There has been great history of success in making carp boilies with amino acids, and including ingredients that provide them.

Amino acids are extremely important and are not synthesized naturally in the carp body, but are essential! Carp are, in a way, 'addicted' to these, to stay alive!

In general, it seems a carp's diet may often be most deficient in the amino acids Lysine and Methionine.

In carp farming, fish meals and shellfish meals are used very extensively and form the protein basis of most dietary feeds. Individually, they provide an extremely beneficial, wide profile of essential amino acids and essential fats.

Crustacean by-products are used too, providing carotenoid pigments, which are extremely healthy 'antioxidants', and are therefore very attractive to carp!

The essential 'building block' of proteins are the amino acids. Carp are extremely good at detecting these in their watery environment, and at synthesizing these in their bodies; they simply love them and have been proven exceptional when used in carp baits by top anglers for years!

The 'C-alpha' atom of amino acids carries four different groups: an amino group, a carboxyl group, an H-atom, (hydrogen,) and a 'side chain'. The twenty or so amino acids occurring in all living things are marked by a three letter code.

For example, the most abundant of these occurring in nature is the familiar 'L-Glutamic acid'. (This is also the infamously effective taste enhancer monosodium glutamate).

The most naturally occurring amino acids that can be found in proteins belong to this 'L' (or naturally commonly occurring) group. The formula shows they are 'optically' active compounds and are the ones found utilized most in carps' natural diet.

Some amino acids are essential to carp health. These are most often tested, for example, in Japanese carp research, for individual amino acids tested in solution for carp attraction and feeding response tests!

Heating baits, e.g. by boiling for an excessive time, can 'denature' proteins and lessen their attractive qualities. Pastes are therefore superior to boilies, because their proteins remain undamaged.

In heating, for example, peptide bond formation occurs between lysine and dicarboxylic acid 'locking-up' these in proteins. The 'free' epsilon group (e.g. in Lysine) is particularly vulnerable; lysine is used to determine the 'biological availability' in carp feed proteins.

Amino acid 'ionization' in water (solution), is very important for the carp to detect them, to stimulate feeding, in different water temperatures and pH levels.

There are many scientific studies investigating these effects on carp stimulation, in acid, neutral and alkaline water solutions, in warm and cold water.

Carp are very responsive to the naturally occurring amino acids like 'aqueous L-isomers' of L-Proline and L-Alanine, but at very specific concentrations and temperatures.

Palatability of carp bait not necessarily directly related to pH; but amino acid concentration and molecular structure can play a greater role in triggering a strong feeding response. Certain carp essential amino acids in your bait will vary in their ability to trigger carp into feeding.

This will depend on many variables including how deficient a carp is in particular aminos, which amino acid is most deficient in your bait and therefore acts as a limitation to the carp to utilise all the other amino acids in your bait and other factors.

So it seems best to include the widest range of amino acids in your bait, to cover the most likely temperature and concentration stimulation conditions, e.g. day or night, hot or cold, acid or more alkaline water pH.

Trout, for example, respond strongly to a different set of aqueous solutions for example: Proline, glutamate, taurine, methionine, tryptophan, leucine, isoleucine, arginine, phenylalanine and urea. The best trout feeding stimulation response was to proline, but only at a very specific concentration.

From this you can see that in order to achieve the highest possible feeding response to proteins in our baits, then we need to use the optimum, natural concentrations of 'L' or naturally occurring amino acids in our baits, contained in 'whole food' ingredient form.

Using high quality protein ingredients, we can also optimize their nutritional attractional effects, and induce active bacterial or enzymic breakdown of these proteins. This releases maximum amino acid attraction, which can also be supplemented by 'free' amino acid forms, as in proprietary fishing bait amino acid compounds.

Soaking the baits in amino acid compound, with other nutritional attractors, like vitamins and minerals supplements, has proven to be one of the most effective methods of attracting and catching carp!

Carp will be far more likely to detect your amino acids at the right concentrations when you have maximized their available presence in your baits; so stimulating the maximum feeding response, in a range of water temperatures and pH.

This really is maximizing carp bait sensing 'olfaction' for top catch results; apply this to your homemade baits and maximise the effects of your protein ingredients. You will be surprised at your improved catches of BIGGER CARP!

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 man's fishing author and expert bait making guru.'

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