is infallible and even bait company bosses can be misinformed or ignorant of various specific aspects of bait but obviously do not wish to admit it in public!

But back to the meaning of real food and improving the catch potential of your baits! Humans carry an average of 4 pounds of microbes in the digestive tract. This is essential in achieving full digestion and assimilation of food and all is not merely about the importance of digestive juices produced by the body along the digestive tract. Carp are no different and their microbes digest food for them which they could not possibly digest otherwise. This situation is just like gorillas, or cows or horses or rabbits digesting cellulose based plant material. This gets us back to proteins and the original old ideas about high nutritional baits right back to Fred Wilton and the rabbit control paint method etc leading to leverage of essential nutrition in carp baits.

Encouraging carp by the leverage of nutrition minus live enzymes or with damaged amino acids and dud enzymes etc damaged by boiling or other heating is should make you realise that choosing fresh ingredients and additves that do contain live enzymes is a very good thing but many will be at their best effect when not boiled to death!

Food is generally useless if it cannot be digested and utilised, except perhaps things like soluble fibre, whole fibre and coarse material such as crushed oyster shell; which all have further implications above and beyond mere digestion.

Let us look at honey compared to good old pure sucrose (granulated refined white table sugar.) Honey is a mixture of sugars (fructose and glucose) and is a natural taste enhancer with a very distinctive aroma. It is a proven bioactive sweetener and among the longest used and most proven carp bait additives in the history of carp fishing. Honey is a natural product that is the complete food bees survive upon so it is good stuff and although it is high on the calorific side of things it has many great features and characteristics that make it ideal for carp including its solubility. It contains so many bioactive substances that science has yet to identify (as is the case for garlic and so many other potent foods.)

Honey has genuine food and health values compared to refined sugar for instance. But believe it or not on some food packets manufacturers may actually state that a product contains all natural ingredients which is completely misleading so you need to really be awake when reading labels. In contrast to the benefits of honey and molasses sugar, refined white sugar has never been found in nature and is called an empty food because it has such a low nutritional food value it being merely sucrose! How many human foods contain glucose and fructose or corn syrup and dextrose for instance? All these provide an instant energy hit that boosts metabolism temporarily but very significantly all these things can create habitual feeding habits on such substances (and even alter DNA.) At least pure maple syrup does contain traces of nutrition!

Animals and fish are programmed by their DNA to exploit energy foods especially and that obviously means sugars. But oils are even more potent in this regard which is why they are so good in carp baits - but vitally, only in minimal levels because high levels in the diet lead to over-loading of fat in and around fish vital organs etc. This in turn has many negative impacts including a lowering of fish metabolism, and lessens the requirement to feed in lower temperatures (and overall in fact,) which rather defeats the whole point of bait! The mass use by the copycat carp angling hordes of bulk oils in baits as in many fish meal boilies and marine and halibut pellets is madness except in the hot temperatures of summer when fish metabolism means most of this is used for energy and not stored as fat.

If you want to make a very cheap homemade bait you have no need to use soya and semolina anyway. These 2 have been done to death for decades and as usual, creating new and unique baits on carp waters will reap the rewards of big fish caught. You can make very cheap baits based on all kinds of low food value ingredients including maize meal, maize protein, potato flour, corn starch, wheat flour, oat bran, chick pea flour, and even vanilla or strawberry flavour custard powder or banana Angel Delight plus other things such as flavoured jelly powders and milk shake powders. Just in case we forget that carp would not care if a strawberry flavour or banana flavour had all the richness of a real strawberry or banana, flavours that we like are not always the best guide to the most potent flavours and many of the most potently effective flavours make the stomach turn! Beware that the vast majority of cheaper flavours are made with a large proportion of solvents and not natural flavour.

Cold water winter and spring baits only require low protein levels anyway because carp do not digest much in such conditions and the level of complexity required to produce an extremely highly digestible bait for winter that has a higher level of protein is well beyond most bait makers and requires a database of the limiting amino acids of literally every single ingredient and is simply not necessary to catch fish anyway!

Happily you do not have to be brainwashed anymore into buying readymade baits at 12 pounds a kilogram or even 6 pounds a kilogram or whatever every time you want to go carp fishing. You certainly cannot trust cheap pellets either because they are the most likely bait to under perform and just waste your time. You can make your own baits for a mere couple of pounds and compete with stupidly pricey readymade baits packed with proteins, not by focusing on proteins but on other feel-good factors and other enhancers and bioactives etc in your baits. Why use very expensive liquid fish proteins and other enhancers and taste and smell factors etc when you can use things you can find in your kitchen larder at a fraction of the price?! (For much more valuable information on making homemade baits and boosting and adapting readymade baits of all kinds see my unique bait secrets ebooks and articles at Baitbigfish right now!)

By Tim Richardson.

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