CATFISH CARP FISHING BAIT SECRETS -- POWERFUL Bait Digestibility / Solubility MAXIMUM CATCHES

* Your homemade fishing bait’s catch rate can beTherefore, baits with no flavours often catch bonus
altered dramatically, by adding even the smallestfish on such waters.
quantities of especially attractive individual ingredients! *I have monopolized on the beneficial effects of very
Many natural extracts, concentrated synthetic flavours,water soluble baits, to very great effect at times! One
or taste enhancers and so on, have the best effectslake had seen a lot high protein halibut rearing pellets,
when used in very small doses. Often by adding just aand the biggest fish had yet to be caught on this
little more ‘for luck’ you can even go too far,abundant food source which the majority of fisherman
and actually make your bait repellant!found fashionable to use at the time. It was at a time,
Going to the opposite extreme, there are manyjust before ‘Betaine Hydrochloride’ first became
ingredients that you can overload your bait with andknown to the average angler in the UK as a carp
just keep getting better and better catch results. I referattractor.
here to natural predigested extracts. Examples ofI sourced the highest quality predigested fish meal
these are:pellet I could, and soaked it in this attractor. I laid out
Fish protein extract, fermented shrimp, yeast extract,copious amounts of pellet between two thick sheets
certain squid extracts, etc.and shattered them with a heavy hammer tied to a
The limits of these types of top catching ingredients,wide, thick piece of wood. Once shattered and
are usually cost and their effects on your bait’ssoaked, I then used it when fishing.
practical water solubility rate; before the totalThe most important action I took while fishing was, I
breakdown of your bait. Obviously you need a bait tobaited the swim every half hour to an hour, and kept
remain resilient long enough to get a bite, whether afterlots of breaking down bait in the swim to create the
1 hour, or 6 hours etc!maximum attraction.
Of course there are some commercially producedImportantly, I used three grades of pellets, each with
extracts which need to be used in moderation as theyincreasing amounts of soluble fish protein content. The
are extremely concentrated, for example, liquid squidresult was, most of the biggest carp and catfish in the
extract; dosage instructions need to be followed tolake were caught within days or a few weeks, by
avoid making your bait repellant!using this method, (some repeatedly,) with eleven 30
It is essential to test your bait’s ‘dissolvingpound fish and sixty 20 pound fish, one catfish over 50
rate.’ Many ingredients such as predigestedpounds, and one over 60 pounds.
extracts, sugars and milk powders can be very solubleDuring this time, the average angler was still
have a very high ‘leak-off’ rate.‘blanking’ an average of 80 % of the time! I
The fish are well attracted by these dissolvedkept what I was doing, ‘low key’, but not a
substances spreading through the surrounding water.secret.
This is so you can gauge how long uneaten bait willAs the fish wised up, and more people began to copy
last in your ‘swim’ in order to apply the mostthe method, hook holds became less secure, nearer to
effective ‘free’ baiting for any bait and fishingthe outside of the mouths of the ever, more cautious
situation.carp. I began scaling down my hook size from 4 to 8,
Your application of ‘free ground bait’ is one ofused broken pellet on the hook, and lengthened my
the most important factors in your carp fishinghook link from 8 inches to 12. This kept fish coming.
success! By testing your baits, in a large glass ofI sustained this success by wrapping baits in
water, you can time the breakdown stages andboiling-water scalded pellet paste, and using this as
maximum ‘practicality’ of your prepared baits,free baits too.
both as ‘free offerings’ and as hook baits, andYou can design your bait that induces carp to feed
refine your base mix as required.confidently, and even feed in an intense,
By regulating bait resilience and leak-off rates, by‘preoccupied’ way. By increasing the soluble
altering your levels of more, and less solubleingredient content of your bait, especially with focus on
ingredients, you can improve your bait’sthe extremely soluble and digestible
performance in different ways. Critically, it allows you‘predigested’ protein extracts, included in
to ‘differentiate’ your bait from mostelevated levels.
commercial ‘food value’ baits, by maximizing itsFor example, many anglers were getting success by
rate of breakdown.using predigested fish meal pellets. By using a pellet of
Commercial bait manufacturers have to meethigher protein content, better quality oil content and
‘normal fishing use of the average fisherman, andconsequent attraction, I took control of this further, and
meet the expectations of the majority of anglers,designed a similar bait in boilie form.
which may prefer a bait that is resilient enough to lastIt contained very high levels of a quality predigested
perhaps 24 hours or more before breaking down.fish proteins, tuna meal and milk proteins. This mix was
‘Conventional shelf-life baits’ and otherdesigned and tested until it broke down in a glass of
‘preserved’ ones can take a much longerwarm water in 4 to 6 hours. (This was a far faster
period to break down, and if ignored and uneaten, canrate than most shop-bought boilies!)
take weeks of bacterial activity to ‘digest’ them.I fished a lake which, that year, had only produced a
Obviously, bacterial enzymes, and smaller fishescouple of fish up to thirty pounds in 5 months. I fed 20
attention, can affect the speed at which your baitskilogram of bait into the lake, over a period of 3
break down, but you can massively increase theweeks; while fishing three times using this bait. At this
attraction of your bait by exploiting this effect.time I did not even get a single ‘bite!’
You can design your free bait and hook baits toThen I fished once more, and water temperatures had
maximize the benefits of this, to attract more carp,risen. I fed in 7 kilograms of bait in total, over timed
faster to your swim, and hold them there feeding farintervals during that day. The first fish came that night
more confidently, as long as your bait attractorsat 32 pounds.
remain in high enough levels dissolved in the water!Amazingly, this was followed by five more 30 pound
I have often wondered about the effects of usingcarp, one after another. The effort of making the new
different sponges soaked in attractors and fixed nearbait to ‘top’ the one that the majority of other
the hook, to test the practical time duration of theirfishermen were using; had paid off handsomely!
attraction benefits.The author has many more fishing and bait
Carp learn ‘by association’, and are‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can
‘educated’ by anglers activities, rigs and baits. Inhave a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article
many hard fished waters, carp haveis protected by copyright, but reprints with a link are
‘associated’ that baits with all flavours leachedOK.)
out, softened, and especially in a state of breakdown,By Tim Richardson. ‘The thinking angler’s fishing
after a period of time in the water, are safe to eat!author and expert bait making guru.