Many anglers fish without ever knowing how their baits actually induce fish to behave the way they do; in taking bait and hook into their mouths. But if you knew better how to achieve this effect in practice, and how to manipulate it more appropriately at times, do you think this would increase your chances of bites and fish landed? If so, then read on!

Carp anglers are notorious for being sucked into every new fashion they might come across, in order to get an edge or short-cut to success. These fashions and innovative methods and items of tackle, are obviously very valuable additions to your arsenal in pursuit of carp. It's like being a painter with far more potential to create a masterpiece with an almost unlimited paint palette instead of just the primary and secondary colour!

It is a fact that carp are dynamically associative learning creatures, which can progressively make them far harder to catch and even more of an attraction and challenge. This is often why new baits, tackle and innovative techniques and approaches are so obviously effective, most especially where they have not been exploited before.

All this new stuff and diversity of baits, flavours, rigs, ground bait delivery formats, like PVA bags, nets, sticks, and so on, can be very confusing to many anglers. Which do you use; where do you start; what can I use as a useful starting reference point to help clarify things? There are many fish systems to exploit in isolation or in combinations and conventional baits are definitely only one approach. After all even an inert bit of plastic or cork will hook a fish.

Do I fish a single bait approach, or fish over loose boilies and pellets, or use a special spod mix, or a ground bird food ground bait or just use a tiny water soluble PVA stocking or net bag, packed tightly with maggots and ground bait for instance? The fact is that fish can be caught on all of these and all of these can be the best to use at any particular time and in any particular fishing situation. These are all weapons as it were in your fishing arsenal.

As for individual baits, do I go for a halibut pellet, or carp pellet, or a pop-up bait, a bottom bait, a snowman balanced presentation, or use a rig with elements of many different orientations and purposes combined etc?

As you will appreciate from just these few examples, carp fishing can be very confusing, and although many magazine articles are very informative, if you are looking for the most basic reference points, it is usually the simple things that get mentioned. For instance, stick with one bait you have confidence in, use a simple but proven rig for most of your fishing always be confident and stretch to always be improving your watercraft, and your actual practical fishing skills for instance.

You might have noticed that every week new rigs, baits and methods are being constantly pumped out of the angling press and other media. This is great but at the same time, it's a double-edged sword because the way to really build confidence is to become master of a few techniques over a long period of time then adapt your skill incorporating other techniques and methods. In bait terms how do you know if company X does a better bait than company Y? Does it even matter? (I'm just assuming that the average angler does not spending on expensive readymade bait because it gives him that vital thing; confidence.

Confidence in a bag, (or bottle) when it come to bait is one of great personal opinions for every angler, because the truth is everyone has different experiences even on the same baits, at different waters, and many anglers with put down other baits even though they have never even used them, which is a tad bit short-sighted perhaps. Confidence mostly comes from perceptions in fishing, and certainly not from first-hand experience. But it is first-hand personal experience that is the only thing you can truly trust as fact. But I do not mean by this that claims about commercial bait quality and effectiveness are not true.

I'd probably suggest to say at least 95 percent of baits are good to great fish catchers these days, and in such a competitive market the standards in commercial bait making have taken quantum leaps for sure; which is a great thing for buying customers! In fact, the many associations and friends I have in the bait industry are very much in tuned to raising standards of freshness, quality and effectiveness of their baits; just to stay in the game!

Now you might wonder what all this confidence stuff has to do with actually knowing something useful about carp senses beyond appreciating they like a bit of protein or a flavour of a particular form now and again. If I suggested that chilli powder can help you bait be detected from greater range by senses involving various specialised receptor cells along the lateral line and in the actual skin of the fish, this might not be new.

In carp, the lateral line which is so very obvious along the flanks, extends onto the face in the form of the cephalic lateral lines which skirt the gill covers and go down around the eyes and end down towards the mouth. This may suggest that chilli compounds (which are used so much in baits now,) are perhaps even more interesting as more of an indicator of what other bait substances may be potentially exploited in the future, which have not yet been exploited yet...

It may be remembered that things get diluted in water and many chemicals occur in air which are not the same compounds when released into water. What if I suggested that it was not necessarily the familiar smell of garlic that produced the major effects on carp for its success?

What about the significance of the fact that when in water, certain pungent garlic compounds given off in air, including that distinctive garlic smell are not produced? Perhaps you might begin to think maybe something other than just smell and taste was going on and impacting on the carp; maybe something more profound and physiological...

To help clarify, I ate a wheat-free biscuit (and wheat-free doughnut today!) Comparing the ingredients with the wheat-containing versions, the only substitution was that the wheat-free foods were based mostly on maize flour, tapioca starch, soya flour and rice flour. All the rest of the ingredients were the same as the conventional wheat based biscuits and doughnuts, including fruit flavours and sweeteners, acidity regulators, (preservatives) and enhancers etc.

Now when I ate these foods, the bit that made me want another wheat-based doughnut or biscuit after eating the first one had disappeared from the wheat-free products! (What a surprise and disappointment that was!) This meant that something beyond just taste and smell impacts was involved. Something that effected the release of those feel-good hormones in the brain were gone and I really noticed the difference! Just imagine eating a food for years without that feel-good feeling after each morsel; making you want another one, and then eating one which does have this effect. Which one would you choose?!

I don't think you would have much choice; your brain will decide for you, and that is one reason why over-weight comfort food eaters who binge on cakes, biscuits, chocolate and many other foods can't help themselves. In fact many of the same ingredients are in so many foods that in bulk are definitely harmful to the body, but induce people to buy them. Any carp angler knows that tiger nuts and peanuts for instance also have substances that also lead to this type of behaviour.

Whether you term it habit-forming or addictive behaviour, it is just as profoundly significant and powerful when it comes to getting an edge over your carp and over other competing baits... This fishing bait secrets ebooks author has many more fishing and bait edges - just one might well impact very significantly on your big fish catches!

By Tim Richardson.

For the unique bait making and bait secrets bibles: "BIG CARP & CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!" And: "BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!" And "BIG CARP FLAVOURS, FEEDING TRIGGERS, FISH CHEMORECEPTION AND OLFACTION SECRETS!" now visit: http://www.baitbigfish.com Tim Richardson is a homemade carp and catfish bait maker and proven big fish angler - these unique bait and fishing secrets guides have powerfully proven themselves for big fish catches in over 45 countries!