Did you know you can tickle carp and make them go into a trance?! Why is this and how can such things help you catch carp? Carp can see in the near infrared and near ultraviolet ranges and are far more sensitive than the average human! Also carp hear extremely well too and they can hear sounds in overlapping frequency range to humans (which means what you hear they hear including 10 decibel bite alarms contacting your line!) Carp learn to fear due to instinctively programmed negative associations so anglers must beware of all they are doing! Now read on to discover more about fish senses and how to use them to your advantage to catch more fish!
Did you know certain carp retinal (eye) cells are sensitive to things like caffeine and other substances? I knew a young kid once who drive me nuts because all he kept saying all the time was did you know. I asked myself what he was trying to prove by doing this – he was only learning on the fast-track! Then it struck me that the biggest lesson for me here (that I had long over-looked,) was the fact that so many of us adults pretty much stop asking questions all the time – and that means we are missing out on loads of good stuff to help us catch many more fish!
For instance, why does a carp mind if you throw lots of free baits out to him but then object to you plonking a 5 ounce lead on his head – I don’t know! It seems to me he would appreciate all that free food and in response kindly jump on your hook by way of thanks. But then maybe he also does not particularly like hearing the vibration of your tight lines in the water sending out vibrations like so many wind turbines on your doorstep. Or maybe he would prefer a more musical melody coming down your fishing lines from your bite alarms set at full volume!
Maybe a Mozart or Beethoven symphony instead of a boring single note alarm sound would produce more fish bites by stimulating their mood better – who knows! This might sound too far-fetched to be true but carp can hear the vibrations of plankton and chose between areas of different concentrations of them in order to feed on them with much more energy-efficiency; carp are really sensitive creatures.
In fact if you think carp are simple rough types that like their alcohol and rough mating (a bit like many more hirsute macho-appearing beer-swilling rugby fanatics,) just remember appearances can be deceptive. Carp are renowned for biting your balls off and sucking your maggots dry without even getting hooked – they are that sensitive when playing with your baits that is!
The truth is that carp sensitivity makes certain they keep on adapting (and surviving,) and in fishing their sensitivity is their greatest strength against us (if we do not keep adapting and exploiting their sensitivity back against them!) Remember that we sensitise them when we condition them in every way by actually being there on the bank and fishing for them!
We humans as long-lost descendants of ancient teleost fish such as carp still have strange habits and behaviours from the past that help us adapt or fit in faster; so giving us better chances of survival. Here is a strange thing; how is it this possible: The very first utterances that a deaf human baby ever speaks can have the local accent of its mother. Is the liquid environment of the womb significant here in pre-learning before birth?! Of course larval stages of all kinds of creatures do things that only instincts and genetics appear to explain! What do crustacean larvae do in respect of tides, what do baby fish immediately do when hatching out of spawn and what stimulates such behaviours anyway?
Now just because you can see a fish and he seems quite happy and contented it does not mean he had not noticed you creeping along the bank in your Realtree one piece sniper outfit. A carp can see into near infrared so when at the surface or slightly out of the water do you think there is half a chance your own body heat will give you away like you were dressed like a luminescent Ronald MacDonald?! Mr Carp in all likelihood would know all about you in ways you have no conception of and that science has yet to discover.
We like carp are over 95 percent water. Good clean water is getting more difficult to find and even water from reservoirs still needs reverse osmosis treatment and subtle energy treatment to make it far less tainted; the average home water filter is just an inadequate joke. Adult carp take a lot of punishment and can even survive in quite low oxygen conditions and can thrive despite certain pH and salinity conditions, but even they have their limits! We humans are creating carp fisheries but our consumption is gradually poisoning waterways one way or another.
Remember we are what we eat and drink as are carp. The water quality of so many carp fisheries is a very big problem when hot conditions occur and this is something every carp angler needs to investigate to reveal to themselves the reasons why this is. All this can help you make better catches, make better baits and improve conditions for carp and improve our own personal health; carp nutrition is a great teacher of what is great for humans to consume also – so take note!
Now science is arrogant enough to think it knows so much for certain, and yet it does not know what came first – the chicken or the egg. Did a bigger human brain and the ability to walk and talk or make tools come first? Does our ancient reptilian brain used in fight or flight mean we were originally like reptiles, mammal or chickens anyway mammals were present on the scene before dinosaurs appeared and crocodiles were there before dinosaurs too!
There is evidence that some dinosaurs had feathers because that helped energy efficiency, but of course there is no point carp having feathers because they are cold-blooded and are the same as the temperature of the water they live in but a winged and feathered big carp would probably give a really good fight in the water (and in the air too!) See more on chicken in carp baits and their digestible protein later.
In regards to carp, chickens, humans and dinosaurs, maybe things evolved this way: The carp originally hatched amphibious mutant humans and chickens simultaneously (which kind of solves the chicken and the egg conundrum and probably explains why some dinosaurs and mammals went back into the water!) Then the chickens and humans discovered chocolate, coffee, vanilla, coke and chilli, and this mixture dwarfed the chickens and made them flightless, and made the humans high so they grew upright and tall and let us see the lions coming (and thus we became the king of the jungle.)
Then during a freak forest fire in the first rudimentary herb and spice garden (near a salt mine,) the humans discovered the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken which they were addicted to and so began to farm chickens (organically of course.) Then one day while the chickens were playing their favourite game of (you guessed it – chicken,) they hooked up a worm on a stick and a human found the stick, tripped up in a pond and hooked a carp that went for the worm – easy! Thus began traditional carp fishing without bows, arrows (or dynamite) approximately 450 million years ago give or take a week or two and thus the concept of fast food (though limited) it being fried, rare or live on a stick.
But now back to chickens; as you will see there is more to them in regards to carp and us that meets the eye! Science reckons (using the currently known genome,) that chicken DNA represents the closest match to the dinosaur Tyrannosaurus Rex. (Saying that T. Rex is the king dinosaur was a bit premature as in fact, he had bigger competition that looked very similar to him at different stages during dinosaur times so he was not the king at all. But science is not that exact really knowing only what it knows at any moment in time! Note; this applies to future carp bait developments too and the application of new technology and the potential to find new substances – maybe in the jungles of South America before they all get cleared to grow trendy soya beans, biofuels and coke!
Maybe chickens really are T.Rex in disguise and they are all just playing dumb to lull us humans into a false sense of security while we all laugh at all those why did the chicken cross the road jokes!
How about this; the majority of boilies and paste baits in carp fishing world-wide are based on the proteinous benefits and characteristics of common but humble chicken eggs! What does this tell you about the real power of chicken – because he gets everywhere! (Egg-bound boilies are the number one carp fishing bait right around the world!) Now chickens are produced to a great degree from special mutant stocks that make them lean mean thick legged big breasted roasting machines. Purely judging by the billions of chickens produced around the world every year, maybe T.Rex is on his way back and is intent on world domination again!
No kidding; did you know that probably the most viable successful sustainable (for now) protein products used in fish farming (instead of or to supplement fish meals, soya and maize protein,) is poultry protein meal. Chickens get everywhere; from China to South America in markets and fast food joints and get this; you are what you eat! (How things go full circle!) Added to this, chickens have indirectly created unrest, anarchy, mayhem, civil and world wars using their infamous battle cry of who are you calling chicken (humans love to mimic animals right!)
But seriously, you would think by now that the average intelligence male human being would have figured out that actually a chicken is not a chicken at all thus negating any suggestion of a man lacking testosterone fuelled abilities being a chicken. After all, chicken fights (or cock fights if you prefer,) have not been banned in so many countries just because chickens fight each other by tapping each other over the head with feather dusters (they are T. Rex dinosaurs in disguise right!)
Nutritionally-speaking it is reckoned that for all the effort you put into buying and drinking expensive high protein body-building powders based on whey protein concentrates (for all those lactose intolerant, fart-thumping, boob-blooming body-builders out there,) you might as well snack on chickens to get those big muscles you always dreamt of. (To get muscles like Arnold you will be needing steroids but maybe Paxo Super Booster (chicken gravy) will do instead!)
And what about the birds and the bees – what about those attractive birds guys are always calling babes and chicks?! Have you ever noticed the body language similarities between a guy on the pull in a club or at a bar, and a cockerel strutting his stuff with the hens (hilarious stuff or what?!)
Anyway, did you know that dead (chicken) chicks are proven catfish baits for leviathans? Those dead days-old chicks hook the monsters like a jumbo sized pellet never has; like I say, chicken is supreme! I promised you recipes so alongside your liver or fish meal or yeast or braised monkey nut ingredients, try adding keratin and poultry protein meal. Anyway, take your average white or brown fish meals; in a fight with Mr Chicken only the fighting fish tag team partnered with flying fish would stand half a chance! OK so it sounds like I am over-selling this chicken stuff but as fish stocks are terminally declining and English is not a chickens first language (or second language) they deserve a spokesperson!
In the UK chicken boilies etc have been plugged in the media so much by now. Maybe now carp anglers should all jump onto the Dynamite Bait bandwagon and just accept that chicken boilies have had their day, been fashionable and currently tuna is the new boy on the block?! (Note all those poor old halibut pellets that are floundering on the sidelines at the backs of fishing bait shelves now -ah how fickle fishing fashion is!) Do you see how much your perceptions of what is a successful carp bait are really in your own mind and not all based in objective reality?! And does this mean that carp sensitivities to your bait substances have anything whatever to do with your bait-choosing decision-making because I hope for your sake it is because a Tutti Fruitti or spicy tuna readymade bait will not always save you from a blank; it takes the power of thought too!
And if you are an readymade bait kind of guy, and you happen to have at least half a brain cell partly active after all the brand-conditioning adverts and advertorials you probably are not even aware of,) it is obvious that the best time to get on the chicken baits is when everyone else has jumped onto the tuna or other currently fashionable baits! (Have you noticed that wary big fish tend to like baits they have not been hooked on too much recently?!) I think I will bring out my own special unique cunningly-crafted scientifically proven in real-time (from the future) range of post space-age baits based on mutton (young sheep,) just to be different but the same just to please everyone!)
If you happen to have the urge to catch more fish than your average brainwashed fashion-copying modern carp angler, maybe you have realised that making your own homemade baits (made specifically to top all those standard format readymade baits) is a great way to save yourself a fortune. Super-boosted chicken baits are an ideal example to get you those freakishly good fish captures your mates will love to hate you for! But fashion-following brainwashed carp anglers are easy to beat anyway. They are far too fixated on the flashy magazine adverts searching for exciting new stuff to think of asking how on earth their chosen new baits might actually work (or fail) when used by the less than average angler against talented anglers.
Anyway, when you consider all the carp out there with a developed palette from chomping on chocolate, strawberry, Scopex, cranberry, crab, pineapple and chilli bait flavours etc, why would carp not accept roast chicken juices as their brand new favourite boilie flavour?! You really can obtain this genuinely great flavour from my good friend Phil at CW Baits (online.)
Finally why not tip your weighing scale balance in your favour and make your boilies and ground baits different with white meat! Why not add more sustainable and economical poultry protein type ingredients to them? Plus everyone knows cats love eating birds – and if you want a Jurassic sized carp there is no better nor obvious choice than to exploit the power of a chicken (that old dinosaur in disguise!)
In that Hitchcock horror film called The Birds, all the real stars in it were chickens painted black and made to adhere to a strict diet and exercise programme to build them up and slim them down of course! Special effects helped make their beaks and faces look more symmetrical (and the odd feathers were air-brushed out according to Hollywood standards!) But even if you choose not to believe this, just consider that your local ostrich can out-run and out-kick you and makes a meaner bigger omelette than you too; so remember whatever you do – never call him chicken!
As you can tell by now this article was produced purely for entertainment and was written from the place where the chickens end up (after crossing the road,) but for a more practical gathering of truly valuable fishing bait information you need to read on a bit for my bait secrets! (For more seriously essential information see my website and biography right now!)
By Tim Richardson.
For the unique and acclaimed new massive expert bait making / enhancing ‘bibles’ ebooks / books: “BIG CATFISH AND CARP BAIT SECRETS!” And: “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” (AND “FLAVOUR, FEEDING TRIGGERS AND CHEMORECEPTION SECRETS”) SEE: http://www.baitbigfish.com Tim Richardson is a homemade carp and catfish bait-maker, and proven big fish angler. His bait making and bait enhancing books / ebooks are even used by members of the “British Carp Study Group” for reference. View this dedicated bait secrets website now…