Tag Archives: Diet

Fishing Tips

Big Catfish and Carp Baits – Cool Hook Bait Ingredients

Keeping ahead of fish by using new baits, or versions of baits to keep on catching consistently, is so often the key to success, after location! But some fishermen might wonder how and why constantly changing baits has major advantages; there’s more to this than you might expect…

With many big catfish when fished for constantly, over time, many traditional baits can fail as fish associate these baits with ‘danger.’ Often catfish baits will go in a cycle of success before seemingly failing completely at the point where the catfish diet may have changed to predominantly feeding on live fish instead of fishermens’ baits.

I’m not alone in experiencing having ‘hits’ often very good hauls of catfish over a relatively short space of time, on one particular bait. Then the catfish simply ‘switch off’ the successful bait, often for an extremely long of time indeed. You can end up constantly searching for a completely new bait altogether.

Making catfish dough baits is an easier option as the ingredients, attractors and stimulators, size, shape, colour, density, texture, buoyancy etc, can be skilfully manipulated to constantly keep ahead of the fish before it ‘blows’ and results significantly reduce.

This has been found with various boilies, squid, and liver, certain pork baits like luncheon meat and Pepperami, even with nightcrawlers, prawns, mussels and cockles and so on. It seems like each has its day, then they can be ignored completely for an amazingly long time. However, dead baits of whole or chopped fish, but more especially, live baits, can really exploit the catfishes’ change in feeding behaviour.

In certain situations with particular fish, the question is how to get around these ‘defence mechanisms.’ Use of natural baits style is one answer but these often just act like a needle in a haystack, like fishing a single bloodworm in a bed of millions of them. Sure, worms, night crawlers, maggots and the like do make catching ‘clued-up’ fish easier initially, especially where fish have been not been used to being hooked on these baits before.

The famous giant 50 pound common called “Herman” of “Warmwell” repute in the UK, was very wised-up about conventional boilies. But this fish was not immune to worm bait… The “Redmire” fish, which could be very difficult to catch, were very keen to feed on tiny baits like various particles such as hemp. Use of new particle baits to a carp water can be devastating and this has been proven again and again.

The “Redmire” carp including Chris Yates’s record fish that stood for years were often tempted by sweetcorn. Often a can of “Jolly Green Giant” can save the day. These days soaking sweetcorn in sweeteners lik talin and thaumatin, or in liquid liver, yeast or betaine might work better. I’ve had good hits of fish on ‘Scopex’ soaked sweetcorn for example. The possibilities just with bait are endles, but it could be tiger nuts, peanuts, or any other bait. But I wonder how many fisherman think how to give the fish what they want but are very difficult to tempt on an individual bait alone.

A hook with samples of various diverse unrelated baits can often produce fish for many reasons, not least because the fish have not previously been ‘conditioned’ to be able to deal easily with it. Various different types of boilies and or dough type baits with particle baits or maggots or worms on the hook can do well for example.

Combinations with seafoods like prawn or cockles, an old fish cube, with some chicken or pork meat, all coated in an enticing paste or dough mixture can really produce fish when an individual bait simply will not.

Even boilie and dough mixes that have done so well on waters previously, can need changing after a long period of success. The revitalised success of the boilie “Active 8,” when teamed with a new maple attractor brought a new generation of anglers their first big fish success, even when the original version of this bait was still available, but it’s effectiveness had tailed-off compared to its early success before fish wised-up to it.

Often bait is still effective in triggering a feeding response, but the carp feed in different more cautious ways on and around the bait. Often the phenomenon of baits being picked-up, off the edge of, or even some distance away from a bed of baits, has worked better than a hookbait fished in the middle of thousands of identical baits.

The amazing way carp can ‘clean-up’ a huge bed of baits just leaving your hookbaits remaining is quite staggering to those fishermen who just do not appreciate how sensitive to every aspect of their surroundings, fish can be. Often it is those last remaining baits, your hookbaits, which are the last to be picked up, if they are at all!

Big fish man Dave Lane has experienced this many times. The question is really, why do the fish still pick up these hook baits at all, when out of possibly hundreds or even thousands of baits, these have been identified by all the feeding fish to be the ‘dangerous’ ones?

Most fishermen might suggest it is the ‘just one more’ syndrome kicking-in, where the urge to feel the effect of one more morsel replaces the instinct to leave those last baits ‘well-alone.’

There are numerous ways to make a bait have this effect, often by exploiting essential nutritional food signals, or by using attractors, enhancers, stimulators etc with highly stimulatory effects, many of which bear little resemblance to any natural carp food at all nor providing any particular nutritional benefits, but work anyway.

There are many ways to add these effects using many ingredients and additives to boilies, meats, and particles like hemp, pellets, and ground baits etc which are highly effective at keeping those bites coming.

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

Related Blogs

Carp Fishing Basics

The True Story Of The Black Koi Carp Fish

Koi enthusiasts are aware of the great variety of colors and patterns associated with Koi Fish, and Black Koi are not much different to other Koi varieties outside of their coloring. Koi have been know for their incredible extended life span of up to two hundred years, but on average, with proper care and diet, they generally live between twenty-five to thirty-five years. If you have ever wondered how to distinguish the female from the male Koi, the one with the concave anal section is the male. Males Koi might also be recognized by a display of breeding spots or markings on the head. Black Koi fish, like all other Koi, spawn between spring and summer and can yield a result of as many as 1,000 eggs. Fry is the term used for baby Koi. Fry tend to begin emerging within four to seven days. This depends largely on water temperature. Then only after about three to twelve weeks of age do Fry begin to color.

These magnificent fish only came in a few color variations when the Japanese began breeding them from carp mutations. But throughout the years, with more breeding came more color variations and combinations of patterns, marking Koi Fish as a beautiful breed of fish indeed.

Black Koi specifically can mature to a length of thirty-six inches. For this reason, as it is with all Koi, it is a necessity to maintain a large pond for their environment. If a large pond is not manageable, then it is best to keep only a few Koi at a time. One of the first all black mutations, the Magoi species, can mature to an even larger size. In actuality, Black Koi are a rich bronze color but they look black when observed from above. The possibilities in Mogoi size brought about the reintroduction of their blood into other species. This is to maximize and hasten the potential of their growth.

A particular species of Black Koi fish is the Karasu. Karasu is the Japanese meaning “crow”. Like other Koi fish, the Karasu is an extremely old species. It is typically characterized by black fins and a black body, and can also be marked with a white or orange belly.

The environment and their diet directly affect Koi fish color. Typically, Koi will change color going from a duller or brighter shade. It is the Matsukawabake Koi species which posses the ability to change color, and it is the Black Koi that generally displays white areas on its body. However, this Koi Fish can turn completely black or completely white according to season changes or changes in water temperature. But, when conditions change this Koi Fish amazingly returns to its original pattern.

The most popular of the Black Koi species is the Kumonryu, which first appeared in the1980’s. Markings of the Kumonryu reminded some early observers of the bodies of dragons depicted in ancient paintings, while others imagined the fish to look like dragons ascending through white clouds in the sky, thus the meaning of Kumonryu “dragon fish”. These Koi have the ability to change their color in the same manner as the Matsukawabake.

The large variety of colors that Koi come in has been one of the attractions that draws pond owners to Koi, and an even bigger attraction is the idea of owning a fish with the ability to literally change color right before your very eyes. This characteristic is common in some of the Black Koi species.

Get your FREE 10 day Koi Carp Fish Care mini course, today. Michael C. Harris is a Koi specialist. For more great tips on Black Koi, Koi care, breeding and Koi pond construction and maintenance, visit the koi fish school today.

Fishing Strategies

All About Carp

So many of you will know that Carp belong to the species (Cyprinus Carpia). A fish whose natural habitat was Asia, but is now found on most of the large land masses, like Europe and North America.

 

Carp have had a chequered career. They were once considered to be an undesirable element in fresh water lakes and rivers. This resulted in a lot of activity aimed at getting carp exterminated.

 

Why were they undesirable? Because they are omnivorous – they eat both animal and plant foods indiscriminately. To ensure they miss out on nothing in their diet, carp roil about in the water, stirring up the sediment, rooting about for food. This increases the turbidity and creates an environment which affects the well-being and growth of many of the plants and animals found underwater.

 

A nice word – roil. It also means to vex, disturb and irritate, which bring us back to the verb ‘to carp’. This means to find fault, to complain unreasonably, to niggle or be critical. There seems to be a connection here between ‘carp’ and ‘to carp’ – don’t you think?

 

Carp’s fortunes began to turn when it was discovered that they are an easy fish to raise for food. If they are farmed, large amounts of fish meat can be produced per acre. This is done most successfully in Europe and Asia. To fish-farm successfully, the oxygen in the water needs to be replenished regularly. This can be done fairly easily when the fish are kept in tanks and the water is continually circulated by means of a pumping system. The food is fed directly into the tanks, though it’s unclear what exactly happens to the waste the fish produce.

 

This mass food production is a little at odds with the fact that they are not a particularly edible variety of fish, except perhaps to Polish people, to whom they are as important at Christmas time as the turkey is elsewhere. You will not find Carp appearing regularly as a dish on 5 star menus anywhere in the world.

 

To anglers though, catching Carp is a great sport. They can be very wily, putting up a great fight to avoid being removed from the water. At present the world fishing record for a Carp is more than 90lbs 15ozs.

 

And then, how about:

C for Carp

A for Anglers

R for Ready mades – boilies which have already been manufactured, sold in bags.

P for Pod, a folding stand where carp rods are placed.

Check out an ebook UK Carp Fishing Secrets which includes recipes for bait and tips on rigs, at the website below.

For fishing boats and pontoons go to:

 

To navigate to the Store page, click on ‘Store’

http://www.theboatingstore.co.cc/fishing-boats-and-kayaks

A retired high school teacher of geography and maths. Try ‘Quick Compare 35 Brand Name Kayaks’ to help you make a choice. Also if you would like a free ebook – an unusual story set in the days sailing by Joseph Conrad ‘The Secret Sharer’ or a book about travel in El Salvador ‘Slow Bus To Ahuachapan’ by John Drewman then use the email address on the website