Fishing carp (II)

It may sound simplistic, but for example, yeast extract contains lots of attractive salts with those used in its production, enzymes, such as trypsin (the protein digesting enzyme,) soluble proteins, amino acids, peptides, minerals, trace elements, vitamins like B6 and B12, carnitine, chitin, yeast extract is also a major source of the infamous food enhancer monosodium glutamate for the food industry. It is also water-attracting being hygroscopic (like honey and malt extract and peptones interestingly,) and is highly soluble a digestible. Peanut butter has much going for it too including sugar, salt, high fat content, tasty oils and great palatability and even its own highly fish attractive enzymes. There are very good reasons why even the 'simplest' kitchen ingredient works.


The attractiveness of peanuts and peanut products is so well known, but fewer fishermen realise that crushed peanuts make great ground bait and cook-up well absorbing all kinds of added attractors like sugars, salts, flavours, spices, essential oils, colours and so on. Peanut oil is another great attractor too, while de-fatted roasted peanut meals can have a protein content above that of many fishmeals and are very well consistently proven fish catchers.


Getting back to your easy simple bait, a generous amount of molasses or brown sugar will really help. Many fishes love sweet smells and tastes and a quick energy 'hit' from the sugars is appreciated too. In fact 'polysaccharides' play a big part in wild fishes natural diet and are derived from ingesting mussels and shrimps and other shelled organisms.


It's a good idea to add a bit of protein to your simple flours baits. Fish can are very drawn to attractive proteins, amino acids, polypeptides and this has been consistently proven with catfish and carp etc. In fact, often the baits meant for carp or catfish end up catching other big specimens of other species including bass, big pike and tench, pickerels, eels and so on. Adding liver powder or mashed-up tinned fish, ground trout pellet powder, or any of a range of fish meals and meat meals, shellfish meals and milk powders will all make a big difference to your simple bait's effectiveness. You can even add ground-up sinking pond pellets if you want to really ensure your fish get a guaranteed 'balanced meal' if you're so inclined.


You could mix in large amounts of flaked cold-water fish food which is a very effective edge in making a very 'alternative' bait. These are high in things like spirulina, carotenes, complex sugars and daphnia. (All good stuff.) Incorporating casein and whey protein body-building powders into your simple flour or pastry mix really is an edge adding much recommended 'free amino acids' among a huge list of other beneficial attractors.


Many fishermen feel they need a boost of extra confidence by adding a flavour to their bait. While there are a handful of 'giants' than really shine through in the world of fishing flavours, just a few drops of butyric acid will do the trick. Even adding fresh juice from red or blue fruits like strawberry, mulberry, blueberry, acai berry etc adds great flavour and very powerful fish attracting acids, enzymes, flavours, sugars etc.


Even adding flavours at levels we cannot detect ourselves will work. E.g. half a teaspoonful per kilogram of bait. It is also a fact that many baits have proven to work without any added flavours at all. The best flavours are probably better called 'fish detection tools' or even 'fish mood and activity changers.' This is a far cry from the simple cake flavours many beginners start off using. The proven catches difference between using a simple alcohol based vanilla flavour compared to a fishing bait proprietary brand flavour proven for decades like 'Scopex' or 'Tutti Fruitti' or 'Monster crab' is gigantic.


Experiment kneading the mixture together into a dough. Until you have a practical bait and put into marked and dated bags, but many of these baits can quickly be made on the bank or boat which is really useful. Baits can be round shapes, square, triangles, pellets or just random shapes. You can use these baits fresh or store them temporarily in the fridge or freeze them. By noting what ingredients you add and the amounts used you will be able to make any bait in the future and associate with it any interesting results apart from personal best captures. Just putting bait into the margins where fish can browse on your baits is a very valuable thing to do to help assess their response.


Personally I'd do this with any batch of bait before bothering to fish. Watching fish feeding on your bait is fantastic. (And often the biggest fish are caught on a new bait they have never experienced before.) Testing different batches of bait like this will certainly show you the winners and dramatically increase your confidence in your new baits. You will find that some of your homemade baits will out-perform those expensive shop-bought baits and by making your own baits you will learn practical ways to enhance or alter those shop baits that are 'in' too in order to 'top' them. Although there is far more to making and enhancing baits this will get you on your way!


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About the AuthorBorn in Zagreb, Croatia 1977. Like fishing and reading....