Colder autumn water temperatures mean your bait needs to work harder and perform better in such conditions in suitable ways for you to keep on catching. If you want to use a bait that is also going to work really well in very cold conditions of winter then you need to be thinking ahead about how carp themselves will change in response to dropping temperatures - and exploit this in as many creative ways as you can.

As temperatures drop changing those bulk oils for far more viscous ones; of course hemp oil is an old reliable favourite while oily chilli extracts are in vogue; maybe try the Ccmoore version.

In my opinion essential oils are just too valuable not to use them in autumn and winter baits! (Remember that so many great flavours contain them or components of them.) You might be a flavour freak or avoid them in ignorance of their incredible diversity of both components and methods of action internally in fish as well as externally.

Using a mixture of flavours on different bases and flavours with as little solvent base as possible are both good ideas to improve effects for winter. However do not forget that although many flavours may not by themselves elicit a feeding response, they can enhance the impacts and palatability and so on of other ingredients. Using powdered appetite stimulators and palatants is a really great edge in winter baits too.

Many dissolved substances are less effective at dispersing in lower temperatures and considering substance dispersal is a major way your baits attract fish to the hook it needs quite some thought! It is very wise to use powdered soluble additives as well as liquid substances as this means your bait can keep on pumping out attraction and stimulation long after the liquids have leached out.

Reducing liquid egg levels or removing egg entirely is also very effective in many obvious and more profound ways. Decades ago I remember using winter baits for the first time using whey gel as a binder instead of eggs and they were very successful right from the first cast. (Egg is a very valuable ingredient but it is neither totally necessary nor suitable especially in winter!)

Many high protein meals and powders will form great par-boiled boilies and extremely effective paste baits. It is often far better in colder conditions to move your rigs about to locate fish. In such circumstances using paste baits is far less of a problem of confidence with having hook baits on that last realistically in fishing terms on the hair only about 2 to 4 hours for example. If you are constantly moving your rigs and baits you can keep changing your baits and always have fresh baits working effectively.

One thing I noticed from the very first days of using baits such as Richworth Tutti Fruitti readymade boilies was that on many waters they seemed far less effective after a certain period of immersion and personally more fish come from to keeping on replacing hook baits after every 2 to 3 hours for example; you can make your own cheaper homemade Tutti Fruitti or Scopex baits for example to save yourself a fortune, of course and they will not be any less effective - if not even more successful than readymade baits and this is a proven fact!

Autumn and winter fish need work to be successful consistently but not merely the physical job of keeping a bait going in. It takes mental work to keep ahead of the game. How many anglers have considered using uniquely designed autumn and winter homemade baits on a hair rig beside a Tutti Fruiti flavoured type bait? It might sound strange but it works extremely well. This way you can use your own bait knowing exactly how it is designed to work on various aspects of the carp, knowing exactly what is in it and at what levels, and benefit from a proven winning bait at the same time.

Making your own Tutti Fruitti boilies is very exciting stuff and fish on baits like this with your own added twists to the bait can not only make all the difference, but give you a real buzz of personal satisfaction when your homemade baits are really producing well. Although individual Tutti Fruitti flavours from different companies work well to varying degrees of success, why not make your flavour different by mixing 2 or 3 different Tutti Fruitti flavours together (this really works I assure you!)

Sweeteners do work in many ways to produce better performing winter baits. To boost your autumn and flavours why not add some Ccmoore Ultrasweet intense sweetener to your flavours plus add fructose concentrate to your baits?! This simple combination used with a unique homemade Tutti Fruitti mixture of different brands is going to be almost certainly totally new to 99 percent of all carp hammered with more familiar individual Tutti Fruitti flavours and more conventional intense sweeteners that carp may have been experiencing for some years in over-flavoured readymade baits for instance.

You will achieve a more longer-lasting hit at those vital sensory carp receptors using an ordinary sucrose base sweetener too in your bait alongside things like protein based ones. I am a great fan of sweetening bait recipes in many ways simultaneously; even adding glycerine, betaine and liquid glucose or honey, raw molasses meal or vanilla extract meal for example. Flavours and sweeteners can do all kinds of things to enhances tastes including those of amino acids in combination in things like liquid protein foods. Bearing in mind that the winter winner Robin Red is packed with sweetness as is Minamino for instance all this really is great proven food for thought! (For more information see my website and biography right now!)

By Tim Richardson.

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