Now I don't know about you but I want to catch the most big fish possible as consistently as possible when I spend out my hard earned cash and sacrifice my valuable hours days and weeks fishing! Fun and socialising, admiring the wildlife, and contemplative relaxation are free, but catching big fish regularly is extremely costly on so many levels so why not leverage bait secrets to maximum effect!?

However, I have been known many times to just go fishing to get out of the house, get some peace, get some sleep, have a social and meet friends, even have the (rare) drink on the bank or hot meal on a Saturday night with the wife while sitting beside the rods. I have been known to fish entire seasons on a water, deliberately fishing ‘off the fish' just to get some peace and quiet, just to ‘de-stress' and enjoy very lazy fishing. (You do not have to get up at 3 am and lose sleep reeling in another forty doing this!)

But blank fishless sessions and disappointing costly sessions where anglers have put in the time, put in the money and followed everything the ‘experts recommended' in the magazines that week, but still gone home disappointed, happens all the time... Now that is a sad situation happening more and more often to your average angler as increasing competition on fisheries makes things more difficult. Sure anglers' ambitions and desires to catch numbers of big fish can be out of perspective with their angling experience and abilities. (Both attributes are incredible edges over other anglers.

Most people can run or (even sing) but even if you are very talented, it does not mean you will be successful. Gold medal winners in the Olympics are frequently measured in fractions of seconds, separating the best who take their place in history from the far less remembered second place competitors. To underline this point, many world record-holders never win an Olympic gold medal! The English hurdler, Sally Gunnell was a leading athlete from Essex when I was competing in athletics alongside Olympic medallist Eamon Martin.

Sally holds the honour of having had the exceptionally rare situation of holding a world record, being the World Champion and Olympic champion in the one event, simultaneously! (Even so, she was only fractions of a second from being beaten in the World Championship event and had to pull out a world record to win! (It seems that in more and more events, more than one competitor will break the current world record in the one race, which is incredible!) In many fishing situations, catch results are evening out among very many anglers too, but to gain a significant advantage often has to come from within your own personal mind rather than from tackle and bait that is easily ‘available to the masses.'

I'm not in favour of secrecy in fishing because this carries with it ‘clicky' separations of fishermen in competition with each other and life is too short for this rubbish! It also has unsociable, negative, anti-social effects and connotations. On some waters it is actually in the best interests of anglers to co-operate in what they do; details such as how and where they bait-up and what with, fish feedback and location reports etc. The sum results of the ‘group mind' are so often many times the effect of those individuals. Even fishing with one partner has enormous advantages as opposed to fishing alone.

When everyone has access to information on the ever-changing moods and patterns of a fishery, often as a direct result of anglers baiting, rigs etc and fishing activities themselves, results get spread around and no-one really suffers despite lots of hard work and enthusiasm. (Some very hard-working fishermen can get left ‘out of the loop' on some waters where there is serious ‘stitching-up' of swims etc going on, which is a sad negative aspect of fishing today and is totally unnecessary.)

Often fishing success or failure is down to one single small detail and these things really add up. I'm never averse to helping fellow anglers but only if it means they will be able to help themselves more by my help! Telling every detail of a swim, bait, rig and strategy is limited in effect because the other person has missed the most vital bit, which is in learning and developing the very skills which enable him to think and do it for himself successfully!

A good example is that of localised feeding spots in a swim. You can have a rig just 2 feet from a small feeding spot and never realise it. I have fished swims where fishing 3 rods and rigs within 2 feet apart on the bottom and only ever had takes on the one left rod with never a ‘take' on the other 2 rods! (Productive casting accuracy cannot be taught in a magazine - it takes real practice!)

Most carp fishermen are ‘average' in everything they do because that is how averages are. Many products by definition are aimed at the ‘average buyer' because they are ones that constitute the largest proportion of the market and the biggest profits. I believe everyone is born to succeed and born to ‘win' and thrive some by co-operation others more in competitive ways... We are genetically programmed to adapt constantly in order to survive, just like any creature such as carp. We are not so different in numerous ways! In fact ancient teleost fish like carp are our long -forgotten evolutionary ancestors.

In fact it has never been proven that apes are our real ancestors (Neanderthals used to be thought of for instance until recent finding erased that theory!) The same goes for dinosaurs and the origins of birds, new fossils put ‘spanners in establishment scientific theory' all the time...

E.g. attractor baits which fish ignore because many of them detect absolutely no biological nutritional or metabolic raising or mood changing effects issuing forth from the baits. In fact their receptors are simply ‘closed' to many baits. This often means many over-used or poorly designed baits effectively become literally invisible to fish receptors and so not induce any feeding behavioural responses. Often the ‘curiosity' value of a bait even if dyed bright white is not enough for a fish to inspect it.

If a fish is not in a feeding mood and sees a conventional bait with nothing it needs, and which ultimately has low energy benefits it will frequently be totally ignored by carp, especially in heavily baited waters. Why should it even bother wasting energy eating something which may actually cost it more energy to digest than it gets in reward for eating it?

It may have various baits to supplement its diet in front of its nose, 24 hours a day so you it makes ‘sense' they will certainly know which baits are worth the rewards of eating on a repeated basis! Apart from that, there is the added factor of fishing pressures which can turn fish any particular form of bait severely.

On many lakes there are fish that are known to exist but do not get caught on any conventional pellets or boilies etc. such fish are often termed ‘natural feeders.' Some of these fish are small, but others can get to be the biggest fish in a water. The impact of eating rich digestible foods left in higher or more abundant levels due to other fish predominantly feeding on anglers' baits should not be underestimated!

A carp in a natural food rich water literally has food items all around it; why would it risk its survival or well-being and risk changing behavioural patterns by ‘sampling' anglers baits if they are actually recognised as potential food items by receptors cells?' (Carp literally can absorb certain minerals through their skin and even ‘filter feed' on daphnia, spirulina (natural blue green algae) as they cruise along...)

Remember some of the biggest most muscular creatures on earth eat proportionally tiny food items that may not appear to be able to sustain their large body mass. Consider whales and gorillas and giant pandas do not go around deriving their vital energy from high protein meats, but plain old bamboo shoots among other vegetable sources. (Human vegetarians do not count as they suffer various deficiencies, ailments and diseases as a direct result of strict vegetarian dietary regimes.)

Many anglers try to solve problems by thinking like an ‘angler.' So much importance is on ‘appearances' these days, but exactly how we perceive problems and how to solve them is far more important to success, which is one reason why Terry Hearn is as successful as he his and also a very down to earth ‘humble' type of guy. ‘Thinking like a fish' is the obvious better choice! Why not "See it backwards" much more?

Most anglers try to solve their fishing problems by using and adapting what tackle and resources they already currently have. But this requires the skill to correctly identify and isolate the correct problem in exactly the correct context in order to begin to design a possible solution to the problem. This thinking and practical creative process is mostly a developed skill in itself so anyone can use it to improve their fishing results and bait and its design, form and application are much easier to manipulate than it first might appear!

This fishing bait secrets author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges.' Just one could impact on your catches!

By Tim Richardson.

For the unique acclaimed expert bait making and secrets ‘bibles' ebooks / books:

"BIG CATFISH AND CARP BAIT SECRETS!" And "BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!" And "BIG BAIT FLAVORS, FEEDING TRIGGERS & CHEMORECEPTION SECRETS" SEE:

http://www.baitbigfish.com Tim is a highly experienced homemade bait maker big carp and catfish angler of 30 years. His bait enhancing books / ebooks now help anglers in 45 countries improve their results so visit see this bait and fishing secrets website now!