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Winter Carp Fishing - Boilies Pellet and Paste Bait Tips
by: Tim Richardson
Many fishermen get an anxiety attack
thinking about their baits in winter and rightly so! Most commercially
produced baits are not made to be ideal winter baits but in part to fulfil
typical customer expectations which lead to more buyer confidence in the
bait. This produces quite a few baits having constant features which may
not necessarily always lead to the best bait option.
For example, such a winter bait will last more than 12 hours in water as a
functional durable hook bait. Or exude a smell which is recognisable to a
buyer to fit a current fashion (like pineapple for example. Or have a fair
degree of initial hardness when first immersed in water and even have a
dry centre. Such baits require a period of soaking in order to allow the
bait to open up its texture and structure enough to release good soluble
attraction into the water. Often winter baits can be so over-flavoured
that they repel fish. Over-flavouring of baits works but can be a
disadvantage on many waters where the same bait and flavours have been
used too much to keep a real edge.
Many effective winter baits having a more open texture, containing more
coarse ingredients like bird foods, (egg biscuit, hempseed, wheat germ
meal etc,) the levels are often in less than ideal proportions that could
lead to a more attractive and digestible bait. A bait with an open soft
structure and capable of leaching soluble attractors while retaining
attractive nutritional signals and taste factors is often much better than
a dense textured bait which inhibits the dispersal of its attractors even
if its a high protein milk protein bait. Very important taste signals
which are received by carps taste receptors can directly influence the
longevity of feeding on your bait and even if it is eaten at all.
Many baits will have high proportions of finely milled flours. In some
carp studies it was found that carp preferred to eat coarse food items
such as cracked maize, as opposed to finely milled maize flour made into
dough balls. (This has much to do with nutrition being lost during the
milling process – taste the difference between milled oats and natural
oats for example.) Cracking open a piece of natural maize releases more
concentrated flavour than the dough balls made from maize flour.
There has been a long growing trend towards use of so-called ‘food baits’
by carp anglers in many countries. This in theory means that carp get used
to eating such a bait feeling the nutritional benefits that it contains
and keep coming back for more. Such baits retain higher levels of taste
substances after long immersion in water, than say a cheap ‘crap bait’
made from soya, semolina, rice flour or maize meal.
The cheap low food value bait base mix has very little in regards to
nutritional attraction which contribute to taste attraction. In the case
of the average commercially produced bait, results are often very similar
between them because the ingredients used are so often the same or very
similar and are offering similar nutritional rewards. Having been fed on
these baits constantly by numbers of anglers and being hooked on them
often fish can reduce their feeding on this bait now they need this
supplemental nutrition offered less.
Some anglers say that carp do not differentiate between different anglers’
balanced nutritional baits, arguing they will eat them all anyway once
flavours and most taste factors have leached out; the real difference
being an individual angler’s abilities. This is very true in that years
ago a low nutrition bait with a flavour could not match the attraction
profile and nutritional rewards of constantly eating a balanced
nutritional bait. At that time such baits could really produce astounding
results. But these days most busy carp waters are fed such a wide range of
baits, (which now form much of the bulk of the fish stocks diet,) that
differences in catch rates between the commercially produced baits are
mostly very similar, with few really standing out for long.
Even the new baits with added enzymes claiming to contain ‘optimum levels
of the right amino acids for the best concentration and release of the
most stimulating amino acids to carp,’ do not seem to work everywhere to
the same degree of success compared to average baits. It seems that every
carp water is different in regards to the relative nutritional
requirements and possible deficiencies or not that carp may have. Much
depends upon exactly how carp respond to each type of bait as a direct
consequence of the nutrition that can be detected in it and efficiently
digested and assimilated from it. There is evidence that use of the new
generation of more highly preserved quality food baits, when used together
with low flavour fresh frozen type baits on the same base mix can offer
special attraction advantageous.
It’s the bait which offers more stimulating taste or a different
nutritional attraction profile or a more stimulatory physiological effect
that can get around the natural and angler-conditioned defences of carp.
Many anglers have missed the potent physiological effects of essential oil
mixtures including improved digestion and changes metabolism stimulation.
An energized cold water carp is going to move faster and further, be more
generally active, eat more bait, give you more chances of more pick-ups
and even more far enough fast enough to self-hook itself against your
lead, when they might otherwise not do so. I am personally extremely
interested in the physiological, physical, mental, mood altering, general
health and energy promoting effects of carp bait additives and
ingredients. We have been catching carp for years by ‘drugging them’ and
fishing baits are now more scientifically complex now than ever before.
You don’t need the latest commercial bait to catch winter fish, but using
a totally new bait against established ones is a very effective test.
Simple baits like worms can produce carp which may have switch-off to
boilies for example. Flavoured and dyed sweetcorn has certain mineral and
taste benefits for example that make for a great natural bait. Being
carbohydrate based it is very much more digestible than higher protein
boilies and pellets, but again, using the right quantity for conditions
matters. I can eat only so much sweetcorn in a short time and carp are
just the same.
However, sometimes in winter you can find that using the quantity of bait
you would normally consider using in the summer can really pay off. In
this scenario your bait had better be digestible. For those so inclined
treated tiger nuts skinned to remove the oily outer layer can work well in
cold conditions. Using a boilie base mix made using a higher ratio of
water to eggs or a modern binder gel to form baits in paste or un-boiled
form minus the digestive inhibiting effect of eggs is very effective
(originally milk protein baits were used in paste form to extremely good
effect. In winter fishing, your ‘background free baits’ used are of
supreme importance. Using this feed very creatively using various
techniques can decide a blank or ‘red letter day.’ In winter the activity
of so-called nuisance fish may be very much reduced due to the cold, so
take advantage. Tiny paste baits or 5 millimetres regularly introduced
into spots where carp feed comfortably can really attract and stimulate
fish without over-feeding. Using matching bird food / milk protein pellets
and paste baits with a paste bait on the hook is great too. Sometimes the
presence of ‘nuisance fish’ like roach or small carp can be a good
indication that your location is spot-on as such a spot is sure to be
where your target larger carp will feed. Often very short hook links with
a back-stop, light lead and slackened line will hook a fish when a heavy
lead inline set-up might produce single bleeps (if that) where a hook is
ejected by leveraging the lead on a tight line especially.
The commercial bait designers and manufacturers are really to be
congratulated for their huge efforts to improve their products. Sure
products have a life-cycle of varying durations and keeping new products
coming and market share are important too. But it’s good to know that the
research and long-term bait-testing has often been done by the reputable
companies who really do care and want their customers to achieve their
dreams and keep coming back for more bait because it consistently catches
fish all year round.
The baits which stand out in winter are often far more digestible. It
appears that the amino acids and great palatability of certain quality
milk protein ingredients in correctly prepared milk protein baits really
stimulate carp in the winter. It may be that the solubility of whey
products and caseinates and enzyme treated caseins do something unique to
carp. It does show that in winter, digestibility is only part of the
equation. I’m sure that the relatively lower pH of high protein milk
protein ingredients is one reason why they are effective apart from the
obvious nutritional attraction.
However, high protein baits are far more difficult for carp to digest (if
not actually possible with many ingredients) and there are many other
ingredients that produce much more digestible winter baits. Bird foods are
used in winter baits with good reason. being much lower in protein, but
are packed with very attractive components which supply many of the oils,
vitamins, minerals, protein and oils etc carp need. Bird foods contain
many attractive flavours and additives naturally. There is evidence to
suggest for example that the effects of powerful antioxidant substances in
bird foods contribute to their attraction. Some of the elements of that
very famous winter carp bait additive ‘Robin red’ phenols.
It’s also a bit like tasting fast grown glasshouse produced tomatoes.
(Usually by hydroponics where the plant food components like many minerals
are in a watery solution and are regulated and piped to the tomato
plants.) The flavour of these is in part due to the variety, but mostly
upon the levels of taste producing factors like minerals are part of the
tomato. Your tomatoes which are grown outside in the garden soil will
taste much richer and be more nutritionally better for you, being packed
with natural minerals from the soil. Their flavour profile will be totally
different.
Bearing in mind that we are very like carp in that we are composed mostly
of water and minerals, you can understand perhaps a bit more why the baits
with minerals are detected as they are essential in the fish’s diet as
they are in ours too. Try doing a comparison with baits based on semolina
and soya flour with and without an added mineral and vitamin complex as a
bait soak and see the difference. Of course the minerals taste will
influence more efficient bait detection too and over time, granular type
minerals will slowly dissolve some at different rates.
Many baits ingredients are quoted as being included for nutritional
balancing of the bait. The big point is not the nutrition in the abstract
(as per aquaculture quoted optimums) but the two-fold advantage of an
energetic reward for the fish’s activity in finding and eating your bait.
And perhaps even more importantly, various nutritional ingredients produce
more long-term and short-term immersion food signals. This leads to easier
bait detection by carp chemoreception by both long range external food
detection receptors, like those along the lateral line, right down to the
excitation of the palatial gustatory taste receptors in the mouth leading
to the positive swallowing of your bait and the greatest chance of hooking
the fish with the hook deep inside the mouth.
I have used many milk protein based baits in the last 30 years and found
they produce better over all and especially in the winter, when they have
been ‘cured.’ By this I mean (at the minimum) they have partly been
pre-digested by bacterial action by heating in a sealed container in a
warm environment and removing water moisture as it builds-up. This process
can be increased by using any of a range of enzymes now available, but
even the addition of papain helps. Milk protein baits have not worked for
everyone on every water, despite their awesome performance on others.
Apparently strange things can happen when using milk protein baits. They
have for years now had to compete with the more suitable amino acid
profiles of marine based boilies and are comparatively much more
expensive. Again it’s about using the right bait in the right place at the
right time and these baits certainly can out-fish those naturally oily
fishmeal baits especially in winter. Using enzyme treated fishmeals and
protein (with emulsifiers) to better the nutritional attraction profile
and leak-off of a winter milk protein bait makes much more sense than
using a bait that is a very dense bait with very little digestibility and
limited attraction properties.
Many anglers favour bird food baits with a quarter or a third of the
formula consisting of a mixture of high protein milk ingredients combined
with open coarse textured bird foods. I have found wheat based baits lots
of oat bran and wheat germ with a little milk protein and bird food
ingredients in a very open textured soft bait easy to make and work very
instantly. Raising your intense sweetener level in such a winter bait is
beneficial. Many lower pH flavours like the fruits, spices and savoury
ones like butter, milk or cream have proven effective in winter baits,
many for widely different reasons. (Not all flavours are even remotely
similar and some are definitely in a class of their own.) Certain extracts
have amazing immunity boosting and antimicrobial effects. Essential oils
and their derivatives are excellent in the winter.
The taste of many successful flavours will be found to match the flavour
of certain molecules in the bait ingredients and I’m sure this can
contribute to the flavours effects. Some proven winter flavours attract
fish from range such as the very popular ‘Robin red’ based liquids for
instance. This can be a bonus if you cannot fish the exact spot or desired
swim that puts you directly on tightly shoaled winter carp and you can
draw fish into your area.
I have fished a top quality milk protein bait with no flavours against
milk protein baits with added flavours (in summer) and been shocked to
blank which those flavoured baits caught. Having cured the same baits I
returned and banked much bigger fish than those flavoured baits caught.
Winter baits are as much a question of personal confidence in your bait
(and location) as anything else. Many winter bait combinations and
mixtures have come I’m sure as a result of pure desperation and very
persistent and confusing trials and often by accident as much as design
over the decades if truth be told... The world of bait is pitted with real
life fishing variables, but then if carp fishing was too easy, would we
bother going carp fishing in the deepest coldest darkest most
bone-chilling winter days and nights?
Winter fishing is becoming far more popular these days as our fishing
banks become more crowded with warm weather carp anglers and cold weather
clothing and equipment is so well designed now. For most carp anglers
today, the thought of sitting all day under a 45 inch umbrella on a deck
chair in chilling rubber Wellington boots with your feet literally
freezing to the ground are long gone (Phew!) Some days our coffee was more
whisky than coffee to stave off the cold and keep our spirits up! Attitude
counts for so much in winter.
I remember having fished for 4 nights without a bite in freezing
conditions, when that evening a new angler turned up and offered to share
the curry he’d prepared at home. He even offered a can of beer which I
very much appreciated (I normally avoid any alcohol on the bank) But its
often fellow anglers camaraderie and creative ways of dealing with the
elements that makes a session memorable rather than just the fish caught.
Even the best anglers will admit that there are times when absolutely
no-one is catching fish and even the thought of the remotest possibility
of a take and a ‘good social’ on the bank keeps us going.
The sometimes drastic extremes of weathers now officially confirmed as
being the result of global warming offer us new opportunities with milder
winters and the timing of our fishing sessions really does count. Changing
weather patterns and seasonal extensions mean carp can be feeding for
longer and earlier than in the past – so go for it; those big winter carp
are waiting for you and most of all, aim to have fun!
The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges.’ Just one could impact
on your catches.
By Tim Richardson.
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