Tag Archives: Bait

Fishing Strategies

Spring Carp Bait Flavors and Irresistible Cold Water Fishing Ground Baits

In spring, carp are notorious for being very difficult to catch. Fishing bottom baits or ‘pop-up’ baits on the lake bed can be a complete waste of time. But also using buoyant baits in the middle or top layers of water. The top layers are where carp will often ‘sit’ most comfortably for a great proportion of time without visiting the denser, colder bottom layers. If they do visit the bottom layers to feed, it may often be for a very limited period of time indeed!

In carp fishing it is often the case that without sufficient stimulatory attraction substances dissolved (or ‘semi-dissolved’) in the water, the fish can seem ‘blind’ to your hook baits. In order to induce takes’ far more efficiently in spring, you need an edge which will activate the senses of carp which hang n the top water layers as if oblivious to a hook bait on its own even when boosted with flavours and glowing with fluorescent colours!

To achieve the levels of stimulation in the water around and directly above you hook bait is distinct advantage at times when water is cold especially. Having an ‘active’ ground bait (or chum) that constantly releases rising particles and attractive and stimulatory substances is a great ‘edge.’

Oily ground baits can disintegrate and components can rise up to ‘activate’ the water column surrounding your hovering pop-up or floating buoyant hook bait above it in the middle and top layers where fish are often located. Cold water fish are often unwilling to feed in more dense lower water near the bottom as this is more uncomfortable for them and too cold for their metabolism to be efficient.

The top water layers receive radiated heat fro the sun and bit becomes less dense. Top layers are warmer and suit fish metabolism parameters and they use energy far more efficiently there, but carp can also be caught at great depths too… A great ‘plus’ about fishing the top water layers is that ‘takes’ can come at any time and be totally unexpected, whereas winter and spring carp fishing results and feeding times can be far more limited. With bottom baits, bites may be limited to happen during a short half-hour period in the early morning on a fishery. This can mean that the rest of your time fishing on the lake bed is just a waste of time!

Water soluble poly vinyl alcohol (‘PVA’) bags or ‘netting’ can be used filled with all kinds of tasty morsels to attract fish. The more they react and remain active and move around in the water the better! Filling these with bread crumb based ground bait and maggots to get movement it can really improve results when fish are unresponsive to more conventional inactive pellets and boilies, meats etc. Maggots and hook baits can be sprayed with flavours to boost attraction. Proven cold water flavours like Rod Hutchinson’s ‘Megaspice’ or ‘Scopex’ at about 3 milliliters per kilogram of crushed boilies or pellets as part of a ground bait mix in a ‘PVA’ bag (or net) can work wonders on a cold day.

Hemp oil which is far more water soluble and viscous in low temps than most oils used in fishing baits does not inhibit bait digestion like fish oils.

Adding liquid lecithins has many stimulatory advantages helping any oils already in the crushed boilies or pellets to emulsify and spread more effectively through water to attract fish.

Adding a mixture of essential oils can really make a difference at this time of year. You can use a single one or a mixture. Among the most well known are black pepper oil and geranium terpenes and clove oil. Eucalyptus oil has also been very successful in winter and spring for me as well as the cold decongestant essential oil mixture called ‘Olbas Oil’ which has done well for me all year round any temperatures. It comes into its own in spring those variable spring temperatures.

As an attractor and flavor ‘Olbas Oil’ contains many ‘bioactive’ antioxidant compounds also regarded as antiseptics. (Clove oil in dentistry for instance!) It has a proven range of essential oils but one constituent is also a very potent, extremely soluble, naturally occurring carboxylic (‘organic’) acid a derivative of birch trees. This special group of acidic substances are just one among very many which has been used extremely successfully in commercially produced fishing flavors and baits for years.

Adding edible dyes to your ground bait adds visual stimulation. (You can mix ‘Ccmoore’ red pigment based ‘Red Venom’ which is extremely effective at this time of year.) It is based on the famed ‘Carophyll Red.’ (The substance connected to so much controversy in connection with another excellent bait additive especially for this time of year namely, ‘Robin Red.’) There are a vast range of other stimulants, enhancers, flavours etc to exploit especially for low temperature use and much depends if you are using the ‘instant bait’ approach, the long-term bait approach, or both!

If you mix up your special ground bait and find it is too light or buoyant you can add sterilised sand to provide weight and when spread on the lake bed will release and send up into the water column tiny globules of oils attached to them from the ground baits mixture, so adding to the attraction

So you cast out and your ‘PVA’ bag or netting of ground bait attached to your hook and or lead releases bits of bait and tiny droplets of oils travelling upwards constantly release from the bait in regularly occurring streams of attraction. As your flavours, additives and oils travel and diffuse through the water in varying amounts, any carp in the vicinity will be able to home in on it and identify the exact proximity of your hook bait as the source of all this exciting substances.

As the ground bait is composed of crumbs which are not going to fill the carp up before it has at least sampled your hook bait as it is the only sold food available, the chances of a hooking a fish and getting a take are maximised. I have since learnt that this is the kind of idea used with the compressed ground bait ‘stick’ method. This method can rely less on ground bait design of ingredients being very ‘active’ It differs in that the bait is compressed tightly into soluble PVA netting and when this dissolves in the water, the ground bait expands and disperses, so increasing its carp ‘pulling power!’

Although this is just the tip of the winter and spring bait ‘ice-berg’ and there is far more to successful baits and techniques, even using these few simple methods has proven effective for me personally, but are just a ‘half-way stage’ to even more effective things…

This fishing books author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges.’ Just one could impact on your catches!

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!

Carp Fishing Equipment

4 Carp Fishing Secrets – We Reveal Big Carp Tips For Bait Rigs And Tackle

When it comes to catching big carp, you will benefit from some carp fishing secrets, we all know that it is vital to understand certain crucial factors that will at least give us a fighting chance to hook that elusive lake record carp. Catching big carp should not be down to just chance but someone we can be confident about achieving and if you want that edge to start catching bigger carp then carry on reading and next time you go to the river bank or your syndicate water you can make the bagging of a record carp a reality.

Your 4 Carp Fishing Tips and Tactics – So How Do I Catch Big Carp?

1) Understanding why carp can be elusive is the most important factor to being able to catch the big ones. Carp get used to seeing standard baits being presented on fancy rigs that can make the fish stand up and think to themselves – Danger. You need to present a bait in a reasonable manner and on a carp fishing rig that suits the environment on the bottom on the lake. Lake information should be obtainable by the bailiff and they are usually more than happy to let you know certain quirks about a particular swim and to what type of lake bed you are casting onto.

2) Big Carp also seem to have more developed awareness to baiting patterns and an over fished swim may lead to the carp filter feeding of the dissolving bait already having been put there by over keen anglers who think that throwing in a ton of bait will actually help them catch. Again, it is worth getting to know information about each swim of the particular lake and when the last carp was caught. It is really good when you can get into a swim that is bare of old bait and the fish start to feed again on your whole baits – you are then in for a full catching session so don’t expect to get much sleep if you are doing an all-nighter.

3) Baiting for Carp is a much discussed topic for top anglers but it has been proven that certain factors influence the carp into feeding on dissolving or whole baits. If you are fishing a swim for just a couple of nights and you can see lots of splashing around and occasional cloudy patches on the top of the water where the carp have been splashing it is true that the dissolving bottom bait is the normal cause. Whilst, dissolving bait is available to the carp they will often feed on this as they have become used it to this as being safe to eat. However, if you present new carp bollies or other bait they will still prefer the filter feeding until it has run out and then will venture upon your new baits. The rule of thumb and best practice for the big carp is to pre-bait small amounts of new bait and wait until you know that a swim has been quite for at least 3-4 days and then get established in the swim and do a 4-7 night session which will result in good carp catches and maybe get you that elusive carp record.

4) Make sure you have all the tackle and spare equipment that you think you may need for a good carping session. We know that carp tackle can be expensive these days but if you are serious about catching, carp fishing secrets and tips aside, then you should at least have a mid range carp rod and spend as much as you can on the bait runner reels, I still use and prefer Shimano. Make sure you have good bite alarms and you take a few spare batteries with you. Remember, you can always upgrade your other carp equipment but it is best to start with a good package of rods, reels and bite alarms so you minimize having to waste that money when you find that the tackle you first purchased may not be up to the job after 6 months.

The more you can understand about the proven methods to catching big carp as early as possible will stand you in good stead for future carp catching success. There is much written about catching good carp and you should take the time to read and read more on the subject as knowledge is King – having loads of fantastic carp fishing tackle doesn’t mean that you are guaranteed to catch the elusive fish.

Next, using top carp fishing secrets and techniques to catching carp there will be no stopping you. Fishing for carp is a great pastime and it’s time to take it as a measured approach and benefit from a big carp catching future. Val Marks @ fishingforcarp.net

Fishing Tips

Carp Fishing Bait And Tackle Secrets Of Success!

Many anglers mistakenly think that all they need to succeed is a bag of readymade baits and a few thousand pounds worth of new gear. But did it ever strike them that actually the most well known anglers of the last 50 years certainly did not always use readymade baits or the latest most fashionable carp gear – because such things are only relatively new innovations! Read on now for genuinely new edges and tips you will not find in any magazines!

Carp fishing arguably got more popular in the early eighties when many more individuals and companies saw that carp fishing could become a big business. In the nineties when carp magazines became more of a force of influence other than the voice of experienced anglers on the bank, the commercialisation of carp fishing really got moving. Unfortunately many of the carp magazines appear to be more interested in making money and selling products than offering readers open-minded opinions free of commercial bias but it appears that running magazines requires guaranteed regular advertising revenues in order to survive. I must admit I preferred the days when guys wrote books and articles that were not blatant promotional vehicles for companys products!

All this has gradually happened at a steadily growing rate of change that has seen once peaceful lakes today resemble bivvy cities. The enormous commercialisation of carp fishing has been going on for some years but I consider the real start of the cult of carp fishing explosion was around the early nineties when the magazines popularity really began to grow and influence anglers mindsets.

Cliff Fox founder of Fox International now one of the biggest tackle companies was running a different kind of engineering business before he really got a name for mainstream carp fishing tackle and if I remember correctly he was into providing things like custom-made shelving for businesses and so on. However it seems he always had an urge to design fishing-related items and I know he liked using gadgets such as 2 way radios such as when he fished certain lakes in Essex. Even in his much earlier days he was selling things like his old-fashioned style of metal bait dropper for instance.

I noticed a distinct change in his tackle preferences when he joined the Savay syndicate when long-range tactics were essential and his rods and reels suddenly resembled pretty much in the early nineties what have become the normal for most carp anglers today. In the eighties one of my fellow syndicate members designed a zero-friction style of bite indicator and this was field-tested on the water. I was one of the lucky few to use these brand new swinger indicators before they became a world-wide phenomenon and initially we really mainly used them to find fish by refining their setting to most easily indicate line bites which was something that monkey-climber-type bite indicators were less effective at doing.

I invented a rear rod butt clip by using the plasticised rubber of an old style heavy duty hose pipe and it is no coincidence that Fox brought out the foam rubber and metal adjustable rear rod rest ideal for clamping your rod solidly in position when fishing in snags and hit and holding and so on. In the early days on the syndicate I used to tie my rod butts to my rear rests using a simple thick string loop that when passed from one side of the rest to the other the rod formed an angle that meant the string stayed in place until manually lifted off by hand immediately when a run occurred. You might think that stretchy or elastic type rigs are new but we were using such rigs and indicators for that matter back in the early eighties or before that time.

It amazes me how many anglers now use the plastic coated braids and other materials of hook links, where once very few anglers thought of including hinges and loops in their rigs. Of course stiffness in a rig is an advantage in hooking fish and loops can help prevent hooked fish slipping of hooks for instance. The old Amnesia type rigs are still in use and the memory of certain materials makes them ideal for producing curved springy type rigs perfectly angled for maximum penetration. I still really like using multi-stranded hook links and I remember having to buy my first batch by mail order in the very early days when Kryston was far from the multi-million pound turnover business it is today.

Believe it or not the original multi-strand product I used was 60 pound strength – and I initially trialled it as hook link material at that strength in the maximum thickness – and caught very good fish in the upper twenty pound bracket on this material right from the first cast! The fact is that multi-strand totally flattens and spreads out when compressed by carp lips when carp are testing for lines connected to baits and this is just on of the many unusual advantages of this material.

Inevitably I obviously split my 60-pound hook link material into 3 lengths to make the material go much further as it was quite expensive and using it at 20-pound strength and thickness was ideal. I found it best to make thumb knots in it about every 2 inches, leaving the last 3 inches able to spread out next to the hook. Use with PVA products this hook link material is I believe as good as invisible as is possible when presented correctly with practice – unlike so many hook links that will never disappear, flatten out or absorb light to a sufficient degree to be totally natural!

Many lines and plastic hook links even reflect light – like the vast majority of hooks; this is madness considering how acute the short-range eyesight of carp has been proven to be! Some of those so-called expert names in magazines have even written articles on rigs that included silver hooks – talk about misguiding the masses!

Of course in the eighties we used PVA tubes, PVA string and spodding and method type ground baits although the cult status of such products was yet to come about probably because those of us who used such edges then mainly kept quiet about them – but there are plenty of other secret edges yet to be exposed in the magazines or elsewhere!

I will finish with a tip about bait. Years ago we used to make liquid bait soaks by boiling down the whispered-about potent additive Belachan fermented shrimp block and adding all kinds of weird and wonderful substances, some of which are still under wraps today. One impact that Belachan in solid or in solution has is highly significant enhancement properties within baits of all kinds. Belachan has a significantly high mineral content that is highly attractive in its own right and this obviously enhances the amino acids, various acids and other compounds that Belachan offers that are so stimulatory to fish.

Today many bait companies offer Belachan in liquid form, often at inflated prices – so why not make your own homemade bait edges instead – in far more naturally concentrated forms? I do not recommend you use the enhancer MSG (monosodium glutamate) because it over-hydrates brain cells at the brain receptor site causing bleeding on the brain – please pass this on! Other very good enhancing liquids include L030 and liquid yeast – these examples and more are very rich in natural glutamate! These will certainly multiply your catch rate if you fully maximise them and impregnate your baits with them to a far greater degree than almost all readymade baits available today!

In fact I have found it easily possible to make homemade baits packed with liquid nutritional attraction that have proven to last functionally intact in water for at least 21 and more hours, that contain no egg binder and have no need of cooking whatsoever! The competitive advantages of these homemade baits are huge (all it takes is to keep an ever open mind and a willingness to think for yourself instead being hypnotised into becoming a mindless consumer!)

Such unusual baits contain far higher levels of liquid foods and natural enhancers, and natural feeding stimulators and attractors and as such are far more potent to fish than any readymade boiled, steamed or heated boilies or pellets. If you fish maggot-dominated lakes such as the Sandhurst Lake why follow the herd? Sure when so many maggots are entering the water carp receptors can get adapted to becoming very much more sensitised to their excretions but guess what – it does not mean you have to stop using boilies at all unlike anglers such as Ian Chillcott and Gareth Fareham might imply! No disrespect intended to them but to be frank I do not regard them as scientific experts on bait or fish – so why swallow every word they say? They are good anglers because they are willing to be adaptable – but you too can be equally if not even more adaptable and successful! (Note too that many great anglers do not publicise themselves at all!)

Think about it; exploiting liquidised maggots as the liquid protein and ammonia source in your boilies, pellets and ground baits is going to really make a difference if you use very soluble bait designs. With the right information these are totally unique baits you can easily make at home for yourself – to keep ahead of your fish and competing anglers! (For further information on making, adapting, designing and boosting your baits see my bait secrets ebooks website Baitbigfish right now – and improve your catches for life!)

By Tim Richardson.

Now why not seize this moment to improve your catches for life with these unique fishing bibles: “BIG CARP FLAVOURS FEEDING TRIGGERS AND CARP SENSES EXPLOITATION SECRETS!” “BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” For these and much more now visit:

http://www.baitbigfish.com

The home of the world-wide proven homemade bait making and readymade bait success secrets bibles and more unique free bait secrets articles by Tim Richardson!

Carp Fishing Basics

4 Carp Fishing Secrets – Carp Fishing Tecniques For Bait And Rigs To Catch Big Carp

Unlock the door to your big carp success with Carp Fishing Secrets and proven catching techniques. You can learn will help you develop your carp fishing skills and enable you to catch more fish and also catch when other anglers are scratching the head and getting frustrated that their not catching whilst your landing a good 30lb carp on the bankside.

To begin with you should learn to understand certain factors that will be vital for you to have a good fighting chance to land that big carp catch and give the safe knowledge that you are not fumbling around in the dark with your methods. We can be confident that we should be able to catch a carp on every trip to the local syndicate water and work towards bigger and bigger personal records, we show you how to make a big carp catch a reality and not a pipe dream.

Here are just 4 of our top tips to catching carp using our carp fishing secrets.

1) You should try and understand a few important factors that put you in the mindset to catch bigger carp. Many carp on overfished waters are used to certain types of rig presentations and also baits, sold at the local fishing tackle shop, which they associate with danger bells through having been caught with them over and over. A good rig setup, it doesn’t have to be fancy, with a solid bait from one of the big manufacturers such as Mainline, or homemade baits, should do the trick.

2) Get local carp swim information from the local baliff and they can tell you what to look out for in the way of snags or fish catching patterns and how many times the swim has produced carp over the past couple of weeks. It is also important to know if the swims adjacent to the one you are looking to fish have also produced any catches or not.

3) Get to know the lake bed makeup and casting distances for a particular swim as you cannot have too much information when it come to understanding fish feeding and catching carp from any given swim. Correct use of a marker rod is imperative when it comes to finding a suitable place to cast onto and which spot will be the most productive for catching that lake record fish.

4) Baiting patterns are extremely important when it comes to catching big carp, the carp fishing secrets, will show you that there may be occassions that previous anglers have overbaited a certain swim and cloudy deposits will be swirling around the surface when a carp or group of carp are filter feeding. This pattern usually indicates that the probability of catching using whole baits is lowered and you should adopt a different tactic in that swim to catch them.

There are many proven carp fishing techniques and methods which will allow you to start catching carp and you now need to grasp those tactics and put them into practice. We all know that carp fishing is a fantastic sport and a great pastime which will bring you pleasure and it is now possible using our carp fishing secrets and putting into place a measured approach to your carp fishing you can get maximum results from your carping sessions.

Next, now that you want to start catching more carp and read up on proven carp fishing techniques to catching carp there will be no stopping you. Fishing for carp is a great sport and pastime and it’s time to take it as a measured approach and benefit from a big carp catching future.