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Carp Bait: Treat a Carp to its Favourite
Meal
by: Wayne McDonald
www.carp-fishing-tactics.com
A carp is an intelligent fish and it also has a memory. It knows what’s
good and what’s not edible. Carp may test the food’s nutritional content,
its taste or to determine if it has gone off. It may reject bait because
it remembers that a particular substance or smell was previously
accompanied by a hook.
Like all creatures, carp have daily nutritional requirements for vitamins,
minerals, proteins, amino acids (lysine and methionine), carbohydrates,
oil and fibre. Carp can smell amino acids emitted by bloodworms, crayfish,
and aquatic plants. Green-lipped mussel extract, kelp extract, liver
powder and molasses contain sucrose and amino acids, which the carp has
learned to recognise as having nutritional value. Some anglers use
peanuts. While peanuts contain lipids, sugars and amino acids, these do
not mimic the natural foods carp like.
Carp love boilies, bread crust, meat baits, maize, fruity flavours (items
containing vitamin C), stilton cheese, white fishmeal (herring meal is
very desirable to carp), full fat soya flour, lactalbumin, rennet casein,
robin red, hemp and seaweed extract. The best items are those that either
emit favourable smells or contain ingredients which mimic them. Carp will
also eat flavoured imitation baits. When boilies fail to attract them,
artificial corn will usually work. Zoom Carp Snacks have been used
successfully by many carp anglers. The snacks come in honey, vanilla,
strawberry and chocolate flavours.
What works one place at one time of the year will not necessarily work at
another or during a different season. Anglers often use easily digested
food/ingredients in bait during the winter because carp don't move much
due to the cold conditions. In the summer months, when fish are more
active, anglers should use more protein in their baits. Older carp,
however, require less protein.
Boilies
There are shelf life boilies and there are the homemade varieties.
Generally, if you make your own boilies they should work out cheaper and
if done correctly, some anglers swear, more effective. You must make up
your own mind on which is best for you and your situation.
At the time of writing, Mainline makes boilies in several different
flavours that are attractive to carp. These include Strawberry Jam, Sweet
Pineapple, Tiger Nut, Tutti-Frutti, and Halibut. The 18mm versions are
designed to catch in all fishing situations. Newfields makes Fire and Ice
(F&I) boilies. They are a blend of marine proteins, milk protein,
vegetable extracts, kelp, belachan block, hot chilli powder, spices and
betaine. F&I boilies are available in 14-24mm sizes. They are designed for
year round usage and are especially valuable in the cold winter months.
Making a boilie at home is akin to making a cake. You mix 6-10 eggs;
flavours and additives; liquids; maize, corn semolina, soy flours;
powdered milk and sugar to form a paste. Almond essence, liver flavour,
anchovy concentrate, squid, octopus, amino acids, peach and pepper
flavours, betaine, shellfish, plum, fruit, green lipped mussel, red salmon
oil and curry powder are particularly effective additives. The mixture is
rolled into a ball, placed into a fry basket and then boiled for 1-3
minutes. The finished boilies are dried on paper for 2-3 days. They are
now ready to use or they can be stored in the freezer.
There are various types of boilies depending on the materials used. High
Nutritional Value (HNV) boilies incorporate a range of ingredients that
benefit the fish in some way. A typical HNV mix will include digestible or
pre-digested casein's, proteins, vitamins and minerals. An angler making
his own boilies can add other flavours, colours, and enhancers. The
drawback to HNV baits is that they are expensive. Best results using HNV
boilies are achieved from June to November.
High Attract (HA) boilies are generally buoyant. They are normally used as
a single hook bait (no free offerings around the hook bait). The HA
boilies are over flavoured, producing a brightly coloured bait that stands
out from the lake bed. The high level of attraction is produced with the
aid of a bait dip, soak or glug. The baits are very effective all year
round, but especially so during the really cold winter months when the
carp don’t want to get their heads down to feed.
Soluble boilies are not used to place the hook in the carp’s mouth.
Instead, they dissolve and form a particle layer on the bottom with an
intense scent that cause the carps to investigate. They have delicious
flavours, usually wheat, maize, or cinnamon amongst others. The soluble
boilies are made without eggs. The flours, including portions of salt or
sugar, are mixed with water or with milk. The boilies are not cooked and
left to air dry.
Non-soluble pellets are made the same as regular boilies. Instead of being
rolled into balls, they are formed into long cylinders, cut into sections,
cooked in water, and dried on paper.
Particle baits
Particles refer to seeds, nuts and grains that are used as either hook
bait or groundbait. The best known and most widely used is maize. It makes
a great bait after soaking and boiling. Tiger nuts are brown nuts with a
very rough texture. They are one of the hardest particles around and must
soak for 24 hours before being boiled for 30 minutes. The prepared nuts
are best when left in the water for 2-3 days after boiling. The water is
turned milky white due to sugars in the nuts. Two nuts on a hair rig are
excellent as a bottom bait. To make a pop-up (buoyant bait), sandwich a
piece of cork shaped like a nut between two nuts on a hair rig. Other
particle baits include hemp, hempseed, maple peas, and lupins.
Flavourings, dips and additives make particle baits more attractive to
carp. One of the best commercial particle baits is WackerBlendPlus.
Groundbaits
Groundbait is made from different kinds of natural ingredients such as
bread crumbs, hemp, walnut flour and so on. It is moistened with water,
formed into balls and thrown into the water where you plan to fish. The
carp are attracted to the smell and clouding of the water. One of the best
types of groundbait is made by van den Eynde.
Live baits
The diet of small carp includes black midges and animals without backbones
½ millimetre+ long (the size of a pencil dot). These animals live on
rocks, logs, sediment, debris and aquatic plants during some phase of
their life. They include crayfish, clams, snails, aquatic worms and the
immature forms of aquatic insects, such as stonefly and mayfly nymphs.
The adult carps are omnivores, and their diet includes molluscs, water
fleas, aquatic crustaceans, sea lice, lawn shrimp, beach flees, aquatic
and terrestrial insects, detritus, seeds, fragments of dead aquatic plants
and filamentous algae
There are a number of live baits that you use to catch carp. These are the
same creatures that carp would find in the water. Mainline makes bloodworm
extract stik pellets, which easily break down and draw carp to your
baiting area. Dynamite Baits makes fishmeal boilies containing flavours
that carp like, such as crab, shrimp, octopus, halibut, oyster, and
chicken.
Article by Wayne McDonald from Carp Fishing Bait & Tactical Tips at www.carp-fishing-tactics.com
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