Ground bait is extremely important to actually turning fish from wary natural creatures into ravenous hunters looking for food to satisfy their specific nutritional cravings for food. It makes catching them so much easier!

It's wise to use as a ground bait base, something which is proven to be a very effective feeding trigger. For example, cayenne peppers, hot peppers, red peppers, and lots of other types of useful peppers are excellent carp feeding triggers. Soaking hemp in spices and peppers is a great edge!

I would add these additives before soaking hemp and after soaking it too - the more the better! I combine powdered chillies and hot peppers with curry powders herbs etc; many constituents work in a similar way to chillies as triggers and attractors.

I'd add 1 tablespoon of honey, 1 teaspoon of yeast extract and 1 teaspoon of sea salt per kilo of uncooked hemp. It is best to soak it and germinate it first before boiling. It's even better if you add mixed bird food combination of large and small seeds and nuts to the hemp.

Adding to bird seeds and bird food ingredients, nuts like peanuts, crushed and chopped at a 50 percent ratio to hemp. I also add lots of desiccated coconut! There are very many concentrated milks of natural types which really give your ground bait a kick and most are not from milk...

Adding various grades and types and sizes of preparatory carp fishing pellets improves its attraction and varied attraction leak-off and digestibility and nutritional attraction too. I do add extra additives like green lip mussel extract, squid extract, spirulina, predigested fish protein, garlic granules and blue or parmesan cheese powder and loads of sea salt and fructose.

Mashed tinned fish like herring, mackerel, pilchards, salmon, sardines and tuna really gives the mixture a good kick and I'm sure makes the mixture last longer on the lake bed being far less soluble and very oily. I add liquid lecithin to the mix and genuine maple syrup or vanilla powder and a mixture of essential oils too, like peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil, wintergreen oil, clove terpenes and pine terpenes.

In total this mixture gives off loads of attractive oils of different descriptions and I consider this a major edge and advantage. Who do you know who uses perhaps 10 or more different oils to really pull the fish in from different ranges and levels in the water which counteract effects of different waters temperatures, ph, depth, currents and so on!?

I part pre-germinate the seeds and hemp first before adding the crushed nuts to soak. I also add lot of curry powders - LOADS and LOADS of this - it cannot be overdone - it works brilliantly. (Adding neat liquid flavours works well on some waters too.)

I add mixed nut oil to the final mix along with a few cans of evaporated milk , more brown sugar and salt and *'instant' coffee powder* at 3 tablespoons per 10 litre bucket of bait or 5 kg of ground bait. I bind it with base mix powders, flours, oats, and bird foods etc, so I can throw balls of it out. In many situations I usually use VERY large quantities of this. Especially where smaller fish are a problem - their activity brings the carp in and on!

It works brilliantly for 'pre-baiting' a swim e.g. a day in advance of fishing.

While fishing I might throw in 20 kg or more of ground bait, for example, over a two day / night session, mostly 6 hours before the known feeding periods and then topped up 3 hours before feeding period, then topping up after each fish.

When it comes to boilies, there are simple ways to make your boilie ground baits pull fish from greater range. For those of you still on the basic carbohydrate based ones with maize meal, soya flour, semolina etc: In a pound of dry base mix I'd use a tablespoon of curry powders and chilli powders.

I'd also and add a tablespoon of raw granular molasses, or if your can't get that, then brown sugar, fructose or a proprietary sweetener now available like Thaumatin B or Talin.

When boiling boilie baits addition of 2 tablespoons of honey to the boiling water plus the same of yeast extract and half a tablespoon of sea salt really adds more attraction to the outer ‘skin.' Personally I'd use baits which are merely scalded or fast steamed or preferably not boiled but air-dried to maximise attraction of boilies.

Boilies are best soaked in attractors prior to use as freebies. Even salted water or tinned sweetcorn juice works better than no added liquids at all. A mix of different types colours and sizes and densities of boilies is probably superior these days for use as free baits.

I always use paste or dough baits too in large quantities as these can be very highly soluble and release their attraction extremely quickly, breaking down in under 3 hours or less. (They really work!) These mixed with a pellet mixture is excellent.

Sweetcorn is a vital part of any mix and can be supplemented by cornflakes, cracked maize, cooked and fermented maize, various breakfast cereals, liquid molasses, corn syrup, honey etc which all add attraction.

Don't forget to add loads of liquid protein ‘free amino acids' like Minamino etc to your hook and free baits and especially to paste for use in your PVA bags, along with a healthy dose of betaine. Minamino type products with betaine and salt are extremely important elements of any ground bait whether used beside the hook bait in a ‘stick mix' or spod mix etc or simply thrown into the swim by hand.

Other great ground bait essentials include liquidized liver, blood powder, fermented shrimp, (like ‘Belachan,') chopped fish mashed canned fish, prawns and fermented prawns, chopped squid and fermented squid, yeast powders, liver powders, etc. Chocolate drink powders, coffee powders and even milk shake powders and all kinds of sugars.

There are many other ‘active powders that you can add including asafoetida powder and tomato powder, liquorice root powder etc.

I feel that ground bait is your major line of attack as it really benefits the achievement of pre-occupying the fish and getting them competing among themselves. The end result of this ground baiting is that you will probably hook the biggest fish in the area of the water your are fishing providing you regularly keep the bait going in to keep the fish competing!

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.


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