Fishing the River For Large Carp

One of the most important points to get right when river fishing for carp is to know exactly where to fish. In other words, location, location, location!

You want to locate a good feature somewhere along the river. These can be very similar to those found in lakes and ponds. Places where carp can hold up in piece and quiet are good places to start, especially if there is some kind of coverage.

Some features worth looking for are:

reed beds overhanging trees flowing water water outlet or inlets

Overhanging trees and reeds can be common along a river so you may need to find those that have further potential to them. As an example, overhanging bushes or trees that are in places where the river meets another water body may be productive features. The currents often help deposit food sources around the edges where both the flows meet together.

Weed beds and lily pads can be some great features to find on rivers as well as in many lakes. The weed beds help "catch" and hold food items in place, thus, there is a reason why carp may come back to visit them on a regular basis.

Fast flowing water can be great places in the summer, the water gets oxygenated at these places and as a result draw in many carp. Weirs can also be a productive feature for carp fishing on rivers as well as large groups of moored boats. These offer carp some security and warmth, as well as food sources so don't be afraid to fish by moored up boats, especially during the colder months as boat owners may not use them as much. This makes these areas fairly quiet for carp to become settled for a few months.

Fishing the river margins can produce good results to. River margins will often drop-off quickly to form a shelf where food items can gather together and provide fish with regular supplies of food. Placing a fishing rig at the bottom of the shelf can produce numerous carp catches.

Other areas that can gather food items are in the snags. Margin snags on rivers will hold food items as they try to pass through. Snags also provide good shelter for many river carp. Learn more about fishing snags for large carp.

Remember that seeing carp jump out the water may not be the best way to select where to fish. On a river the carp can move out very quickly. I feel it may be best to stick to those features that have the potential to hold carp, such as those which offer a regular food source or coverage rather than waiting to see fish jump. By all means, cast to fish that jump once you are fishing, but I wouldn't use that sight as to where I choose to set up.

As a baiting tactic, I feel it's very important to pre-bait a potential swim 2 or 3 days before fishing the river. This is a great way to hold any passing carp in your chosen area. Pre-baiting also helps to "clear" the area from the smaller fish, and you can then present a bait better for when carp move in.

Keep in mind that river carp are much more active than those in lakes. This is because they need to constantly adjust themselves due to the water currents, and means they need to ingest more energy, and thus food. For this reason, a very good spot that provides them with regular food will be a potential river hotspot!

Wayne Mcgregor has had years of experience fishing for carp in the UK. He has caught carp from many types of lakes and pools around England. His website reveals tons of ideas and tactics on how to catch more carp.

http://www.carp-fishing-tactics.com

Make Cheap Homemade Carp Boilies and Avoid Expensive Readymade Baits Forever!

If you have been brainwashed into thinking that carp baits are all about protein then you are badly mistaken. Certain bait company bosses would love you to think that carp baits have to be packed with expensive proteins so they can justify over-pricing their products. The fact is that carp baits catch carp all over the world that contain barely any protein at all! Winter baits especially do not need barely any (if any) protein to be successful - so read on and get the unbiased truth about very cheap highly effective carp baits!

For so many years carp anglers have been catching carp on baits made predominantly with a combination of semolina and soya flour with any of a mind-boggling range of added flavours. This is about the crappiest bait (nutritionally speaking) that anyone could imagine, yet it catches carp of all sizes; even an ex-world record carp from Rainbow lake.

The very cheap soya and wheat combination of ingredients is very practical because it binds very well on its own or with eggs as its glue-like gluten content is suitable for this and so rolls very easily to form boilies etc - and is obviously very acceptable to carp senses. Gluten is the proteinous substance that forms the bud as it were of new plant life in seeds and beans etc. Nitrogen is the basic building block of new life and the amino acids that compose it. Look into bacteria, or fungi, or cells in a plant or animal and you will see that nitrogen is a vital aspect in with amino acids yet many other aspects of nutrition can be exploited even instead of whole proteins or amino acids and peptides.

You might expect that the soya and semolina combination represents some sort of protein bait and that protein is the stimulation the carp are after. The protein contents of each ingredient are relatively poor and the benefit carp get from these is even worse than you might think; so protein attraction in such baits is not much of an issue and just one reason why such baits do much better with added flavours and sweeteners and enhancers etc. The average hard durum wheat product often called semolina averages only about 11 to 12 percent protein if that; often the white stuff is used which has even less potential energy value because it has had its fat content removed.

Soya flours can very much vary in their protein content and quality too, and can have over 30 percent protein. This maybe seems quite a lot until you realise soya contain enzyme inhibitors that prevent protein digestion in carp and in humans too. The combined available protein in a soya and semolina bait once boiled is laughably low and very little of it actually gets digested and assimilated inside a carp! In fact if you want to know the healthiest option then use of soya is like that of cabbage; you derive far more nutritional value from fermented cabbage than fresh cabbage and exactly the same is true for soya. It might be noticed by readers with their brain more switched on that enzyme-treated whole foods contain a much higher degree of solubility. This characteristic of bait substances is so important it cannot be missed!

Note: I recommend you use soya flour or meal that has been treated against the impacts of trypsin inhibitors! Why not mention my name to Denzil at Formula-Carp (online) and get this special form of economical soya ingredient. The South American rain forests are being cleared faster than ever to produce bio fuel crops and soya beans for human consumption. Therefore soya as a cheap bait ingredient is not going to disappear any time soon!

Far too many bait-company owning bait boys push fish meals in carp bait production but in complete contrast to soya, maize and poultry protein for example many fish and other marine species completely unsustainable not just as bait making ingredients for as human food. The prices of many fish and marine species are really rocketing as over-fishing and scarcity kicks-in!

The popularity of lampreys for various types of freshwater fishing is just one prime example of the way many bait ingredients will be going very soon; try getting lamprey today at a cheap price - or any price for that matter and see what they cost as a direct result of useless EU fishing quotas which in practice are a joke and create over-fishing! UK fishermen are actually being pushed into having cameras put on their boats to observe their fishing practices and treatment of incidental bye-catches because their fishing is simply so disastrously wasteful in terms of immature fish and other marine life that gets killed by crap fishing practices. I really enjoy eating natural wild salmon, natural wild bass and legal sized shore-caught cod because I realise their days are numbered!

Carp bait is much more about getting bites than growing big fish! Yet a procession of carp bait buffs keep on spewing the same old ideas about protein and baiting triangles etc; there are even certain carp bait company proprietors who claim their baits catch tremendously better than so-called inferior baits because their baits have been sorted down to the third limiting amino acid. This in theory is meant to enable carp to digest and utilise more of the bait so it is more energy-efficient and converts into carpy goodness and well-being more than competing baits and gives carp more incentive to take these baits more. Frankly though if such arrogantly called ultimate genius carp baits were really so great they would be catching ten times the number of fish than any other bait at all can catch. The truth is that the actual importance of protein has been well and truly blown out of all proportions and many other factors make a great carp bait besides amino acids and bait conversion! (Yes great baits can be made without any deliberate focus on amino acids!)

In an age where the majority of commercial bait makers are using protein-rich ingredients chosen for their suitability to carp digestion still so-called crap baits containing very little if any protein carry on catching big carp. Ultimately baits are about getting bites and definitely not about giving carp the most protein-rich diet in the history of their species that converts into the most bodily carp mass ever. Carp bait nutrition is all about providing competitive edges over other baits and giving carp reasons to actually mouth baits as opposed to rejecting them as if they were totally non-existent. Ironically enough there are many protein-rich baits that get hammered on carp waters and then do get ignored as if they did not even exist - certainly until they have broken down enough to represent no threat!

The big picture is that is in the vast majority of cases carp respond to mass baiting of free baits over time because they instinctively exploit fresh blooms of even minimal nutrition food because they have to be as energy-efficient as possible in order to survive. This means any basic energy a bait provides that satisfies basic energy for vital functioning will obviously be exploited. The art to bait making with very nutritional value ingredients that offer few nutritional reasons for carp to try them is to choose ingredients that trigger carp senses internally and externally perhaps in a range of ways at once.

Think about the junk food culture that is producing people of elephantine proportions today all over the western world. So much of this basic food is just supplying basic energy value in carbohydrates, sugars and oils and usually over-loaded with salts and taste enhancers like MSG, yeast extract, paprika extract, lactose and so on. Most of these extra additves and ingredients when consumed in bulk over time can have negative impacts on the body. Carp are basically diabetic anyway but the huge increase in the dosing of all kinds of foods with refined sugars teamed with the massive increase in consumption of cheap carbohydrate foods as in snacks, fizzy drinks, fast food and ready meals is all directly contributing to the obesity epidemic. What most people think makes them fat is saturated fats, yet consuming too much sugar and too much polyunsaturated oils both massively add to the equation of fat-building.

Carp process proteins far better than humans in many ways and certainly do derive energy from their proteins. It is no surprise that carp are especially highly attracted to certain amino acids and specific combinations of them, but not all these amino acids are essential to carp and in fact many non-essential amino acids are feeding triggers. This point does show that making nutritional baits does certainly not have to mean providing every essential amino acid for carp, but instead can mean providing a low nutritional bait packed with non-essential substances that are feeding triggers.

Anyway, in regards to carp getting energy from carbohydrates, when was the last time you saw a carp with a natural diet consisting primarily of carbohydrate food?! Aquatic plants although cellulose based are rich in all kinds of minerals and other factors that carp essentially require. Carp will eat almost anything if it has some benefit. The mud and sediments on the bottom of a lake can contain a huge amount of useful minerals and so on, and not just a layer of extremely rich algae or a concentration of benthic organisms. One of the aspects of liquid protein type additives used in carp baits is purely the solubility of such substances and their ease of detection by carp, yet the same can be said of salts, flavours, minerals and many natural and synthetic liquids all with various degrees of solubility or adsorbability etc.

I have even observed koi carp feeding very enthusiastically on grass while lying half out of the water, but for carp this kind of behaviour is far from unique! This is one incredibly important reason why fish originally evolved enough to become amphibious and grow lungs instead of gills, grow legs to move about out of the water and ended up walking on land to exploit food sources on the periphery of their world of water; and thus result in human bipeds!

By contrast, humans have evolved to survive predominantly on terrestrial food sources which being plant based tend to contain lots of carbohydrates. Compared to the packed and tinned dead foods of today the big point about human foods is that naturally we would eat food only in season straight from the tree as it were. This meant that natural food was still alive still packed with all those potent live enzymes and bioactive factors that actually maximise food digestion and assimilation and produce balanced metabolism, boosted health, vitality and immunity to diseases that ensure we were built to survive! To be honest the average couch or computer potato of today is slowly killing themselves on the majority of lifeless rubbish sold as food in supermarkets a lot of which takes more energy to digest than they actually provide thus stressing the system and causing imbalances of many kinds that sap natural vitality. You know something is badly wrong with humans when they cannot do anything without getting eating a biscuit or chocolate bar or having a coffee, a cigarette, any fatty, sugary snacks, or even drugs before or after doing whatever humans do on a daily basis - that is how messed up our vitality really is!

Personally most of the real food I see in super markets are in the health food section! But often even these foods get stuffed with completely unnecessary sugars among other things. Unless you are already a diabetic with a heart condition I would advise to read your food labels or you probably will be (if you have a sedentary lifestyle especially and if you like your beer!) Also beware; if you want to chomp on a healthy hemp seed bar instead of Chocolate Digestive check it is bound by honey not refined sugar! Note: if you think chocolate is good for you just try the terrible flu-like symptoms you get when you give it up that are caused by all the substances which act as toxins in the body! (Ask yourself why dogs die when given chocolate and why their doggy treats are made using carob and not chocolate - you might have thought that humans would have figured out chocolate is not as great as all that despite its high antioxidant potency!)

Anyway, 4 years ago when I brought out my first bait secrets ebook on a forum someone stated in response that there is no such thing as addictive carp baits having not even read any of my ebooks. I did not bother putting this idiot out of his ignorance. Most carp fishing forums appear to be places where far too many smug carp fishing copy cat egomaniacs have infantile wars behind keyboards! This is as opposed to actually posting original first-hand experimental testing and research that can potentially be of great value in terms of helping their fellow anglers. It takes a huge amount of time and effort to do this right and it is obviously much easier for many people to jump on a bandwagon of hilariously misguided and ignorant comments instead! There are very few forums on baits that do not have a bunch of infantile egos spewing insults at each other. No-one is infallible and even bait company bosses can be misinformed or ignorant of various specific aspects of bait but obviously do not wish to admit it in public!

But back to the meaning of real food and improving the catch potential of your baits! Humans carry an average of 4 pounds of microbes in the digestive tract. This is essential in achieving full digestion and assimilation of food and all is not merely about the importance of digestive juices produced by the body along the digestive tract. Carp are no different and their microbes digest food for them which they could not possibly digest otherwise. This situation is just like gorillas, or cows or horses or rabbits digesting cellulose based plant material. This gets us back to proteins and the original old ideas about high nutritional baits right back to Fred Wilton and the rabbit control paint method etc leading to leverage of essential nutrition in carp baits.

Encouraging carp by the leverage of nutrition minus live enzymes or with damaged amino acids and dud enzymes etc damaged by boiling or other heating is should make you realise that choosing fresh ingredients and additves that do contain live enzymes is a very good thing but many will be at their best effect when not boiled to death!

Food is generally useless if it cannot be digested and utilised, except perhaps things like soluble fibre, whole fibre and coarse material such as crushed oyster shell; which all have further implications above and beyond mere digestion.

Let us look at honey compared to good old pure sucrose (granulated refined white table sugar.) Honey is a mixture of sugars (fructose and glucose) and is a natural taste enhancer with a very distinctive aroma. It is a proven bioactive sweetener and among the longest used and most proven carp bait additives in the history of carp fishing. Honey is a natural product that is the complete food bees survive upon so it is good stuff and although it is high on the calorific side of things it has many great features and characteristics that make it ideal for carp including its solubility. It contains so many bioactive substances that science has yet to identify (as is the case for garlic and so many other potent foods.)

Honey has genuine food and health values compared to refined sugar for instance. But believe it or not on some food packets manufacturers may actually state that a product contains all natural ingredients which is completely misleading so you need to really be awake when reading labels. In contrast to the benefits of honey and molasses sugar, refined white sugar has never been found in nature and is called an empty food because it has such a low nutritional food value it being merely sucrose!

How many human foods contain glucose and fructose or corn syrup and dextrose for instance? All these provide an instant energy hit that boosts metabolism temporarily but very significantly all these things can create habitual feeding habits on such substances (and even alter DNA.) At least pure maple syrup does contain traces of nutrition!

Animals and fish are programmed by their DNA to exploit energy foods especially and that obviously means sugars. But oils are even more potent in this regard which is why they are so good in carp baits - but vitally, only in minimal levels because high levels in the diet lead to over-loading of fat in and around fish vital organs etc. This in turn has many negative impacts including a lowering of fish metabolism, and lessens the requirement to feed in lower temperatures (and overall in fact,) which rather defeats the whole point of bait! The mass use by the copycat carp angling hordes of bulk oils in baits as in many fish meal boilies and marine and halibut pellets is madness except in the hot temperatures of summer when fish metabolism means most of this is used for energy and not stored as fat.

If you want to make a very cheap homemade bait you have no need to use soya and semolina anyway. These 2 have been done to death for decades and as usual, creating new and unique baits on carp waters will reap the rewards of big fish caught. You can make very cheap baits based on all kinds of low food value ingredients including maize meal, maize protein, potato flour, corn starch, wheat flour, oat bran, chick pea flour, and even vanilla or strawberry flavour custard powder or banana Angel Delight plus other things such as flavoured jelly powders and milk shake powders. Just in case we forget that carp would not care if a strawberry flavour or banana flavour had all the richness of a real strawberry or banana, flavours that we like are not always the best guide to the most potent flavours and many of the most potently effective flavours make the stomach turn! Beware that the vast majority of cheaper flavours are made with a large proportion of solvents and not natural flavour.

Cold water winter and spring baits only require low protein levels anyway because carp do not digest much in such conditions and the level of complexity required to produce an extremely highly digestible bait for winter that has a higher level of protein is well beyond most bait makers and requires a database of the limiting amino acids of literally every single ingredient and is simply not necessary to catch fish anyway!

Happily you do not have to be brainwashed anymore into buying readymade baits at 12 pounds a kilogram or even 6 pounds a kilogram or whatever every time you want to go carp fishing. You certainly cannot trust cheap pellets either because they are the most likely bait to under perform and just waste your time. You can make your own baits for a mere couple of pounds and compete with stupidly pricey readymade baits packed with proteins, not by focusing on proteins but on other feel-good factors and other enhancers and bioactives etc in your baits. Why use very expensive liquid fish proteins and other enhancers and taste and smell factors etc when you can use things you can find in your kitchen larder at a fraction of the price?! (For much more information see my website and biography right now!)

Carp Forum

I have been reading some posts on a carp forum recently and from what I have read - it seems most novice carp anglers who post on this particular carp forum only seem to be interested in Bait - specifically what's the top carp fishermen's currant 'going bait' the conversation in the carp forum went along the lines of...

Did you see Mr. Guru Carp fisherman again in this weeks fishing press with another huge carp? One novices reply came with...yea and all of Mr Carp Guru's buddies are on the same bait and having spectacular results!

The press always mentions the bait because usually it's available from a commercial bait company and some of the top carp anglers are being sponsored by these bait companies.

It turns out these novice carp anglers on the carp forum believed they were using the same baits as the top boys, but became non-believers as soon as they failed to catch any carp!

Their prognosis was - the top carp fishermen must be using something that's only available 'Under the counter'

Maybe...but I doubt it very much.

Personally I make my own baits because I feel they are far superior to a lot of commercial bought bait, plus I get a lot of satisfaction from catching on my own 'home made baits'.

This is not to say that commercial baits don't catch carp - they do, and are necessary for carp anglers who can't make their own or are to busy.

I agree a good bait - and terminal end rig for that mater are necessary for success on today's pressured carp fisheries, however NOT to the extent as to be totally obsessed about Bait in particular 'Boilies' as it was with the newbie's on that carp forum.

I consider the location of carp to be the number one factor on any lake, location or the term most carp anglers use is 'watercraft' - this is the Secret Key to Successful Carp Fishing, lets face it if you don't have any carp in your chosen spot you may as well be fishing at home in the bath tub! The top carp anglers know this only too well and concentrate on location for the duration of the fishing session. Most of them will start by walking around the lake for the first hour or so on arrival looking for likely feeding areas.

The location of carp is not just a question of where they are seen. Location is the finding of those areas within a swim where carp will feed under the conditions which prevails at the time.

Two years ago I managed to obtain membership to a notoriously difficult lake, its one of those pressured carp venues. After struggling on this new lake for the first season, last year was very successful for me, as I had worked out that the carp had shown a definite preference for certain areas under varying conditions.

One such visit produced three big carp in one day, during that session and the remainder of that week no other carp were caught.

The three carp all came to an area the size of four foot long by three foot wide. This spot I had discovered by pure chance, as on reeling in one of my rods from this area I found a couple of bloodworm had tackled on my end rig.

I decided to investigate further, with the use of my 'Spod Rod' - this was done by simply attaching some lead strips to my spod and casting this 'weight-down' spod in that same spot, dragging it along the bottom, on retrieving it I found a spod full of bloodworm - Bingo Hot Spot found!

What's interesting to note is that anywhere outside this area produced nothing, and yet fish were leaping and moving all over the place!

Sometimes these hot-spots are easy to find and sometimes there is a common factor in each case. Other times it is sheer hard work with a pinch of luck thrown in that enables you to locate these areas. Very often it is assumed that the hot-spots have been found on a lake because other anglers are having success in the known swims. It is only when someone fishes some new spot even in a known swim and has a multiple catch that it is realised what's been missed previously.

Very often the usual ploy of fishing the tops of gravel bars, the gullies or just the ends of the bars, islands, marginal slopes ect will produce the goods, but it can pay huge dividends to experiment even if you think you know the area you are fishing.

I hope that's given you some food for thought, if you want to be successful don't do what I see beginning carp anglers do regularly, set up in the nearest swim to the car park, or as one newbie carp angler said to me, he's already made his mind up which spot he's going to fish while driving to the lake!

I expect to see him on a carp forum soon moaning with the others!

"How excited would you be if I told you that there is a carp fishing book out there with all the secrets exposed from the Top Carp Anglers - saving yourself the frustration of trying to figure it all out on your own? You would be ecstatic wouldn't you?"

To Your Success, Good Luck and Tight Lines...

Dennis

Dennis R. Black...A Keen Carp Angler with over 30 years experience.

To find out more about Big Carp Fishing Secrets and obtain a FREE 'How to Guide on Modern Carp Fishing DVD' visit: http://www.carp-fishing-techniques.co.uk

Finding Readymade Carp Fishing Baits is Easy on the Net But Do Your Research First!

Readymade carp baits are a big topic of conversation among anglers but some baits are definitely better than others and particular ones perform far better in particular fishing situations in different seasons for instance; the price should be a secondary consideration if catch results really matter to you! So how can you identify excellent readymade baits at a sensible price from such a bewildering choice? Read on to find out!

Quality protein is not cheap and if you are looking for a quality carp bait that performs instantly and is excellent in the long term then protein quality really matters. The protein content of baits has very many implications in regards to their potency as fish catchers or big fish catchers in particular. If you do not know some of the reasons why carp are actually attracted to baits apart from natural curiosity then in very simple terms this bit if information might help.

Proteins when broken down into its constituent amino acids and peptides etc become very much more easily detected by carp when dissolved in solution and additionally they are very much easier and much more energy-efficient for carp to digest and assimilate them to the benefit of the fish.

Carp like other teleost fish for instance naturally derive a massive degree of their nutrition which sustains their existence from proteins and can utilise proteins far more efficiently in many ways than us humans can. This is logical as carp bodies and systems have evolved to find and process the most energy-efficient food sources at any time

In very simplistic terms, carp are not only attracted to amino acids but when they experience certain amino acids in various combinations they are turned on to feeding intensively by them. But this effect is no limited to amino acids that are essential to carp and sustain their survival, but also to other semi or non-essential amino acids too.

This aspect of carp baits is very interesting. Not only can carp be turned onto your baits if they contain biologically-available proteins but also if they contain proteins that they do not have much chance of actually digesting, but which are very attractive to carp anyway for a variety of reason. Notably this is particularly so if they are highly digestible and easily water-soluble for instance.

Apart from freshness and other characteristics of quality protein sources used in carp baits, what really helps in their effectiveness is the concentrations of carp-essential amino acids they may contain in various levels. Essential amino acids really are very significant factor in attracting carp and making carp actually feed but of course there are many other feeding triggers besides just these.

Having said that you would be forgiven in thinking all that matters is amino acids considering what some anglers have written in the past although this is far from the truth! Carp also do need carbohydrate sources and fatty acids for instance, and both are very important in essential energy provision, but they also spare protein so more gets used for body repair etc instead of being used for energy!

It should probably be noted that the protein in very many high protein baits is not able to be utilised by carp due to limiting factors, but one of the big points about high quality protein bait effects is really about getting as much attraction and stimulation around such baits in solution as possible to make them perform to a far more effective degree compared to very many other baits lacking in quality protein.

It is mostly very difficult for commercial bait manufacturers to make a profit from making good quality protein orientated baits unless you are talking about bigger companies with more buying power or companies that are more cash rich or simply have the expertise, knowledge and experience to be able to source the highest quality grades of protein products so finished readymade baits and base mixes can be offered at sensible prices.

In general you might say that if a bait is more costly then this is an indication that probably a concentration of quality protein sources are used in the bait and this will reflect in the outstanding performance of the bait. The best baits for long term use have often been designed so the vast percentage of the protein in the baits will be highly digestible and so able to be utilised within the fish to their ongoing benefit - and to ensure they find such baits highly palatable and energy-efficient food sources.

However, just because a bait contains various highly digestible protein sources does not mean all the protein within the baits will actually get digested as certain impacts of so-called limiting amino acids will usually prevent this unless the designer is an outstanding bait designer.

The relatively extremely few bait designers who can sort out protein bait ingredients in their baits alongside other ingredients so they are not limited by the third limiting amino acid for instance, will inevitably have all the nutritional data for literally every single component of the bait on computer. This way they can compute the impacts of adjusting bait ingredients levels and ratios for instance and quickly see how this affects bait digestibility.

However as I stated, their are very few bait designers out their who can put all this together with any appreciable effect to make their finished boiled baits perform to outstanding levels. Usually such bait makers have a 3 decades-long history in bait design or have had actual experience in the aquaculture or koi food production and formulation industries for example.

But the big question is: Do you want to feed fish or get bites from them? Well ultimately any great bait will give you bites from the very first cast and instantly. But extremely well designed balanced nutritional baits can achieve the effect when regularly introduced over a period of time of ensuring carp can accept such fishing baits as acceptable food. At very many carp waters bait is a huge factor in success and it is very noticeable that some baits simply do not achieve the same levels of success as others in both the short and long-term.

If you are not an outstandingly-talented or experienced angler, the very best quality balanced nutrition baits can be a great leveller of ability etc when fishing busy angling-pressured carp waters. Now I appreciate that some of you may be thinking that you can catch carp on a bit of rubber corn or foam rubber even or a ball of flavoured semolina and soya flour.

However in the extremely competitive world of modern carp fishing any edge you can get can seriously add up and make all the difference between and good season and you best ever. A high quality bait literally can make the difference between continuing a very poor series of seasons on a pressured water with far too many totally unnecessary blanks, compared to having your best season on there that you ever had where you catch all the big fish and even bank the new lake record fish!

I say this from personal experience and from countless related experiences of so many countless anglers I have known over the years who benefited drastically from waking up and becoming deeply aware of the implications for repeated success using totally unique quality protein orientated baits. Quality protein is related to actually improving energy-efficiency and available vital energy in carp; after all this is the ultimate aim of food apart from as a nutrition source. Certain flavours have potent implications in terms of fish metabolism and especially in cold weather, and autumn, winter and spring bait design is very much about fish metabolism maximisation.

It is no surprise to learn that many winter flavours contain genuinely potent components that can boost fish metabolism and increase energy in fish if only temporarily. Buy do not get the impression that all bait flavours are similar because many differ incredibly and their impacts on carp senses externally and internally and responses and reactions can be very different indeed.

Indeed some flavours and components can be revitalised so they actually become incredibly bioactive and impact on carp in far greater competitively successful degrees. Such flavours can in some cases be extremely costly to source or to formulate. These kinds of intellectual property are closely guarded as trade secrets. However many potent edges can be uncovered or simply stumbled-upon if you dedicate enough time and effort in your own personal bait odyssey of discovery and research to enable you to significantly improve your catch results compared to average anglers relatively poor results.

In fishing terms there is little difference between a cheap instant bait and a more costly bait if you happen to be a world champion standard angler. But if you happen to be on this level you will still seek the very best bait you can because again, a champion will seek any extra competitive edge and advantage for improved performance. It is ironical that in sports this inevitably leads to drug-taking. What your bait is ultimately ideally doing is having a drugging impact on fish if only temporarily.

Some of the best baits can be regarded as the ones that get picked up by carp and get the hook in their mouths even though carp experiencing the bait at that time do not feel hungry directly before sensing the bait! These days the pressure for your baits to perform better than other competing baits is greater than ever in many cases just to achieve getting bites instead of blanks.

There is so much to bait that to come up with a rule of thumb for choosing baits is probably impossible. But this is for certain; I would much rather choose a bait containing the highest quality proteins I could buy and use just 1 kilogram of such boilies, than use 100 kilograms of boilies containing cheap low quality protein! Frankly cost is not the issue ever when low cost equals less fish or worse still no fish!

It is a sobering thought that Mr Carp do not care about the cost of your baits or if you personally find them palatable or even if you like or dislike their taste, flavours, smells or aromas etc. He is operating at many levels higher and beyond your senses as a human (with your extremely dulled senses compared to a fish.) All too many commercial baits are unfortunately sold in formats that do not necessarily appeal the most to carp but are formats that carp anglers expect simply because they have become conventional and normal in the buyers perceptions. This is just one reason why so many great original popular baits and flavours get copied by so many companies when very few of those versions can perform any where near as well as the original article.

For instance just how many copies of flavours of the world famous original Scopex, or Tutti Fruiti or Strawberry Jam are there now? Just how many perform as well as the originals is a very big question! Frankly the only direct way to discover this is to personally try these copy-cat baits against the originals! It might be noticed that there are many individuals who run bait companies with very little experience and limited knowledge in bait making, but some guys running a comparatively small bait company may have access to far better nutritional and fish knowledge that it might first appear including using scientists at DEFRA for example.

However I can tell you one complaint I hear too often from bait companies. So many carp anglers expect to spend 4 thousand pounds or more on tackle such as rods, reels, alarms, bivvies, bed chairs, fashion clothing and even bivvy entertainment systems, but then expect to pay a mere 4 pounds for a kilogram of poorer quality bait!

Then they expect this bait to produce for them the very best results! This mentality is about the most expensive one regarding baits that you could possibly have because for every minute you are fishing with almost inevitably inferior baits you are wasting your time not catching the fish you otherwise would be catching. But this mentality is so predominant and it simply dooms lots of average anglers to endless mediocre catches despite the fact that quality baits that are unique can literally catch you the catches of a lifetime but with using just the same effort as using very cheap far less effective bait!

Quality protein is expensive but this magic stuff forms an incredibly important backbone of bait and fish attraction and stimulation beyond flavours, oils etc. Quality protein has proven time and again on countless occasions the difference between catching a fish or blanking, or catching moderate numbers of average fish and higher numbers of the very biggest fish!

If you want easier fishing then establishing unique quality digestible protein orientated baits that are rich in biologically-available nutrition can just keep on producing fish reliably for you trip after trip. Ideally you will establish such bait and keep it going into you waters regularly to maximise their impacts on fish responses and this can catch you as many fish as possible.

But if you are concerned about your bait choices and realise that successful carp fishing is very much about doing and using unique things and refining that which is or has been successful in the past then having an open mind is a seriously valuable asset! When you question the bait manufacturers about the quality of proteins in your bait this should really help your peace of mind in terms of your bait performance but do bear in mind this quality comes at a price.

In 2007 high quality caseins were around 9 thousand pounds a tonne and they are not getting any cheaper; the extremely high cost of quality ingredients such as these will reflect in higher bait prices of quality protein baits. Again if you are an average angler then using a few kilograms of the very best quality protein based bait you can get will certainly pay off as opposed to using cheap carbohydrate based baits. Even certain unique winter baits that are designed to be very highly digestible and with low protein contents such as 24 percent are very difficult to design so that they contain all the correct balances of essential amino acids. The quality of the proteins used in such baits need to be absolutely guaranteed and this comes at a price so even in this case of lower protein baits they will be more costly!

So instead of automatically reaching for a bag of a pineapple, strawberry, banana or Scopex flavour this, or a chilli flavour that, or a halibut this or tiger nut that, why not really consider quality protein first for easier success if you are just an average angler!
If your mind is turned on by the aroma of a smoked house fish flavour or a smooth rich strawberry then bring your mind back to the fact that you are not a fish, and remember that exploiting high quality protein will makes things much easier than using what are often highly flavoured and cheap low quality carbohydrate or low quality protein based baits!

A kilogram of quality protein boilies in shops today generally cost between 8 and 13 pounds should be of higher quality protein than other cheaper baits. Obviously it makes great financial sense to team up with friends in order to take advantage of discounts on quality baits and quality base mixes. Also by doing this you can more quickly, more easily and less expensively establish a new quality protein bait with genuine expectations of outstanding success.

Many more carp anglers are turning to making their own homemade baits in order to save money as well as to benefit from using unique baits and enjoy the unique satisfaction of a succession of new personal best fish caught on your own unique homemade bait which is a truly incredible feeling! You can do many things with homemade baits of all kinds in order to include extremely high levels of quality protein type ingredients, extracts and liquids to make your very own potently attractive baits compete very successfully against expensive readymade baits.

Ultimately thinking that big fish will be caught using cheap baits is more likely going to cost you dear when you cannot get bites in fishing situations where quality protein baits will do and where you will most likely be sitting getting no bites while watching other anglers catching loads of fish! (For more information see my website and biography right now!)

By Tim Richardson.

Alternative Fishing Styles

There we were, me and my new fishing apprentice at the lake. I was teaching him the rudiments of handling the rod and putting the bait and we were trying to catch a lake trout while discussing everything from sports to the most effective technique to escape from boring clothes-shopping with our wives. I got some good ideas, I must confess.

At some point he asked me if there were some other fishing techniques or alternative styles. "Is it always just a fishing rod, reel, bait, and waiting in sport fishing?" he asked.

Of course it is the most common way to fish but it is not the only way to fish. In sport fishing, there are different techniques and tools for fishing depending on the type of fish you want to catch. There are even games you can play with friends or family.

One of Murphy's laws says that if something can be used for something else besides its original use, someone will do it. Some techniques or methods are more dangerous or fun than others.

Before I could explain him about some fun ways to fish as well as others too dangerous to practice for a starter, I don't know why it came to my mind a piece from the New Testament that says that Jesus is reported to have said to his disciples: "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19). Then I said that in those times, fishing with a net in a group was considered an honest effort to make a living. I don't know if he is a religious man, but he agreed with that idea.

Some of you might not like the techniques discussed here. Others will love them; it is a mater of diversity and sportsmanship.

One of the first fishing techniques we discussed and one I like, is Hand

Fishing, also known as Trout Tickling or Noodling if you are fishing

catfish. Noodling doesn't require any kind of fishing tool but your hand

and it is fun, just try it sometime. It is also possible to fish lobsters

when you are diving or "Pearl" Fishing.

A variant of it is the Hand-Line Fishing. You just need a line and a small piece of wood or something to roll the line. I've seen this done at some beaches in Mexico but, as far as I know, this is illegal in Kansas.

Another "ancestral" way to fish is Spear Fishing. Traditional Spear

Fishing is restricted to shallow waters, but the development of the spear

gun has made this method much more efficient. Fishing can be done with an

ordinary spear or a specialized variant such as an eel spear or with a

long or short trident. You can be at a river shore or in the water with

basic or complete scuba equipment. A variant of this is "Bow Fishing"

which might not be fun if you keep losing arrows!!

Net Fishing is another method of sport fishing. All fishing nets are

meshes that are usually knotted by a relatively thin thread. Modern nets

are usually made of nylon, although nets made of wool or silk thread were

common until recently and are still used in certain areas. The casting net is circular and the diameter varies. The way to use it is sinking it at the same time you make a forward motion from surface-down to bottom and then up. There is a chance that you catch something else, but hey, some coracles are as good as fish, besides this is also the way they are caught.

Trawling is a fishing method that involves pulling a fishing net through

the water behind one or more boats. In Mexico there is a place where the

nets simulate butterflies wings and fish like this. A gill net catches

fish which try to pass through it by snagging on the gill covers. Thus

trapped, the fish can neither advance trough the net nor retreat.

I find Kite Fishing very exotic. It was invented in China and then learned by people in New Guinea and other Pacific Islands. It is a very

non-traditional way of fishing for a newbie getting into the fishing

world. It was used by people who did not have a boat to fish, but also was very handy when fishing conditions were difficult or the fishing places were inaccessible or dangerous.

Ice Fishing, do I have to say more? Just get a line, a hook and open a

hole in the ice, just don't put your hand in it!

Fish Trapping is another way for fishing. There are two types of traps:

the semi-permanent and the permanent. Depending on the type of fish you

want to get, the traps can be several feet long to relatively short. An

example is dam fishing by building a temporary dam in such a way that

makes it easier to catch the fish. Other types are the tripods used in the Congo and the weir structures or baskets used in medieval times. The

baskets or weir structures are built according to the fish to catch

Another "natural" way to fish, involves trained animals like cormorant,

remoras and dogs.

Fishing using toxins is not a healthy way for catching fish. There are

some natural toxins found in some plants, and the main idea is to paralyze the fish so you can easily catch it by hand. The fish either dies right after suffocating or later in transport. This is not only dangerous because you can get poisoned too, but it is illegal.

In my opinion, using explosives are not only dangerous for you if you

don't know how to handle explosives, but also for the environment. It

kills by direct hit or shockwave. The worst thing about it is that it is not selective.

Another dangerous practice is electro-fishing. It sounds like a new dance,

but actually is a fishing technique that involves electricity. Depending

on the type of fish, you can select the voltage (a bit of electrical

knowledge would be good) to stun the fish. The problem is that you can

also injure a diver and he can get really mad at you. The device is supposed to be secure for water usage since it has a dead-man-switch in case you fall in the water.

So my Padawan learner might want to get into other fishing techniques. And I hope he does as long as he doesn't blow up a lake or electrocute someone else, after all, fishing is a gentlemen's sport based on honest effort.

Happy fishing!!!!

?Tony the Tuna? is a fishing enthusiast and a regular contributor writer for Fly-Fishing-North-America.com. If you want to learn more about fly fishing visit http://www.fly-fishing-north-america.com

Optimizing Your Weekend Carp Fishing For Big Fish Success!

Most of us can only go carp fishing at weekends so we have to maximize our valuable time to get the best catches possible! But if your goal is to catch big carp very consistently for outstanding outstanding big carp results there are vital things you can do to ensure you truly have far better chances of success; so why read on and exploit these for yourself!

Doing your homework in advance of visits on waters is of vital importance; verify that the fish you want really are present in a water and not claims from fishery owners or just fanciful myths! (Some of the funniest disasters in fishing result from not doing vital homework!) I remember fishing one river in Yorkshire years ago where it was claimed to contain salmon. Under a bridge I found what I thought appeared to be part of a big tail moving in the current occasionally. Upon wading out to investigate further I got cut by metal on the bottom and discovered that what I could see what just a flapping length of old plastic and that the river was one rated as among the worst polluted rivers in Europe!

You may notice from your research that the bigger fish in a lake come from certain areas or spots in particular swims in certain months or weeks of the year; so why not gear up your fishing and baiting approaches to exploit this!

When fishing commercial waters for example, pre-book your swim if at all possible; this totally removes the inevitable stress of trying to battle through traffic to get to a fishery in time to get a more productive swim!

Why not get into the habit of fishing lakes in your mind while you are not there! Using creative imagination is extremely valuable and will help you to read waters better - and to fish them more appropriately! (This is one of my own hidden secrets of success.) Examples of this are noticing every day which direction the wind is in and what the temperatures and pressure are doing, (rising or falling,) and how all this may determine where fish might be in a swim if no angler and lines are present.

This procedure can be done for multiple lakes and multiple swims simultaneously for any weather at and time of year. Visualization will really give you a big edge - putting you ahead of fish behaviours to come and ahead of competing anglers in many ways! An intriguing example is considering what happens if an angler is present in any particular swim and how fish might behave in more artificial ways in response to his lines, baiting and actual detected presence, in contrast to if the swim was vacant (or appeared to be vacant!)

Mid-week visits to waters are extremely useful to see where fish are, where they are getting caught, how they behave (with possibly less angling pressure and less bait,) and where angling baits are going in etc. All this helps you in your weekend fishing if you can exploit all these and more; superior intelligence wins wars!

Visiting lakes mid-week to see how fish are responding in the swim you fished at the weekend is very valuable in building up a bigger picture of how your lines baits and presence affect the fish say compared to other anglers fishing the same swim mid-week. Although very many carp lakes are getting much busier during the mid-week period, there may well be differences between how fish behave and feed and where they feed at weekends compared to the mid-week.

On many very highly pressured waters it is often the case that fish will clear up beds of bait left un-eaten from weekend anglers. It is very likely you will see this in action on your mid-week visits, so one thing you can do is actually do a short mid-week trip to exploit this behavior and even pre-bait your swim while fishing at the weekend deliberately to exploit the swim mid-week.

You can often exploit the baiting of other weekend anglers mid-week; just fishing using a single bait approach can produce big fish feeding more confidently on old washed-out baits.

Fishing weekends using washed-out baits is a great trick for wary fish if you have the confidence to try it.

Fishing un-favored swims at weekends can produce some of the biggest fish as they try to avoid the pressure put on them by anglers in popular swims!

Fishing for line bites and just one fish at a time in a match fishing style of fishing can really pay off in contrast to putting in kilograms of pellets and boilies and just sitting on it; do not copy the use of baits the crowd is using; you can always keep ahead by doing this, or alternatively (with more bait knowledge,) why not top the dominant bait on a water!

Float fishing and fishing mid-water and very close to snags (responsibly of course) is often very productive compared to the lazy 3 rod static approach! Actually determining to work exceptionally hard for your fish can really work and such a level of intense focus is rare among typical weekend carp anglers!

Thinking like a fish instead of an angler is a huge advantage; so do your homework on carp in as much detail as possible so you truly can do this. For instance, I now know what bait substances at what levels impact fish in very varied ways instantly and over a period of time so I can exploit all kinds of baits to maximum effect (and many of mine can be made instantly on the bank.)

You can fish lightening sessions of just a few hours in the evening purely to get back in touch with a water, see where fish are, what they are up to and to keep bait going in preparation for your weekend fishing. Ironically enough sometimes these sessions produce more big fish than fishing an entire weekend probably because you are far more focused than when settling into a swim for many hours were laziness can set in.

Your fish observations and thinking in advance of fishing including keeping an eye on future weather patterns and forecasts including historical patterns of weather and moon stages related to catches on a water are very valuable to future potential catches in terms of fishing timing, winds in terms of swim choices etc.

Look out for changes of weather as the week end progresses. You only need the fish passing through your swim even for a few minutes to intercept your target fish and this might mean choosing an unpopular swim and knowing something about this swim, the weather and fish movements that other anglers do not realize!

It might seem obvious but using as many rods as you are allowed often multiplies your chances of takes even if directly, but by the feedback you get from fishing that extra rod in another spot using a different bait, rig, etc. It can also give you fish information in terms of liners and other impacts such as the presence of a bait fished with a rod fished using a different line angle through the water and so on.

Fish as quietly and unobtrusively as possible; very many typical weekend carp anglers treat the experience like a trip down the pub and all this involves much reduces their chances compared to anglers who really focus on catching carp! All their re-casting, spodding of bait, plumbing of swims and general disruption of swims in so many ways including simply moving about in a swim or using bright head torches certainly alert fish to their presence and in many waters this is enough to turn fish off for the weekend in that area!

Why not try different baiting patterns to ones most people use. I find broadcasting baits widely is a good method where bait boats or tight bundles of bait in PVA net stockings appear to be the standard approach.

Getting to know your water better than normal weekend anglers will really put you permanently ahead; doing all your feature-finding, plumbing and even baiting-up during the week as opposed to when you are actually fishing really makes such a difference to the reactions of fish in your swim. Where very wary fish are concerned, being able to simply arrive and cast out with pre-clipped-up lines to spots you know intimately from your previous mid-week work is invaluble and your results can leave less aware weekend carp anglers puzzled and amazed!

Bait is one of the most important keys to weekend fishing and how you use it is a vital aspect you really need to think about in advance. I aim to be as different as possible and use my own homemade baits and ground baits. Bigger fish often fall for completely new baits simply because they are different and have less reason to be feared than established popular ready made baits.

My own cheap often complex homemade baits have caught me loads of thirties and forties including a 46 and a 48 pound fish (in the UK.) In fact these were fished against the best much more expensive ready made baits that Baitcraft, Mainline, Essential Baits, Nutrabaits and Nashbaits for instance can offer. (See my site or biography for more information!)
By Tim Richardson.
Now why not seize this moment to improve your catches for life with these unique fishing bibles: "BIG CARP FLAVORS FEEDING TRIGGERS AND CARP SENSES EXPLOITATION SECRETS!" "BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!" And "BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!"

How to Make Carp Fishing Boilies For Winter Or Summer Good As Professional Readymade Baits!

So you want an extra confidence boost in your winter (or summer) carp fishing and you want unique baits no-one else has ever used before? The following ideas for bait recipes revealed here will provide you with boilies, pellets, paste and ground baits easily as successful (or more successful) than the vast majority of better readymade baits - so read on to get this very rich information!

This method of making boosted readymade bait base mixes and homemade baits is not strictly scientific but your fish will not mind as it does include tonnes of very strongly decades-proven real catches based science in terms of the ingredients chosen!

Whole and soluble protein is a big part of this bait article, but this is just a fraction of all the reasons why all these bait ideas here work so well! What you use is partly influenced by the materials you know you need in your bait to affect fish in various significant ways in regards to sensory and brain stimulation to promote favourable behaviours that could make them easier to catch plus what you can personally source and your budgetary considerations. But please remember not to merely stick to using your personally skewed personal choices. Why not get much more creative than this; fish have very different far more acute senses compared to you! Add to this that they are sensing substances in water and not in air (which is an extremely important point to make,) so discover and use what they prefer and not merely what your taste and smell preferences prefer!

As a human, personally I would prefer the aroma and taste of fresh hot roast chicken juices as opposed to hydrolysed earthworm protein. But despite this, I know what the carp will naturally respond to more strongly to because I have actually tested both these substances! Note: Testing of individual substances is not enough - testing substances in actual baits in conjunction with other substances is the real test!

For instance, the extremely common natural amino acid proline contributes to the taste of many substances that carp and we humans instinctively are attracted to and our senses are sensitive to. But to use pure supplemental proline to stimulate carp feeding reveals they need to experience it within a very narrow band of concentration for it to be most effective so it is more complex to exploit it in sophisticated baits even though it works!

This is true of many substances including the use of betaine in boilies where just a minimum of 1 or 2 grams can improve results in conjunction with hydrolysed protein for example. In the case of many essential oils they can be used by measures of millilitres per kilogram mix and certainly not all essential oils need especial care where just a few drops too many can potentially ruin a bait. This takes first hand experimentation and experience. You can always bulk up an essential oil if you are in doubt with examples like hemp oil, sunflower or wheat germ oil and olive oil with mixed nut oil or pumpkin seed oil and garlic oil, orange oil and coconut oil etc.

Note: The use of traditional concentrated flavours (even if they are natural or nature-identical,) is not necessary at all with this particular set of bait ideas given here. This is because as you will see, each substance mentioned has its own intrinsic flavours, tastes, aromas and sensory impacts on fish. However very many anglers are still stuck in the rut of wanting to add an extra concentrated flavour just to give themselves added confidence by feeling they have given their bait a unique label.

Well designed natural baits do not need any label as such to dominate a bait and in fact such items can often make it easier for a wary carp to avoid baits containing recognisable labels! Just consider how many decades sweetcorn, hemp or luncheon meat had been used very successfully, before they were offered for sale to anglers with fashionable added flavours such as strawberry, Tutti Fruitti, banana, Scopex, pineapple and chilli etc?!

Note: All the ideas below can be used to boost or bulk out readymade base mixes and ground bait mixes of all kinds as far as you wish to experiment and refine your own new mixes and versions of them in creative ways. All these things are just examples and all can be removed and replaced in whatever ways you wish.

Using natural substances rich in feeding triggers carp naturally respond very strongly to is a guaranteed way to give yourself confidence in your bait and provide excellent nutritionally rich reasons for carp to eat your baits and be very enthusiastic about them! In this case firstly get some fermented shrimp powder or Belachan block. If you get the powder stuff get a kilogram of it to play with - the cost will be worth it believe me! If you can get the Belachan shrimp paste block instead, then you will need to break it down a bit by doing the following: simply grate it into a large pan and keep adding hot water until you have a nice runny slurry. In the case of the fermented shrimp powder, simply add hot water to produce a runny slurry.

It is easy enough to get a block of Parmesan cheese and grate it or get some pots of grated Parmesan cheese or blue cheese powder for instance, and add this to your slurry. Such strong cheeses are rich in proteins, amino acids, peptides and all kinds of other goodies, including natural form monosodium glutamate, butyric acid, mineral salts and many other things besides. If you wandered why such cheeses have very strong tastes and aromas - now you know! If you include dried tomatoes in your mix you will be improving the taste by including certain excellent bioactive compounds carp are instinctively attracted to plus raising the levels of taste enhancing glutamate in your bait.

Now get yourself a big pot of yeast extract like Vegemite or Marmite and mix this to your slurry - which is obviously getting thicker by now! Now add half a big pot of black strap molasses. Strangely the organic stuff is most often cheaper than the non-organic stuff and is usually a more concentrated gritty product packed with loads of minerals, vitamins, trace elements, plus other factors and let us not overlook its great betaine attraction! I find freshly liquidised garlic a great additive but fresh herbs and spices and fruit, vegetables among other things are absolutely packed with incredibly bioactive goodies.

If you can get CSL (corn steep liquor) why not add a generous helping of this too; the more active the better! I also like to use creamed sesame seeds too, so for example look for some Tahini. If you are American then creamed corn and corn syrup are obviously stereotypical choices just like Canadian maple syrup. You might try liquidised blueberries and ripe cranberries and mulberries for instance, or try pineapple, mangoes, papayas, strawberries and bananas etc. Maybe try Aloe Nectar or fruit syrups! A splash of Vodka is a nice touch and helps keep everyone happy! Your pan is now holding a goo of the type it has never experienced before. You can simply thrash it about with a whisk or fork or use a food blender if you want speed and efficiency.

Like I said previously, it is all down to you what you do, what you add and the amounts of all the things you might include. No it is not scientific and frankly to a great degree Mr Carp will not care as long as long as the ingredients, liquids and additives and other special stuff you choose to use have an excellent reason to be in there to stimulate carp in any of a million different ways directly or indirectly even if they has never been used in bait before! Now add on top of your special mix an equal amount of very fresh large hen eggs and whisk again.

You may have been asking when this stuff is going to resemble something other than goo. Now get yourself a big packet of wholemeal flour. Put it into a bucket and add a liberal dosing of icing sugar. Again take some yourself to help the process along. Any ordinary breakfast muesli can be added too and original Alpen is a good one although something like Jordan Country Crisp is one I like to use as it contains loads of addictive goodies and I speedily crush mine down into finer particles in a bucket using the end of a sledge hammer.

Why not add a tub of dried milk powders or a tin of condensed milk in with your liquids. If you happen to have a health store nearby or a body building friend or use EBay etc, then you can easily get the following 2 ingredients: Many bait companies stock this and other goodie; Calcium caseinate (often called Casilan) and lactalbumin or use whey protein powder. I like using linseeds like Holland and Barret product which has added lactose and I also add all kinds of seeds, from sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds, to millet and canary seed, hemp seed and crushed nuts. If you are a fish meal nut then add some fish meal. Adding LO30 will be a good idea although I know of certain hydrolysed protein ingredients that equal or even better this stuff (and some very enzyme-active and will self-digest your bait more for even better results!)

Anyway, the amounts you use really are up to you, some baits and amounts will be more successful but if you write down all your ingredients and levels and ultimately record the exact bait mix of every test batch you make you can replicate it easily enough so all your best ever baits can always be repeated - and still be secret to you alone!

All you need to do is mix up your dry ingredients extremely well so they are equally distributed in the mix. You powders and liquids will mix together to form a dough or paste which you can use straight away or store or make into pellets or boilies. Always start off with a small batch to test it. This way you can see if it binds how you like and maybe rolls how you like if you want standard boilies. By the way boilies do not have to be rolled into round balls at all! I dispensed with using bait guns or paste extruders, and binned bait rolling tables years and years ago as I simply do not see any advantage today in making perfectly round boilies and I am well against this stereotypical, completely unnecessary boring out-dated practice that can actually make it much easier for wary carp to avoid getting hooked!

Always add your bait powders to your liquids when mixing them. Making your mix slightly damper and wetter than you think you will need is a good thing because you will be well advised to let your ingredients sit and soak up your liquids for at least 12 hours in a sealed heavy duty plastic bag in the fridge. Doing this also kicks off all kinds of synergistic beneficial reactions within your bait. Always make a small batch first to ensure it is OK in terms of the practical consistency you want either for use as paste straight off or to make pellets and boilies or ground baits etc.

If you want to make ground bait using your mix then why not ensure it has loads more bits that will give it life and will easily separate and move away from the mix it being of a much courser consistency?! In the case of ground baits you can go overboard on the liquids and forget the eggs for binding. Many great ground baits can be made by simply mixing your powders at the waterside with your liquids prepared and bottled up ready to add. I find that if cost is an issue, then using a number of reduced price loaves that are easy to break into crumbs make an excellent addition to any boilie or paste base mix type of ground bait. Bait movement and vibration stimulate fish so good things to give your ground baits added life are live foods like worms and maggots although the potential list is enormous if you really do your homework and want to get far better edges!

None of this stuff I have said is new and is well known in the bait making community to differing degrees of use and significance. But the very best stuff does not come for free and I could tell you lots of much more advanced stuff but in laymans language to give you fantastic results. Carp bait making is made easy if you delve further into what is healthy and cumulatively or instantly addictive to the carp internal processes and internal and external senses!

Bait secrets really do exist and there are far more yet to be revealed than any of us can imagine I can assure you. For one thing I am certain that the electromagnetism of certain bait recipes and forms is extremely significant just as the ways that leads, hooks, swivels, plastic tubing, rubber corn etc all impact on carp senses in water.

It should be pretty obvious that it is not just bait companies that know and can exploit bait secrets. Many bait secrets can come from fields totally unrelated to baits or the food, pharmaceutical, aquaculture or pet food industries or whatever. I wonder where the idea for using glass micro-balloons in pop-up baits came from. Was it from someone working within the surf-board or boat-building industries? How about all those bait secrets used today that come from glue manufacture and design, cleaning and homecare products, or from cosmetics and skin care products and developments, (and so on?!)

Many secrets about stimulants or depressants can be found in the history and developments of the various religions all around the world. Just ponder Christians and their wine, Indigenous American Indians sacred ceremonial herb smoking, or south American Indigenous Peoples vanilla oleoresins, coca compounds, cannabinoids and other substances in hemp for instance or even tea catechins!

Indigenous American indian peoples considered maize and sweetcorn as food from the Gods; it certainly became a vital staple carbohydrate source just like barley, buckwheat rice, potatoes and other carbohydrate sources used by ancient peoples switching from hunter-gathering to farming cultures ruled by seasons and new devices to measure time that we call calendars. I often wonder what the world would be like if we in the western world had not used the year and seven day week system established today!

I was born in February so things like leap years remind me what an hilarious artificial framework and synthetic reference point of human culture and living patterns such things really are! If you think about it time is also a very artificial thing because you can never be at exactly the same time in any one place technically speaking; especially as you and everything else is moving so fast; what an illusion. It is a bit like gravity; it becomes a weaker force as you travel away from the surface of the earth - but you would never know this just by standing on the ground looking up!

Incidentally, how many carp anglers think about the possible implications of water pressure on carp and carp tackle as carp go deeper and deeper - and are such things significant?!

Another thing that you might have noticed is that reproductive cycles of so many species get influenced by electromagnetic forces including hatches of insects for example which are proven to stimulate significant carp feeding. But how much do carp change their feeding and other behaviours in response to these subtle forces that we just overlook. The tides change, the moon rises and falls and the earth revolves around the sun; but how much do we carp anglers care and should all this influence our choice of bait substances and formats?!

I stopped wearing a watch years ago because everything is about relativity and context! But if I did wear one I think the version I would use would be this: It would be a single hand watch showing Mickey Mouse in the centre facing the ten to ten position where the hand would always be fixedly pointing up from the centre!

Many UK carp anglers consider sweetcorn a gift from the carp God via Fred J. Taylor who popularised this bait in the UK and has sadly passed on. I still recall the very first carp section I read in a book by Peter Stone (which dates it somewhat!) In it Fred J. Taylor wrote that as far as terminal tackle for carp is required (after your obligatory strong 10 pound line,) all you needed was a hook - and nothing else! This was an early writing as the bait he recommended was a par-boiled potato with the hook fed into the potato using a baiting needle. This is the exact way I started out carp fishing with a 5 foot long cane rod (and free-lining still works today of course!)

I look back fondly on the real carp fishing pioneers. My early carp fishing memories are filled with romanticism and nostalgia. They are tinged with the taste of excitement of suddenly stumbling upon an overgrown and long forgotten carp pool that has been un-fished for years along with quotes from BB, Richard Walker and Mr Crabtree echoing in my ears! Did you ever notice the similarity between the old paste-balanced crust tactic and the apparently new snowman rig which we were using back in the early Eighties?! Look out for the old stuff because the principles still work and can be re-manifested using modern ideas and newly-available bait substances and new technological materials!

Similarly in music it could be said that everything has been done before considering the limited number of basic notes used (excepting the newest computer-generated ones!) Yet new popular music is made all the time using the same old notes and chord progressions dressed up in different styles and images etc - but they just keep on working!

Today the modern reality is that anyone can discover bait secrets for their own use and also find new ones too that constitute great new edges over competing baits and fish senses! In New Zealand I found it a fascinating wake-up call to be told that potatoes starch is a very popular binder used in carp baits. Corn starch is big in the States and wheat starch as found in semolina is very much a stereotypical bait ingredient in Europe! Personally I am not prejudiced about avoiding semolina and I use good old soft wholemeal wheat flour and whole wheat a lot (and it is a great cheap and effective ingredient for winter baits!)

In fact stewed corn and fermented corn has been and still is a very good carp bait; why should tiger nuts, maple peas, buckwheat or cracked corn get all the glory! Not long ago I watched an old guy catch a good twenty pound carp on a boiled tinned potato on a slow relatively unproductive day. This just proves that any alternative (or original mainstream bait) is well worth a try, and keeping an open mind will catch you more fish than a rigid conventional bait and method approach!

Protein-rich gluten as found in carbohydrates for example, is a very interesting area of study; the commercially-available version of the taste enhancer monosodium glutamate is predominantly made from the fermentation of wheat gluten. It became popular in America apparently after American soldiers realised that their rations of spam for instance did not taste as good as captured Japanese rations which were enhanced using monosodium glutamate! Apparently gluten is an important part of many fish diet formulations in aquaculture. This also relates to commercial butyric acid production and protein fermentation for example. (No-one can deny that butyric acid is not a significant food and bait enhancer!)

OK now onto suggestions on influencing carp behaviours in your favour by exploiting bait substances. Do you consider that you are the only species that releases feel-good hormones such as serotonin when you consume certain food substances?

You are releasing hormones all the time that influence your growth, feelings and behaviours all the time. Have you noticed how steroid using body-builders can actually grow permanent breasts as a side effect? What about sex change women who take the male hormone testosterone to alter their characteristics?

What about women in the menopause who take supplemental oestrogen to help prevent demineralisation of their bones. Study the seahorse (a sea fish) to find out some very strange behaviours in regards hormones and adaptations for survival! Carp seem to like the estrogenic impacts of things like evening primrose oil for instance; I think this is highly significant!

Someone in a Carpworld article said not long ago there is nothing new in carp baits -but obviously that is utterly misleading! I am interested in the truth and ongoing new developments. Hopefully that ex-railway worker will move on and get real! At least I have a scientific background in plant research and commercial horticulture, plus relatives with medical and science doctor ships and professorships from Oxford and Cambridge (to help keep my mind on real possibilities not egomaniacal judgements!)

Now why not consider this: Carp naturally release many forms of hormones all the time that massively decide their natural behaviours (and their more artificial conditioned behaviours when they are stressed by being fished for!) These releases can be either in your favour so making them much easier to catch or not - and your bait is a very big deciding factor in fishing situations!

Just for one example, you can directly manipulate and exploit the influential release of particularly helpful fish hormones by using good bait design! Therefore I advise you to become really expert in learning about carp (and catfish for example) themselves, before you rush out and get lost in the myriad world of bait ingredients, nucleotide enhancers, protein sweeteners, flavour development processes and components etc. (See all my other information which will help you understand carp and influence their behaviours big-time in your favour!)

When you know what turns carp on and why this is vitally important in revolutionising your own results, you will never again feel lost in the worlds of readymade baits or homemade baits! In fact you will be able to keep on producing endless new effective very economical carp (and catfish) baits of standard and completely new formats, incredibly quickly - for life! (For more information see my website and biography right now!)

By Tim Richardson.

Now why not seize this moment to improve your catches for life with these unique fishing bibles by Tim Richardson: "BIG CARP FLAVOURS FEEDING TRIGGERS AND CARP SENSES EXPLOITATION SECRETS!" "BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!" And "BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!" For these and much more now visit: http://www.baitbigfish.com the home of the world-wide proven homemade bait making and readymade bait success secrets bibles!