Too many anglers simply make baits from corn flour, or semolina, or ordinary soya bean flour with added flavours... They often have NO IDEA what fantastic catches they are missing out on by not using much more nutritional and attractive ingredients!

* Examples of nutritional carbohydrate ingredients great for use in fishing baits:

* Beans, ground-up.

* Peas, ground.

* Lentils, ground.

* sweet lupin seeds ground.

* Nuts, ground.

* Seeds, ground.

* Full fat soya flour.

* Maize meal.

* 'Sluis CLO.'

* Dog biscuits, ground.

* Cat biscuits, ground.

* Grains, ground grains and toasted.

* Seeds, ground seeds and toasted.

Mixing carbohydrate ingredients together with other nutritional bait ingredients, provides a more nutritional bait profile, and enhanced attraction. They can even boost the attraction of protein and fats providing even more energy when carp eat your baits.

Examples of great combinations to add to your nutritional bait include:

* 4 Mixed toasted kinds of seeds, like sesame, pumpkin, sunflower and hemp.

* 4 Mixed toasted nuts, like peanuts, walnuts, brazils, and hazels.

* The importance of fats in baits:

Introduction:

Lipids (fats or oils) are esters of glycerol and fatty acids and their associated organic groups.

Carp aquaculture often the fish and shellfish oils. They are among the most essentially nutritious food sources carp in carp farming.

With the dwindling availability of supplies of wild fish for foods, the substitution of fish oil with omega 3 (docosahexaenoic acid; 'DHA') derived from the fermentation of algae, is sufficient to sustain growth in aquaculture.

For carp baits, inclusion of lipids at 5 % of dry mix, or about 3 to 4 milliliters per egg, is enough to meet carp dietary needs For example 10 to 20 milliliters of 'pure high-grade salmon oil' per pound of dry boilie base mix.

This is a very highly nutritional source, and is recommended by carp anglers as one of the very best oil source attractors.

For a good oils balance, try mixing equal amounts of plant and fish or shellfish oils together.

Compared to proteins and carbohydrates, carp derive the greatest amount of energy from fats, but fats are actually extremely important in maximizing energy from carbohydrates and protein too.

They are involved in many essential processes and indeed the fats which carp need for life are termed 'essential fatty acids'. Carp utilize a balance, for example, of monounsaturates, polyunsaturates and saturated fats. They all have their individual roles regarding regulation and availability of 'energy' circulation, in the form of cholesterol, blood sugars, and liver stored 'energy' as glycogen.

Carp cannot synthesize 'essential fatty acids' in their body, and so these must be consumed in their diet. This means, in effect, that they are highly attractive to carp when used in fishing baits.

* The carp essential 'Omegas' series:

In simple terms the most important groups of oils to put into your baits, are the two groups of polyunsaturated (essential) fatty acids ('PUFAs'); Omega 3, and Omega 6. The more important, where deficiencies cause carp health problems, are the omega 3's:

* Alpha-linolenic acid ('ALA.')

* Docosahexaenoic acid ('DHA.')

* Eicosapentaenoic acid ('EHA') or ('EPA.')

Once consumed, the ALA is converted to EHA / EPA; these are the most readily utilized in the carp's body.

Typical omega 3 sources used in baits include fish and shellfish oils, cod liver oil, hemp oil, flaxseed oil, sesame seed oil, mixed nut oil etc.

While omega 3's are mainly found in fish oils, the omega 6's are mainly found in vegetable sources. Important ones in the series for bait are:

* Gamma-linolenic acid ('GLA.')

* Arachidonic acid.

Examples of omega 6 sources for bait use are: grains, eggs, poultry, seeds, nuts, and other common vegetable oils etc.

(Hemp oil is an obvious choice, containing all the carp essential 3 to 9-omega series!)

It's important to balance them, either in a single oil form, like hemp oil, or a mixture of oils with different omegas in your bait.

Different omegas have different effects in a carp's body, for example omega 6 promotes inflammation and omega-3 reduces inflammation.
(Some omegas regulate the others.)

* Examples of omega rich ingredients ideal for use in baits include:

* Hemp oil.

* Sesame seed oil.

* Canola (rapeseed oil.)

* Chia seeds.

* Flaxseeds (linseeds.)

* Niger seeds.

* Soya oil.

* Nut oils.

* Pumpkin seed oils ground-up seeds.

* Evening primrose oil.

* Emulsified pilchard oil.

* Emulsified herring oil.

* Ground canary seeds, like millet.

* Crustacean oils.

* Tiger nut oil.

Hemp oil is also rich in omega 9, as well as 'EHAs' and 'GLAs' too. It's nature's most nutritious oil! Fish love it!

Niger seed, for example, is used by many bait companies, at, around 5 % or more, of their boilie mix; it is 40 % beneficial oils and 18 % protein!

Vegetable, shellfish and fish oils great for healthy growing carp and are also very attractive. When higher levels of these are used in aquaculture feeds, vitamin E is supplemented because too much fat can cause vitamin E deficiency in carp!

Most fish meals and shellfish meals that are ideal for use in carp baits are low in fat, at 1 % to 5 %, and therefore make an 'ideal' bulk protein and fat providers.

Shellfish themselves ingest the two important omega 3 groups, ('EPA' and 'DHA') through the food chain, from algae and 'phytoplankton.' Plants tend to supply more of the omega 6 group, and it can help to combine the two together in bait.

For optimum growth and balance, carp require linolenic essential fatty acids at 0.5 to 2.5 % of dry feed / bait mix. From this, carp can synthesize longer chain essential fatty acids such as: eicosapentaenoic acid ('EPA' 20:5n 3), and docosahexaenoic acid ('EHA' 22:6n 3).

Fish need these highly unsaturated fatty acids, ('HUFAs') n 3 omega 3 and 'HUFA' n 6 omega 6 of the fatty acid families. Sea foods are perfect ingredients for this role as they are highly digestible and more readily broken down than red meats or poultry.

Carp need 'long chain essential fatty acids'. These are: gamma-linoleic acid and gamma-linolenic acid ('GLAs.') For example: 'C22 and C221 found in shrimp and krill meals.

In the mid-1980's, one particular UK carp bait manufacturer supplied fish meal boilie base mixes containing high levels of oils with added food source oils. This combination allied with feeding of lakes with large quantities of this bait, produced amazing results over a very short period of time on many waters, because the nutritional value of the bait was preferably attractive to many baits of the time.

* Wheatgerm in carp baits:

Many fishermen hook more fish on baits made with wheatgerm in the winter; but why is this?

Commercial aquaculture feeds often contain wheatgerm at about 10 % of the dry feed mix to provide more easily digestible energy in cold water temperatures. Winter, colder water formulas often have a reduced protein content of fish meal for example, but with the addition of wheatgerm.

Wheatgerm has been proven in scientific tests to have a role in dietary fat and cholesterol assimilation: plasma lipids and cholesterol were significantly decreased by addition of these two wheat components in diets of rats.

Many substances that reduce harmful cholesterol in a carp's body can be put into bait, are very healthy, and are very attractive to carp as a result. These act to keep the liver and circulation healthy, among many other helpful roles.

A word about 'bad' cholesterol or 'saturated fatty acids.' In the correct ratio with, for example, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, these are helpful in the carp's body for energy production. They are broken down by enzymes (globular proteins), in successive two-carbon fragments called 'acetates'. These then oxidize in the cells to produce energy, which is used or stored using adenosine triphosphate.

Cod liver oil is a great carp bait additive. It contains a profile very much like the famous carp attractor fenugreek 'extract.' it contains a volatile oil, and two or more 'alkaloids.'

Many alkaloids are especially powerful carp attractors and many can be used for effective homemade fishing baits for many species. Trigonelline and choline in the cod liver oil accelerate the release of energy from the carp's liver, and reduce glycogen deposition.

Fish seem to really enjoy these effects, and getting caught on bait containing these substances! (Cod liver oil is one of the richest sources of vitamins A and D in the world too!)

* Lecithins to improve the attractiveness and digestibility of your baits:

In winter, it is recommended to drop oil levels slightly in your baits, and add an emulsifying lecithin. These make your oils into a water-soluble emulsion, making it much easier, very importantly, for the carp to digest your bait more effectively for energy.

Lecithins are very interesting ingredients. The newer 'enzymatically hydrolyzed' ones have the best properties, including certain extra activity on other ingredients:

* Higher 'surface' activity.

* Better emulsifying properties.

* Excellent emulsion stability, ('oil-in water dispensability.')

* Ability to interact with starch.

* Different kinds of interactions with proteins.

* Lecithins are derived from vegetable oil seeds, soya bean oil, and egg yolks.

They contain choline (a 'pre-cursor' to betaine which assists natural lecithin production in the carp, reduces cholesterol levels in the liver, and is a major source of the essential amino acid in the carp, methionine) fats, inositol (essential at the cellular level for good functioning, especially in the intestine for digestion), and essential fatty acids.

Lecithins and wheatgerm are just 2 ingredients that can make all the difference, to produce great winter carp fishing results. It truly pays to discover as many bait edges as you can, for this colder season!

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, but reprints with a link are OK.)

By Tim Richardson. 'The thinking angler's fishing author and expert bait making guru.'

For more expert bait making information and 'cutting edge' techniques see the expert acclaimed new ebook / book:


"BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!"

http://www.baitbigfish.com