Making Homemade Carp Baits That Catch Big Fish Everywhere!
Posted: Friday, May 09, 2008
by Tim Richardson
baitbigfish
Many fishermen pay too much for the privilege of using latest commercially produced wonder bait, but if these were so great, they would not have to keep bringing out more and more of them! You can catch just as many fish, if not more by making your own unique bait, plus it is a great option to save you money!
The greatest edge with baits is being unique and that way the fish will be far less cautious in taking your hook bait in its mouth, giving you the run you want! Having fished homemade baits over 3 decades plus, I can tell you they work in any situation against any commercially produced bait providing you approach your fishing with the care and attention to detail that fishing for wary big fish deserves!
You might be confused about making paste or dough bait or boilie base mixes, fish nutrition and feeding triggers, flavors and oils and other commonly mentioned items. Well I can tell you that no matter what you use that you would eat as a human, at least 80 percent of the homemade baits you make will be successful to various degrees. Some may be more successful on some waters simply because they are new and different and fish will be more willing to risk testing them inside their mouths!
Others will work because the flavors, ingredients and additives (usually natural extracts) will mean the pH effects of you bait on water and fish food detection cells are favourable to induce fish to identify it as potential food and at least mouth it. You bait does not need to be expensive to make nor time consuming either. Having made baits for decades I realise some bait formats like round boilies and even barrel shapes take time because you are adding to the number of steps involved, but this not necessary at all.
There are very many short-cuts in bait-making and you do not have to make your baits perfectly round and boil them or steam them to make them hard. You can make a very quick and easy paste or dough bait which will form boilies if boiled for 2 minutes a handful of baits at a time. You can add dry mixtures of flour or meals to eggs and liquid additives, flavors etc to form a stiff paste and use this fresh or store it in bags, label it and freeze it.
All you need is a mixing bowl, a spoon and a few minutes. The easiest way to start is put the weighed-out dry powders into a big bag and mix them thoroughly. Crack 6 eggs and add the flavours and liquid additives you may wish to use and whisk well. Add the powders a bit at a time to the liquids keeping a constant consistency so the paste has a putty or plasticine consistency. One very quick simple recipes is:
6 ounces semolina.
6 ounces soya flour.
4 ounces of yeast powders (deactivated.)
6 size average sized eggs.
1 teaspoonful of fine sea salt.
2 teaspoons of vegetable oil.
15 drops black pepper essential oil.
3 to 5 millilitres of a sweet or fruity flavouring.
Once you have your paste or dough ready, bag it up in plastic bags immediately. A 6 egg mix will produce about a pound and a half to a kilogram or more of bait, depending on various ingredients you choose to use. The thing about bait is you can look at what every other angler is doing and deliberately not copy it to achieve many very big competitive edges over them! This little bit of thinking is one of the great key to success; copying is fine but you learn far less and fast learning is what puts you ahead the easiest and quickest! Like anything in life, practice makes perfect, but then luckily, your fishing baits do not need to be perfect to catch big fish; in fact the opposite is the case in so many ways!
To form baits with your dough, you can obviously roll them into large or small balls of maybe marble or cherry size, or make them any size or shape you wish. If you leave them out to air somewhere warm for a day or 2, you can harden them which means you can catapult or use a specialist bait throwing tube or similar, great distances if required. When these baits land in water, they will leach out attraction and stimulation far quicker than ordinary boiled baits and pull in fish more quickly. If you wish to boil your baits, boil a handful of baits in a large pan of boiling water. Usually 2 minutes or less for most mixes will give them a resilient enough skin to deter many other smaller species of fish.
There is obviously far more to making baits than meets the eye – or the nose! The point is to be different and unique not simply to use a recommended nutritional formula, ratio, flavour or additive. The issue of using particularly nutritional ingredients in proportions which match a fish species theoretical dietary essential requirements is as complex as you want to take it and certainly not required for all waters or fish. But taking the step towards even doing this a bit makes all the difference in world to big fish catches on so many modern fishing pressured fisheries and gives you vital control over certain fish behaviours.
The question of which ingredients to use, how much to use to get them to bind together and so on really does come with practice although many formulas made public are a good guide, however your bait will be very similar to everyone else doing this. Taking the ‘risk' of putting together ingredients when you don't know how they will mix is never a waste; in fact the opposite! All feedback is worth its weight in gold and many of my very most successful best baits to date have come from being in such ‘unknown territory' and experimenting in the confidence that there will be a use for all the bait I make even; if as an highly effective new paste, ground bait, ‘stick' or ‘spod' mix, ‘slop mix' or soluble ‘PVA' bag or net mix etc... (A little imagination is all it takes!)
There is often a great difference in results between the catches of an average angler on a low nutritional bait, compared to an experienced talented angler on the same bait. This is to be expected as anglers' abilities are not equal. However, with a good personally unique bait, you can have ‘the edge' over both the fish and fellow anglers more experienced and talented than yourself. Over the years reading literally hundreds of articles and magazines provides a general impression of what works, but is still just theory until you actually try making bait for yourself.
Some of the early baits I used to make were far more nutritionally stimulating and attractive than I ever realised until much later having looked more deeply at fish essential requirements and potential food detection and opportunity and threat sensory systems etc. This means that anyone can do successfully right now. A bag of readymade baits can often cost you 8 to 12 pounds and if they work, you will use them again and pay another 8 to 12 pounds. But the fact is that although many fish can be caught very successfully using just hook baits alone, many big fish are much easier to catch in many fishing situations by leveraging various forms of ground baits etc.
When you cost in ground bait, along with travelling and cost of fishing and replacement tackle and sundries like PVA bags, tape, lost ‘back-leads' etc, things really add up. If you buy 2 or three bags of readymade baits totalling 2 or 3 kilograms in weight, you may have spent 24 to 36 pounds for maybe just one weekends fishing and you have not even wetted a line yet! (You can just keep on spending!)
I can guarantee you can make your own baits for a fraction of that cost in very little time, with minimal effort and catch the fish of your dreams using them against popular commercial readymade baits. In fact, being cheaper, you can even leverage your homemade baits even more and apply more in order to do better than you would be able to afford on readymade baits with their much higher costs!
Sure I've used readymade baits and caught on them well, and comparing your homemade baits results against a commercially readymade bait is a great boost to your confidence, especially when your own far cheaper bait is out-catching the readymades. There is a whole industry of well proven flavours, base mixes and additives etc to exploit and it's there because it works! Saying that, proprietary fishing bait products tend to have a premium price tag, what with overheads; mixing machines, packaging, printing, distribution etc and the need to make a profit.
That's fair enough, but you are buying bait just for recreation and prices don't often seem to go down but rather up! So, if you feel you are having to skimp on bait when you know more of it, or a particular type would more suit your needs and fishing opportunities better, but you are not willing to pay for it, there is another proven cheaper alternative. If cost limitations or high bait prices, tackle costs and fishing permit costs limit your spending on other activities and even necessities in life, then making your own bait is like a taste of freedom...
Also there is a very powerful unique and special feeling of satisfaction when you catch fish on your own baits. This is especially true when your own secret recipes that you designed, and made real, catch you successive personal best fish!
Being able to make your own unique baits and even being able to enhance and manipulate commercial readymade baits too, are completely priceless edges in such a competitive sport as fishing. The understanding and experience you gradually built-up by making baits and applying them in creative ways will improve your catches for life; so you cannot ignore it! I certainly believe that being able to manipulate your baits to do specific things to suit different fishing situations is one of the greatest ‘levellers' in fishing left to the ‘average angler' today. So don't miss out on the ‘big-time!' This fishing bait secrets books author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges.' Just one could impact on your catches!
By Tim Richardson.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Hi, my name is Kevin, I'm going to a carp fishing tourney July 4th in Hildibran Nc Catch & Release. 9 acre pond, haven't fished there in many years the most common bait was millet balls with flavored or plain corn pops for the pick up, yellow, and buff carp are the main breeds in i think, will be fishing with 60 regulars would like to beat them, can you suggest some bait mixtures. thanks Kevin.
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