CRAFTY CARP / CATFISH HOOK BAITS -- Stunning Unusual Combinations
* Are you the type of fisherman who has got ‘into a rut?’ When it comes to using hook baits what does it take to ‘double or even treble’ your catches, on those more fishing pressured waters?!
You are more than likely, representative of the majority of fishermen who fish for carp or catfish, and usually fish only one bait on the hook, or one bait of one type at one time. Doing this can rob you of ‘takes’ when doing things a little different to normal can pay off big-time!
Carp get used to dealing with conventional ‘hair rigs’ and catfish too get used to the single bait or big bait on the hook and it really pays to ‘ring the changes.’ This also can give you the opportunity to stimulate more of the fishes’ systems by using different food items on the hook. Then in time when perhaps one bait might not provoke a ‘bite’, then perhaps the other bait will.
For carp, simply fishing a different bait over, or to the side of a bed of free baits could hook those wary bigger carp. E.g. A bird food bait fished to the side of fish meal free baits.
Double baits or using a sinking bait and a buoyant bait together on a hair, are effective but as more anglers use this rig, perhaps it’s worth looking for other alternatives that are flexible and easy to use:
Using paste or dough baits on the hair wrapped around a small pellet or boilie could make all the difference on many days.
Or even use one boilie bait on your hair rig along with one ‘air-dried paste or dough bait. Or how about fishing more than one ‘hair’ on your hook. Use one boilie bait on one hair and an ‘air- dried’ paste bait on the other?
In fact, in winter this type of rig works wonders for shy biting big carp when utilizing a buoyant paste or boilie on a separate hair and a sinking boilie or air-dried paste bait on another. This rig can trip up the fish as it needs to take both baits into it’ mouth to get at even one and this time, there is no hair length to let it escape getting hooked as the baits sit right alongside your hook...
Using 'PVA' string with baits identical to your hook baits, is a great way to fool those big carp, and it works better if you make your 'free baits' lots of different shapes, sizes and densities by using different production methods. This really works and for example, I had a very good 'hit' of carp at 'Waveney Valley Lakes' in the UK, using this trick.
Another great edge is to mix up your free baits to 'confuse' the reference points of your fish. Carp get used to sampling one bait of one type and shape and size. But what if you constantly baited your swim with four different boilie types all in different sizes, shapes, flavours, densities and colours etc. And then you fished a totally different hook bait beside them? Give it a try on a 'hard' water and find out for yourself!
Hook baits are merely a hook delivery system and there is no reason to get stuck using just one method, bait style or rig style. Changing beyond just the current fashions in fishing always gets you more fish and many bigger ones too!
The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article is protected by copyright, but reprints with a link are OK.)
By Tim Richardson. ‘The thinking angler’s fishing author and expert bait making guru.’
For more expert bait making information and ‘cutting edge’ techniques see the expert acclaimed new ebook / book:
“BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” SEE:
http://www.baitbigfish.com
MAGNETIC FISHING BAIT CHUM -- for Hauling Carp and Catfish
Many fishermen swear by chum or ‘ground baits’ that really stink! But what makes them ‘stink’ and work so well?
They may have their own secret family recipe, or just buy it ready-made. Either way, they work! The question possibly to ask is, why? And what are ideal ingredients for such baits?
Well surprisingly, perhaps the answer lies in the way some ‘pest control’ traps work!
In gardens, slugs are a problem eating plants and doing damage to vegetables. One proven method is to gather them up in a jar full of beer!
Where flies are a problem, ingredients are fermented in a jar and the flies drown in the jar. Have you ever asked why wasps and flies get to be a problem when you go out for a picnic and they descend onto the snacks warming up in the sun?
Food ‘signals’ are being spread through the air in forms like alcohols, sugars and amino acids. These are easily ‘picked-up’ by the sensitive detectors in these wasps and flies. The same happens with your chum baits in water.
Therefore it makes sense to exploit this effect to the maximum to pull the fish as powerfully and effectively as possible. How much carp food, like fermenting debris on the lake bed, or rotting fish carcasses, in the case of catfish, do they feed on naturally each and every day!?
With catfish it may be you want to use fermenting fish, squid, chicken or congealed blood and liver as chum. With carp it may be sweetcorn, hempseed, maize, or proprietary bird food and pigeon food seed mixtures. These often work best when left soaked to germinate, cooked and left to ferment. The key is the ‘bio-activity’ in these ground baits and chum.
When they start to give off powerful smells it is often the sugars, amino acids and alcohols produced by fermentation processes in the bait. Especially in the fish, squid blood and liver, chicken etc, it is the bacteria working digesting the food and breaking it down releasing amino acids.
These are great carp and catfish attractors and human attractors too! If you have ever left squid in your car a few days by mistake, you will have experienced the true power of the above described effect!
When you consider different ways of ‘harnessing’ this effect in your chum or ground baits or even hook baits, you will find your bait’s ‘pulling power’ is multiplied massively! Your bait dips, glugs and soaks will never smell the same again! So why not give it a go; the fish will love it!
The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article is protected by copyright, but reprints with a link are OK.)
By Tim Richardson. ‘The thinking angler’s fishing author and expert bait making guru.’
For more expert bait making information and ‘cutting edge’ techniques see the expert acclaimed new ebook / book:
“BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” SEE:
http://www.baitbigfish.com
CARP AND CATFISH BAITS – Magnetic Chum and Ground Bait Mixes!
Is your bait pulling in every big fish for miles? If your chum or ground bait is not you are seriously missing out and really need to exploit this vital element of successful fishing far more!
The act of feeding bait into your swim while fishing or indeed before going fishing as in ‘pre-baiting,’ is a cornerstone in effective angling. If you cannot pull fish into your swim and hold them there looking for food for any length of time, then there are very vital things going wrong for you.
* If your fish do not become stimulated by your bait, they may not even ‘realise’ that even your hook bait is in the swim. In many situations just fishing a single hook bait on its own will not be enough to produce satisfactory results.
* If you wish to consistently ‘target’ big fish, then it is advisable to get enough fish into your swim over a length of time, so that only the biggest fish are left competing for your bait. Otherwise you may keep on being pestered by the less wary smaller fish over and over again.
* If big fish are your goal and you only bait up with a minimum amount of ‘ground bait’ or chum, then you may only hold fish for a very short period in your swim, before they leave the area.
* Big fish can eat very substantial amounts of food extremely quickly, and may require far more food to hold them than you expect! It is obvious that the longer fish remain actively feeding or looking for food or are in a ‘feeding stimulated state’ that you will generate more chances of a ‘bite’ even if this means your hook bait may be tested or sampled numerous times, by different fish, until one makes a mistake and becomes hooked!
* If you really stimulate your fish with the use of ‘feeding triggering’ ground baits and free baits, you are more likely to get ‘bites’ especially from perhaps more wary big fish, than if they entered the swim un-stimulated first.
Feeding with ground bait that dissolves leaving only ‘traces’ of dissolved attractors in the water have an advantage over ‘solid’ ground baits, because odds are that fish will pick up your hook baits far quicker and there is no risk of ‘filling the fish-up’ with free bait even before the fish finally eat your hook bait.
Ground baits that are ‘active’ will promote more response from fish. This might mean adding live creatures into it, like worms or maggots etc. Or incorporating ingredients that will ‘cloud-up’ and flavour the water, and rise to different levels in the water column as different ingredients of various buoyancies disperse.
There are many ways and means of offering free baits to fish. From the tried and tested ‘pre-baiting method’ to the ‘little and often’ regular feeding while actually fishing as with ‘match fishing.’ However one thing is clear, even with the little and often method: it can very often take a large amount of bait over a period of time to ‘build-up’ your swim and produce the greatest and heaviest catches of bigger fish.
Whether this applies to feeding your swim with gallons of maggots via swim-feeder, PVA bag, or ‘compressed ground bait stick’ method, or feeding with pellets, boilies etc.
There are various ‘special’ ingredients that can be added to your free bait that will stimulate your fish from different ranges and some especially from long range, e.g. over 100 meters away. This will depend on the sensory detectors that receive ‘messages’ from your bait and these ingredients are very interesting and powerful!
The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article is protected by copyright, but reprints with a link are OK.)
By Tim Richardson. ‘The thinking angler’s fishing author and expert bait making guru.’
For more expert bait making information and ‘cutting-edge’ techniques see the expert acclaimed new ebook / book:
“BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” SEE:
http://www.baitbigfish.com
