Tag Archives: Catfish Baits

Fishing Tips

Homemade Carp and Catfish Baits – How to Make Them Instantly Attractive!

* Many thoughts exist on making baits and so many ideas and opinions contradict each other. So how to find the truth about what really works?!

Well, for example, in creating recipes for an instantly attractive carp or catfish bait, (these very often work for both species) people argue over ingredients, and how baits actually trigger that crucial fish feeding response.

A good sign when designing your homemade bait is that it instantly attracts the attention of a wide range of species. This might be great if you want to target all these others, but your bait might be attracting ‘bait fish’ around your hook bait that will attract the much bigger predatory, or curious catfish, or carp.

Such baits vary from just 2 ingredients and a flavour, to the most advanced produced by fish nutritionists and biochemists. But for each extreme, there are ideas and principles common to each, so let’s start by looking at what makes a ‘simple bait’:

To begin with, the simplest baits often utilize cheaper bulk ingredients as basic as wheat or corn flour, with a ‘high energy value’ but a low protein content.

Such baits may seem easy to distinguish from the ‘balanced nutritional profile’ protein based baits, but things overlap: Each type works and seems to contradict each other’s theory of why they should work at all!

And perhaps the key is less to do with the effort and energy cost to the carp, of eating your bait, versus its bio – energy reward for doing so. But more to do with exploiting methods of initial feeding response stimulation and initial bait small, taste and palatability. For example, we all know that food that is very nutritious can be repellent because of its strong taste or smell; some people hate fish, or garlic, or certain vegetables…

So what are the theoretical origins of carp baits made from ‘humble’ low protein and economical ‘carbohydrate’ ingredients, after all, we all know sweet corn is one of the greatest carp baits of all time, even catching a British record or two, but is primarily a sweet low protein carbohydrate food?

Traditionally the best known low protein flavor attractor ‘commercial bait’ (used world wide) is probably is Rich worth’s or Rod Hutchinson’s ‘Tutti Fruiti’ flavor / boilie. Fish love certain alcohols / combinations far more than others and a cheap semolina / soya flour base mix were ideal to carry this attractor label, and work anywhere.

However, flavors were originally used in baits to change their TASTE, when catch results achieved on the low nutrition baits were slowing down, and NOT because flavors actually worked as attractors in their own right! (Although they have evolved to become so today.)

There are still many cheaper flavors, sold as ‘carp attractors’ that are really only ‘labels’ for your base mix, and do not have much in them that will trigger carp into feeding on your bait! Carp can be fooled for quite a while though; A very successful UK angler (Andy Little) who was the first to land thirty 30 pound carp in a season, did this: he began catching by feeding a high nutritional value bait into the lake (SAVAY), and as time and catches grew, his bait ran out.

So, he put the same flavor label (strawberry?) in a cheaper, low protein, high carbohydrate base mix, and he continued to catch successfully for some time. The carp had associated the flavor ‘label’ with nutritional benefit, and were fooled into carrying on eating the new bait – despite its lack of food nutrition benefits!

This category of basic dry mix consists mainly of high carbohydrate ingredients which also roll and bind together easily. A basic combination of 50 / 50 % semolina flour and soya flour is the most commonly used base, although this has often added nutritional factors added like vitamins and minerals, cheap fishmeal, an amino acid source like corn steep liquor for added attraction etc.

These baits are often highly coloured with ‘fluorescent’ edible dyes to get carp to see them more quickly and easily, black, pink and white and background contrasting colors are often ones I’ve done well on when I’ve made these baits.

You have to ask how carp see these colors in water at different light intensities, of day / night, water clarity etc, and to come to your own conclusions. White seems good as anything, and I’ve caught plenty of good carp on this.

Other ingredients are added to give a ‘variety’ or initial difference to the bait, as a carbohydrate bait can ‘blow’ very quickly compared to high nutrition baits on some water, for example a difficult, low stock density, high natural food / exceptionally high water quality lake. It can take much work in pre – baiting for example, to keep ahead of the carp’s natural wariness having been caught on these baits, and even to get them to eat such baits initially!..

You can change your bait characteristics; type of attractors, color, rate of attraction leak – off, ‘crunch factor’, etc. Instant attractor baits are often highly coloured and ‘over – flavored’ with sometimes with natural juice incorporated flavors; solvent based flavors (e.g., acetates and similar groups of chemicals), or alcohol and oil based flavors for example, and attractive extracts like that of fermented fish /shellfish.

Changing the flavors, especially of ‘non solvent’ based ones, can keep the bait working purely on the basis of flavor attraction. (Some say these baits work by ‘simulating’ the carp’s natural food signals, ionizing the area of water around the bait but there is far more to this and it is a very advanced area to really begin to understand.)

Cheaper ingredients, like ground cereals or bean derived flours and meals, make this style of bait cost effective, simple, and very quick to produce. Years ago I used to soak my baits in a mixture of pure ethyl alcohol flavors, oil based flavor extracts and liquid ‘Robin Red’ extract. The main cost was flavors and added attractors and they keep working when changed regularly although I always use a liquid protein source as a bait soak / and in the bait as I have found carp caught by doing this are often much bigger!!

I recall the first time I experimented with overloading baits with ‘raw’ undiluted flavors around 1980… I caught all night, trebling my catch rate at that time. But I used this bait only over 6 weeks, as 90 % of the carp were smaller ones 6 pounds to 16 pounds. Very nice catches despite this.

I tried this approach on a giant water in the south of France (Lac Du Salagou) about 15 years ago. I hooked a fish only 15 minutes after arriving. It was gigantic too, and emptied my reel, snapped the line, leaving my friends laughing, in a mixture of amazed shock and jealous relief that I did not land it!!! I’d gradually stripped off down to my underpants and waded out 30 yards to chest deep water too! (I wonder if the video they took of the action still exists – eh Mr Grimes!?) I still wonder about that fish….

Please be warned: Be aware that highly flavored instant attractor type baits can badly ‘backfire on you’ and actually be extremely repellant to many big carp on some waters, owing to high pH factors etc, and also where it has been used on a water, by many anglers, for quite some time.

The biggest, most wary of fish can be terrified of over flavoured baits and even the average artificially flavored bait simply because it recognizes that signal as related to danger! You may wonder why you almost never even hook a bigger fish on such a bait at certain waters. Remember, the aim of the bait is to get a carp to pick up the bait as confidently as possible, as this gives the greatest chance of obtain a solid hook hold!

I took a quality milk protein and wheat germ bait to the famous ‘Rainbow Lake’ in France, and made a terrible mistake by putting the recommended synthetic flavor in it, instead of leaving it out completely! This bait produced NO takes at all, and I ended up catching fish around 50 pounds on other bait with no flavor instead!…

The Japanese and American scientists have both proven that carp instinctively prefer a protein instead for a Carbohydrate based food.

In one of a series of similar tests producing similar results, a carp diet was supplemented with a carbohydrate food. The carp regularly ate this food for only one week before stopping. This particular food was ignored for a total of 26 weeks, but when a protein based food was then offered, it was eaten immediately!

The Japanese probably lead the world in knowledge of carp nutrition and carp attractors, with over a thousand years of history in carp breeding, testing and so on.

I’ve read that in many tests carp are induced into feeding less nutritional food, by adding PLANT EXTRACTS and NOT SYNTHETIC CHEMICAL FLAVORS. For example, I’ve seen fenugreek extract used, and this is a component of the extremely successful commercially produced ‘maple’ flavor. You must assume that these scientists are at the top of this whole game, so if they’re using it in tests as a carp feeding trigger it probably great to use in bait!

I also got the impression reading about the writings of the famous milk protein bait pioneer, Fred Wilton, that these baits were EQUALLY as effective or perhaps even MORE so, when synthetic flavours were NOT used in them! (So give it a go!)

Once, about 16 years ago, I was catching some good carp using very successful instant attractor baits, when the carp started head and shouldering, ‘en mass’, straight out of my swim, without returning; someone had just put out a large quantity of his own secret ‘High Nutritional Value’ bait (based on anchovy and sardine fishmeal), and the carp had shown their preference immediately! This taught me a BIG lesson about the advantages of really understanding essential carp nutrition in bait and how carp feeding behaviour can be manipulated by using the right bait at the right time on a particular water!!!

In some circumstances where there is sufficient baits of nutritional quality, fish mass population / density/ competition with other species / natural food supply etc, low protein carbohydrate baits can still continue to be effective, and consistently catch almost all the fish in a lake: The key seems to be in, if enough large quantities of a particular bait are introduced, and the attractors, e.g., chemical flavour labels are changed regularly enough, then they will continue to be successful.

One outstanding example of this happening on a water where quality protein and balanced nutritional profile baits had been used for many years there, was at the famous UK water; Darenth. In one season most of the waters biggest carp were landed on a carbohydrate bait based on full fat semolina and soya flour.

It may seem surprising, but then perhaps the fish treated it as a low energy cost food source as over 1 tonne was put in and it was used consistently by the majority of the anglers on fishing the at that time! Only when the anglers’ fashions changed and they tried other types of baits in large quantities did this trend in results on ‘instant baits’ reduce.

They do work well however and on a bait of a similar design, the old French “Rainbow Lake” record carp of 76 pounds was landed in 2006.

There are increasingly more countries and waters where ‘carp bait selectivity’ is now a common occurrence owing to intensive fishing pressure on carp; they can eat foods selectively while ignoring or preferring certain baits above others!

Worldwide carp do seem to literally eat almost anything used as bait. Overall, however, the majority of the heaviest carp caught in the UK seem to be caught on nutritionally based baits, but questions still arise concerning those captures by ‘instant attractor baits’ and why they can ‘trip – up’ many of the biggest carp at times… after all, carp are only conditioned by anglers and THEIR habits and preferences!

This fishing bait secrets books author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches.

By Tim Richardson.

For the unique acclaimed expert bait making and secrets ‘bibles’ ebooks / books:

“BIG CATFISH AND CARP BAIT SECRETS!”
AND “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” And ” BIG FLAVORS, FEEDING TRIGGERS AND CHEMORECEPTION EXPLOITATION SECRETS!” SEE:


http://www.baitbigfish.com


Tim is a highly experienced homemade bait maker big carp and catfish angler of 30 years. His bait enhancing books / ebooks now help anglers in 43 countries improve their results. See this bait and fishing secrets website now!

Carp Fishing Equipment

How to Make Homemade Carp and Catfish Baits Using Secret Expert Recipes!

Tim F. Richardson asked:

Do you need a big short cut to more fishing success?! Revealed here are proven bait recipes that have caught big carp and giant catfish from a very wide range of waters all year round that exploit professional bait design know-how and is for anyone wanting very effective but cheaper bait this year

There is a big movement towards more natural based nutritionally attractive baits that are optimised so more rather than less ingredients in baits actually gets converted so it benefits fish and induces them to want more of that bait in the future having had positive experiences with it as a result of eating it! Traditionally baits that are nutritionally stimulating have a suitable range of essential nutrients big fast growing fish like carp and catfish can utilise and grow bigger on.

But the point of fishing baits made with a focus on protein is not to grow big fish as big as efficiently as possible – that is the purpose of many aquaculture feeds, but this does not necessarily make this the top goal of a bait in fishing!

The entire point of fishing baits is to enable you to get fish hooked as easily, frequently and as effectively as possibly; preferably in as short a time as possible!

Have you ever noticed how most nutritionally-stimulating baits are also instant baits? Sure you can improve responses with these by conditioning fish feeding using regular feeding in both the short and longer-term with them. But the purpose of bait is merely to get as many chances of hooking fish as possible – and thousands of recipes of low nutritional value baits also do that when fished correctly!

Many anglers get confused about baits such as boilies and pellets because there used to be a popular approach to bait making that involved using very high levels of protein. However, many a great proportion of the ingredients in such baits were often completely wasted in effect. High protein ingredients, additives and extracts are more costly than most carbohydrate ingredients for example, which is why so many cheaper baits are based on carbohydrate ingredients such as cereals, grains, nuts, pulses and beans etc as in use of corn flour (maize,) semolina (wheat) and soya flour etc.

Baits that are effective for both carp and catfish tend to contain a sufficient content of protein elements they need in profiles they can utilise in terms of amino acids of various forms and polypeptides, among other essential related factors, such as betaine. Luckily for anglers new to bait making there are short cuts to providing such proteins and vital attractive bait elements.

For instance you might have noticed that many bait companies with utilise combinations of quality proteins very suitable for providing fish needs including fish meals and various marine and freshwater organism derived proteins, rich yeast products, milk proteins, egg proteins and various vegetable, poultry and other animal derived proteins.

Koi carp are very popular and various feeds for these fish have become so much more available in the last couple of decades. These foods are in many forms, from silkworm pupae, to extruded floating and sinking pellets and sticks, to granulated products and so on.

If you want to make a very complex bait using only a couple of ingredients and supply good levels of big carp and giant catfish food requirements so they get onto your bait once introduced, and come back looking for more this is a method many anglers have used in various ways for decades! For instance anglers used to grind up trout pellets and add eggs to make boilies or utilise cat and dog food biscuits and tinned foods etc. these foods are designed to make these creatures recognise these foods as food even on their very first experience of them and their first sniff or taste is vitally important.

These foods contain lots of proteins, carbohydrates oils, minerals and trace elements and other bioactive elements that further benefit the animals eating them. Food for gold fish and koi are very similar in their own way. For instance dog food may contain sweeteners to exploit the fact dogs have a liking for sweet foods, and also contain bacteria that helps dogs digest their food and helps the microoganisms dogs already have in their intestines to digest their food beyond what their own digestive enzymes can do.

The digestion of proteins is extremely important if only because they supply the amino acids which form the building blocks of life. It has even been proven that a life form such as a bacterium made up of just 2 or 3 proteins has a biorhythm or self intelligence that improves the organisms chances of survival by making processes such as cell division or other processes that happen in tune with things like electromagnetic energy and heat or other forms of radiation.

We humans and fish have such cellular intelligence programmed in us to enable us to survive, such as our sleep cycles and normal (and adjustable) monthly menstruation cycles in females. Some proteins are even phototropic for instance. We also have beneficial gut bacteria that help us most fully digest proteins, but in carp proteins are far more important in many ways compared to humans because they evolved surviving far more on proteins foods in their environment because of the relatively lower incidence of carbohydrate foods, as found on lakes and rivers compared to grassy planes or nut and fruit forests on land etc.

One very important point about proteins and bacteria for instance is that there is a very important symbiosis going on between animals, humans and fish, and efficient protein digestion. Plants of many kinds contain valuable proteins and many anglers tend to over look this. Although many large creatures are meat eaters it is obvious this takes significant energy to digest and anyone eating a big steak dinner will feel an energy drain as the body focuses resources on protein digestion.

However, many large muscular animals such as gorillas and elephants subsist on specific vegetation in the wild that they have evolved to feed on. These fully digest food by use of beneficial microoganisms such as gut bacteria attached to the intestinal walls and other locations.

Enzymes produced in the fish intestinal tract by microoganisms digesting food lead to the fish absorbing beneficial nutrients released or formed as a result of this activity. Some species of creatures are well known for a bye-product of fermentation in the gut including cows, and body builders eating lots of high protein foods, especially red meats such as lean beef for instance.

The largest creatures that ever lived such as dinosaurs like diplodocus and brachiosaurs and others growing over 80 to 120 feet long or more, appear thrived by feeding in the prehistoric wetlands where plant growth was extremely fast and importantly, it was much more energy efficient to feed in such conditions supported by water. Long-necked creatures like these dinosaurs and modern day giraffes and long-trucked elephants find it easy to cherry pick the richest leaves packed with nutrients including energy-producing chlorophyll at the tops of trees.

Carnivorous dinosaurs also utilised gut microoganisms in protein digestion just like eagles or vultures or cats and dogs today. The eating habits and gut organism fermentation bye-products of giant dinosaurs must have had quite an effect in altering the atmosphere of the earth after millions of years of *******!

In prehistoric times the air temperatures were probably a least 10 degrees hotter in many areas than on earth today and an added factor in the metabolism and growth of creatures of those times was that the level of oxygen in the atmosphere was significantly higher and nitrogen levels were lower. It is much more efficient to have a very large body with a corresponding surface area than to have a small body. I mean, just look how many breaths per minute a mouse takes and assess how much more energy it takes for this to occur compared to the number of breaths per minute of an elephant for instance!

Certain probiotic bacteria purposely included in pet koi and aquaculture feeds even result in fish being able to improve their efficiency of their respiration, which is over all linked to the efficiency of their metabolism also resulting their vital protein intakes etc in their food being utilised more efficiently and even improving mass gains of 20 percent in some Polish tests I found.

If you are wondering why Polish immigrants in the UK are stealing and scoffing our big carp it is because in their homeland carp are one of the favourite protein sources and it is simply what they eat there! It is no good waiting for these people to eat our carp stocks after arriving here purely out of ignorance – because then it is too late and the damage is done! Education needs doing before these people even get here!

I do appreciate that not all Polish people and certainly not all eastern European people are to blame and not all are ignorant of the cultural differences and differences in values we English anglers have compared to many of them – and of course carp fishing is becoming more and more popular in eastern Europe and carp angling for instance is becoming much more of a significant industry there and I have no wish to alienate nor victimise any fellow anglers who may be ignorant through no fault of their own.

However the UK police and environment agency have changed their policies and certain laws in direct response to the impacts of immigrants fishing for food (or profit.) I did not really believe it much of a problem until I found one Romanian guy fishing with 30 rods on a deal pier – he obviously does not know nor care about over-fishing and its implications for all of us in the future!

It is not racism but simple common sense to save our stocks and a big re-education of eastern European immigrants is necessary right now before even more prized and irreplaceable big carp of 30 or even 50 years of age find their way onto dinner plates! I guess I am a bit more sensitive on the subject of fish losses since recently my local Cranbrook Kent club lake was netted illegally overnight and the significantly old specimen English carp that were the pride of the club were lost after decades of tireless efforts by members. I hope they catch the scum that did this – they even left netted silver fish to die on the banks. To me this is just the same unbelievably wasteful ignorant Austrian angler who recently killed a massive record six gilled shark he hooked in the Irish Sea, regardless of a universal catch and release policy among UK and Irish anglers because of the extreme decline in shark numbers since the sixties!

After sidetracking a bit let us return to baits and protein digestion etc. Nitrogen gets released into the atmosphere in various ways over time and again bacteria have lots to do with this and also fix nitrogen in soil in ways that allow plants to piggy-back what the bacteria are doing so enabling them to utilise nitrogen.

If you want fast growing plants a nitrogen feed can maximum adequate water, minerals and sufficient heat etc as just like carp and carp digestion, plants too suffer from limiting factors! Nitrogen is a core part of proteins as used in growth and repair for instance, so you might see a pattern emerging in terms of the importance of nitrogen in amino acids, polypeptides, proteins etc – and supplying stimulating fish essentials in our fishing baits.

The first scientist to come up officially with the idea of probiotics believed that human aging was a result of toxins formed due to the putrification of red meat in the gut. The end result today is the mass use of lactic bacteria classed as foods and not drugs in the UK. Fermented milk products have been used by long-lived peoples for eons but there is a big difference between consuming fermented milk direct from a cow and many of the modern products we see pushed in slick adverts on TV!

Unfortunately most so-called probiotic yogurts consumed today are not as particularly effective or even beneficial as claimed due to being either inactive, or containing incorrect bacteria (or even perhaps harmful bacteria in some cases!) Also many brands can contain insufficient number of the right bacteria to do any good, or even contain extremely high levels of refined sugar – which is highly detrimental to humans in the long run and totally defeats the purpose of such products as so-called health foods!

In my view the best way to balance healthy beneficial gut bacteria for instance is to take a supplement of acidophilus every day and take a herb and spice and aloe vera supplement to clear gut mucus so allowing hugely increased absorption of nutrients. Bran is very proven too for stimulating tiny gut wall protrusions called alveoli, which lengthen so increasing the surface area of your gut that actually absorbs nutrients and oat and wheat bran is well proven in carp bait use alongside wheat germ for instance!

You might wonder sometimes when observing carp for example, why they **** algae off stones, or simply appear to feed in clay that seems devoid of sediment-inhabiting organisms such as bloodworms. But fish need more than just nitrogen and amino acids and minerals and trace elements in bottom mud is important and algae and microscopic organisms are beneficial too.

By feeding on bottom mud sediments etc fish can take into their gut various bacteria etc that are useful in helping them digest food. There is more variation in such organisms found in the gut compared to the gills foe example but these organisms are also found in water and sediment and should make an angler consider the wider picture when it comes to carp baits and their ingredients and modes of action!

Chlorophyll is obviously just one example of a potent substance carp take in by consuming natural algal growth that is highly beneficial to them.

Going back to bait design, fish feeds have been designed to keep fish from getting diseased, so keeping fish from getting unduly stressed but being ill, and elevate their vital energy levels and metabolism so they are in balance and feed regularly and are able to correctly digest and utilise the feed itself. This produces conditions that favour the growth and over all health and condition of fish. Betaine and wheat germ are just 2 feed components used to alleviate stress in fish among other reasons for their inclusion including improving feeding response and digestion.

It is your choice whether you use a range of bait ingredients to make your own fishing baits or utilise expert knowledge that has gone into the development of readymade fish feeds. One trick is to make a paste or boilie or pellets type bait out of aquarium feeds discs produced for catfish. In many parts of the USA readymade catfish pellets are easily available and can be incorporated into fishing bait designs of many kinds.

What matters most is your hook baits effectiveness. Even if the feeds you decide to use as part of your homemade baits are the most expensive complex prebiotic and probiotically active cold water koi feeds for example, you know your bait is going to be recognised as a potential food source immediately because these feeds offer so many reasons for fish to consume them.

However it is wise to hedge your bets and make your baits more stimulating and attractive because usually in aquaculture or with pet fish, the fish are only a short distance away from where feed is regularly introduced, and in reality in fishing, you usually need to pull fish in from perhaps quite a distance away so do make sure you design your baits to do this whenever necessary!

This is where things like extra enhancers and taste and smell factors including flavours, oils, spice extracts and so on can really help, as well as added appetite stimulators of various kinds. To make an easy basic bait for carp and catfish, all you need are some good quality koi pellets ground up into powder, some semolina to assist binding, some liquid foods or eggs as a liquid, and maybe a little extra flavour and pure betaine or betaine hydrochloride. Using trout pellets and halibut pellets is not ideal for carp but koi pellets are designed for carp! Catfish have faster rates of metabolism in warmer temperatures so things like high oil salmonid pellets and oily marine halibut pellets for instance are good for catfish able to burn off this oil as energy in the summer for example.

Simple mix a kilogram of ground koi pellets with perhaps 300 grams of semolina, with maybe 2 grams of betaine crystals. Make a liquid mixture using whisked eggs if you wish, or just water and any of a range of common condiments for example, or additional flavours etc. Mix the powder to the liquids and form a paste or dough.

This method can be adjusted infinitely as you can do almost anything – even add some of the new probiotic N-Gage base mix powders from CC Moore to boost bait through-put and fish response for example. Prebiotics and probiotics are not really new concepts. Antibiotics have been exploited in fishing for many generations and it is very significant I think to realise how many things with this property such as honey have been used as preservatives for thousands of years and have not been used in carp baits for many hundreds of years just because they are sweet with strong distinctive aromas!

Catfish are drawn to many substances carp are also drawn to and as catfish are so much more active in warmer temperatures use of various oils in particular can be very effectively exploited.

However in my experience it seems to me that if you wish to avoid catching catfish then using certain herb and spice oleoresins (among other things) and products and extracts that are rich in them for instance, can result in far more carp captures with few accidental hooking of catfish.

Just one successful alternative idea for an year round flavouring of homemade baits I have come up with is simply to mix a crab, cream and Scopex concentrated flavours. Obviously it is best to experiment with ratios of each and with differently based products etc form various sources but this will lead to further success! With a bit of practice everyone can make extremely effective unique homemade baits, and you do not necessarily need to make loads of them either; just a few baits can catch you loads of big fish! Having refined a secret bait of your very own for a water or range of waters that you have absolute confidence in is an indescribable feeling

If your aim is to really out-fish established readymade baits there is much more to exploit in the world of bait making to give you unique edges, but whether you are a rank beginner or experienced angler, with the right information you can save hard-earned money and make your own economical baits that catch big fish – and even beat the most expensive popular readymade baits! (For much more information see my website and biography right now!)

By Tim Richardson.

Caffeinated Content