Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Carp Bait Making Made Simple For Economical Big Fish Captures!

By Tim Richardson

Saving yourself the cost of expensive bait is one of the most important factors in fishing success for many carp fishermen. It can take quantities of expensive readymade bait to achieve great results and if you have a way of making this very quickly and very cheaply then you can save yourself untold fortunes and catch as many if not more fish than on readymade baits. Once you have a few basic bits of information on making baits you are free to create unique economical baits for big fish for years to come and save yourself a real fortune!

For the more technically minded fisherman, carp do not get their energy needs from carbohydrates but mostly protein and also fats and oils in their natural diet. Being aquatic they are extremely well adapted to extract far more energy from protein foods than humans on land. The very basic protein requirements of carp are extremely significant in terms of making effective baits because these are composed of basic building blocks called amino acids, some of which carp essentially need to consume in order to survive.

There are around 10 basic essential amino acids that carp need although there are a few others, but let's keep things as simple as possible for now. These include: lysine, methionine, arginine, phenylalanine, valine, tryptophan, leucine, isoleucine, histidine and threonine. Carp eat foods containing these amino acids because they are essential. Using almost anything that a fish basically needs to survive can give you the edge you need to get bites although exploiting fish nutritional needs are not the only way to get bites; in fact, far from it!

It may be no surprise that both humans and carp have evolved in part due to the energy providing foods available for us to exploit in our environments. We can exploit how these foods are detected by smell and taste for example, by boosting the levels of the most highly stimulating substances within our baits. These may consist of natural food sources of soluble amino acids, flavors or even using specialist hormone preparations etc, but there are thousands to choose from!

In fish experiments the essential amino acid requirement of very few fish has been established, but those of carp are known and can be exploited in our baits to good effect. But you do not need to know how to create a balanced profile or high protein bait to catch fish. It does help to use protein foods like hens eggs, fish meals, caseins etc which are high protein sources, because they provide many essential amino acids and are extremely well proven bait ingredients.

In the UK many fishermen have the attitude that carp baits not made from very expensive protein ingredients are crap baits and catch few big fish, but the truth is that you can catch as many fish on carbohydrate based baits if you know what you are doing and have enough experience of other ingredients and how to fish such baits well and save yourself a fortune, which is what I have done successfully for decades. You just keep adjusting levels and types of stimulatory and attractive substances to create new baits regularly, so keeping ahead of the fish; and many big fish often fall to new unfamiliar baits with good reason...

Often artificially stocked fisheries contain fish which now treat anglers baits as natural food and these fish literally live on them as opposed to just natural food which may or may not be readily available. Homemade baits will catch on the easiest overstocked or richest or under-stocked waters; what do think the early bait pioneers used? Why keep buying readymade bait for 10 pounds when you can produce your own unique baits for a fraction of the cost and very little time or effort when I've found over the last 30 years that you can catch against any readymade bait using homemade baits no matter what they are based on!

Other ingredients like bird foods containing hemp and corn, crushed seeds and nuts etc, can be utilised to make very nutritious stimulating baits simply bound together with eggs to make a dough and boiled in water. You can combine these with both carbohydrate and protein ingredients to make any recipe of bait you so desire and bait making does not have to be rocket science to catch fish! However, if all you remember from this article is that carp love amino acids and it is recommended you treat your bait as an amino acid carrier, then you can leverage this fact in your homemade baits and readymade bait dips for the rest of your life; and for more consistent big fish catches!

By Tim Richardson. - 16492

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