* It is extremely valuable to discover as many true reasons why baits and all their ingredients work; and how to maximize their effects for the most unbelievable catches. *

If you regularly use, pellets, or boilies, or dough baits etc, how much do you really know about how these really attract fish to take your hook?

I think it's sad that most anglers don't give their bait the thought it really deserves and most often, the 'average angler' just copies what his friend or the most successful angler along the bank is using. Or he uses whatever 'favourite' fashionable shop-bought bait happens to be 'en vogue' at the time.

To me this is completely missing the point about 'effective bait!'

Its role has changed since fishing became so commercially and the thinking of anglers became conditioned and 'warped' by the power of powerful advertising - telling us "Our new pellet or boilie bait, or this new 'packbait' is the best - it has caught 50 lake records!" Then the following month a completely different bait, a new addition to their products range is introduced, and forcefully marketed!

It is no surprise that many anglers feel confused, and spend their hard earned money on 'the next best thing' whatever it is; the amount of 'manipulation' is staggering!

Obviously there are multitudes of reasons why baits work - one of the strongest is the availability of 'easy energy'. In this case bait merely supplements the carp's natural diet; it's for this reason that any 'non-nutritional' bait will dominate a water if it is fed in masses of kilograms, perhaps by the majority of anglers that fish the water.

Even the notoriously angling pressured 'bait oriented' big carp and catfish fish water "Darenth" in the UK, was 'absolutely torn apart' by a simple semolina and soya flour bait. This bait was made by a commercial bait manufacturer and purchased at the lake by very many of the anglers fishing the lake.

This bait's easy availability and continual abundance in this lake, made it work so very well on this water especially. Within one season at least a tonne of this carbohydrate based, 'flavour attractor' type bait was bought and fed in the lake! The manufacturer told me this himself.

However, as fish wised up to this bait, catches dropped, and then there were anglers who simply followed this current bait 'fashion' and had no-where to go, and starting 'blanking' in style! Some have never caught like it since then, and blame every reason except their bait.

With genuine knowledge of how and why baits really do their work, this situation can never happen.

There are waters that have seen practically every productive commercial boilie and pellet style bait ever made. Mostly catches on these baits seem especially cyclical depending on numbers of anglers using these. At any one moment in time, most fish caught, will appear to result from the use of one particular bait - or method and very frequently, this is purely due to the fact that most anglers are using that bait / method!

Surely the whole point of 'bait' as a concept is to create a 'safe hook delivery mechanism.' So many people forget the difference in quantities of baits fed by anglers, especially in the UK and European waters now far exceed that in fed into fishing waters in the past.

The great increase in anglers and the practice of actively 'baiting-up' their swims as part of the 'modern' carp fishing method has massively multiplied and exaggerated the effects of fishermens' baits. ('Mass baiting' a swim with far more than just half a pint of boilies, or pellets as 'free offerings' is simply another 'method' is it not?)

In the case of overstocked waters, hopefully baits with no harmful side effects, (and preferably health promoting effects,) are eaten with confidence. But are they?

Even with the balanced food baits or old concept of high nutritional baits ('HNV') style baits; it's the same mission; to deliver a hook into a fish's mouth. (And not to give the fish various expensive baits with 'optimum nutrition values' for the sake of their 'health.') Are not anglers' baits specifically meant to hook fish, and only incidentally supplement the carps' natural diet so promoting fish growth gains?

Only on 'unbalanced waters' like those that are well overstocked for the volume of water available, that perhaps some 'bait dependence' sets in and natural growth and weight gains are exaggerated. (Obviously, anglers' like this 'artificial produced' situation on heavily fished waters, because the fish they catch just keep getting bigger, artificially faster, which is certainly a continuing egos boost for the captors!

I have tested baits on pressured 'bait oriented waters' and hooked big fish immediately on new baits. Carp instinctively are drawn towards baits that exploit their own 'food' detecting receptors - especially those 'positive' for proteins, minerals, vitamins and 'saccharide' sweeteners for example. Notably, carp are especially sensitive to 'sensing' amino acids 'signals' via receptor sites all around their bodies, using at least 4 different specialized neural networks in this process.

Any bait you use could hook a fish immediately, if it stimulates a confident feeding or even 'curiosity' response, and there are thousands of permutations of baits and lures all round the world for doing this!

Your bait does not necessarily need any particular individual ingredient to be successful. A bait that has been given no flavour, no protein, no oil source, no additives etc, will still produce 'bites' in the right fishing situation. For example, the use of plastic sweetcorn!

Anglers don't need to be too scientifically technical to make great productive baits. But it is a massive advantage to really understand how your baits affect carp or catfish in specific ways, to stimulate the most dramatic immediate feeding response. This is knowledge is 'true' fishing enlightenment because it can convert into far better catches.

Most anglers do not know or care how their baits 'tempt' and catch their fish. This presents a real opportunity for those curious enough to find out and exploit these 'secrets' for maximum effect!

Great power comes with developing an awareness of the broad 'alternative opportunities' for making 'different' baits that really catch fish; because they are different to 'the norm', and also perhaps stimulate a fish in slightly unusual you're Your bait might work either instantly while actually fishing, or after a period of 'pre-baiting' with 'free baits' in advance.

Baits can be so vastly different in the way they are recognised as food and in how they can 'trigger' a search and feeding response whether carp, trout, catfish, or bass.

For example I persisted in fishing using one version of a homemade bait, which I believed would work extremely well on a particularly hard fished 'pressured' water. But this bait did not even produce a 'bite' for 7 separate individual nights spread over a period of 7 weeks!

Just as I had nearly 'given-up' faith, I 'free fed' 7 kilograms of this boilie bait, at the start of the last night of fishing, to see if much more bait was really required for a response in this lake. It was also the very last of this homemade batch that I had made so I was puzzled by this stage by the lack of fish caught.

Previously I had only been 'feeding free baits' while actually fishing; with 2 kilograms of bait at the start of a night's fishing session. Well that penultimate night the fish finally got the 'message.' Some of the lake's biggest carp succumbed to this 'failure' bait that night!

Tactics for very big waters and smaller waters need to differ - because often your baits absolutely need to pull fish from extreme distances. I have found that some ingredients do this far more powerfully than others, and it is the 'mechanism' of how this works that is significant to success.

Otherwise it's often the 'old routine,' of finding actual or 'likely' feeding spots and regularly baiting those areas, until the fish get in the habit of visiting with the purpose of eating your bait - if they ever do! This can take more time and fishing bait to test different areas, than you may have available.

It really helps to understand far more about 'why' baits make fish behave the way they do. Like most anglers, I have used 'shop-bought baits of many kinds and there are many benefits of this habit. (But there are definite disadvantages too.)

In the UK the very biggest carp or catfish often get caught on the most frequently heavily baited areas, even if they have long since been 'eaten out' of natural food. (Where the fish would normally have moved on to regularly feed elsewhere.) In this situation, a complete beginner using a commonly used 'shop-bought' bait, can cast to the vicinity of this spot and get 'beginner's luck' in the form of the lake's biggest resident!

With using 'shop-bought' though thing can just become too easy and catch numbers orientated rather than in appreciating and enjoying the fishing process. One of the major disadvantages is the fact we lose some aspect of the joy of fishing that comes from catching your personal best fish, time and time again, on baits you designed and made yourself. (And knowing why they worked successfully!)

Sure, it is a busy world, and it takes time to experiment with making bait, but fishing is an art form and a passion and not just a 'results orientated sport.'

Very many bait-making anglers are more successful than 'average anglers.' They know it pays great dividends to make records and give close attention to every detail that could give them an 'edge.' This is not so much about achieving results; but how they are achieved. These lucky anglers reaps rewards in terms of satisfaction that cannot be measured!

We all go fishing to enjoy it, so why not enjoy it even more; and actually gain far more control over your catches and increase your personal satisfaction by discovering more, how your bait influences fish behaviour and responses.

If only you know how your 'personal bait' works, and what ingredients you are using; your bait won't 'blow' because everyone else is using it! I find catching on a 'shop-bait' to be far less exciting, and OK they may catch fish, but how much more have learnt and enjoyed the experience?

As international angler Kevin Maddocks once said (in so many words,) "It is just as important to understand the reasons why you don't catch fish, as why you do!"

I know that just one scientific insight or scientific new nutritional revelation can improve an individual angler's catches and often, the size of fish caught too! Don't we owe it to ourselves to understand more? After all, we get what we give!

Of course, on the great rivers and lakes in the States, Canada, or Europe, there are many waters that are so vastly stocked and so little fished, (especially for carp) that any bait will catch fish of various sizes!

The key to very big catches of large numbers of fish, (and therefore perhaps, greater numbers of bigger fish,) is then solely determined by the length of time those fish remain feeding in your swim before moving on. It would take too much money to 'hold them' with 'dough' baits, boilies or even pellets, except for the wealthiest fishermen.

Even when using maize as chum 'free bait,' there is a physical limit to the amount of kilograms of maize you can physically feed a swim with, in order to hold a large number of carp in your swim, while fishing for them. With such intense activity, 'angler exhaustion is inevitable!'

Waters of the opposite extreme contain 'highly educated' fish. This has resulted fish by being caught by anglers over long years, in a highly pressured angling environment. As in pay lakes, syndicate lakes, and other commercial waters run for a profit. This is truly where homemade baits, knowledge, and understanding of how your own bait works is and added 'edge.' Knowing how best to leverage and apply it correctly, in direct response to what the 'majority' are doing, is a major advantage.

I am not against 'shop-baits,' these are allowing 'instant' anglers the opportunity to sample the delights of catching very big fish. But it is sad how the easy availability of products can induce a 'conditioned expectation' of great results for very little effort input, where everything can be 'bought off the shelf.' In contrast, the greatest appreciation and satisfaction in any endeavour are actually earned.

'Average' angling ability, knowledge, tackle and the methods used to catch fish, can be very similar, when compared among the fishermen at any single water. But bait knowledge can be a huge 'edge.' Consistently producing 'above average catches' of big fish for the 'minority angler,' who is better educated and really knows how to exploit bait and apply it creatively.

The author has many more fishing and bait 'edges' up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article is protected by copyright.)

By Tim Richardson. 'The thinking fisherman's expert bait making guru.'

*** FOR MORE INFORMATION AND THE NEW POWERFUL EXPERT BAIT MAKING BOOK SEE:


"BIG CARP BAIT MAKING SECRETS!"

http://www.baitbigfish.com