20 Big Carp And Catfish Top Bait Methods For Summer Fish!
Many methods can be used to enhance your hook baits effects and productivity. The carp ability to learn is beyond doubt, otherwise they would simply be as easy to catch as they are when virgin fish which have never been fished for. One of the easiest ways to change your bait to get an extra edge over wary fish is to use a liquid bait soak consisting of flavours, oils or amino acids.
Oil rich dips and those rich in amino acids are outstanding and can come from simple homemade sources like tinned tuna oil mixed with liver pate and garlic salt for instance. Or maybe try shrimp paste with diluted fruit cordial juice and yeast extract; you do not need to spend a fortune on readymade dips or soaks etc. Don’t boil your hook baits; steam them instead to allow far more nutritional attraction and stimulation to release into the water instead of being sealed inside and largely wasted!
Paste or dough is great used as a coating around all kinds of other hook baits. With paste you know there is no barrier from boiled protein as with conventional boilies that prevent most of your baits attraction from reaching the fish to stimulate them into feeding! Among the items around the kitchen to use are tinned salmon, tuna, herring, mackerel, anchovies and pilchards which can all be made into paste with added eggs and wheat flour to bind; it’s simple but works!
Many anglers under-exploit their readymade baits they use because they have a relatively impervious surface. You can break-up this surface with a baiting needle, or sharp pointed knife or scissors to get more attraction out of your bait. Making your hook baits irregular shapes with irregular surfaces helps by making fish think your bait has been previously chewed on by other fish and so is safer.
I bet you never tried coating all your free baits with paste as well as your hook baits. You could try fishing a red fish meal hook bait with a pink liver paste or a meat based bait with a fish based paste; just experiment with colours, flavours and any kind of baits together! Even coating particle baits like smaller pellets or tiger nuts with paste is very worth doing!
Making the leap of faith and trying coating pop-up buoyant baits with paste is a very good edge indeed and extremely well proven! The pop-up or semi-buoyant hook bait has no need to be like the paste around it and in fact the more alternative your paste is the better. Coating pop-up baits with paste is a great edge which is little-used by the majority of carp anglers and as you can see, these things just take a little lateral thinking utilising what we are already using.
Many big fish can tell which baits are hook baits by their behaviour in the water and their weight and buoyancy. Using a more buoyant hook bait can seriously fool these fish where blank sessions could well occur on mere conventional bottom baits! It might come as a surprise but you can easily make pastes from scalded pellets and other baits too.
You might liquidise your readymade baits and mix with eggs and a little wheat flour or other glue-like ingredients (caseins and caseinates are extremely effective containing high protein levels.) This way you can fish a conventional bait which has an unusual coating which is alternative but different and closely matches your hook bait; there is no doubt about it that fish learn and experiments with goldfish performing tricks using food rewards like dogs shows the 15 second memory is just a myth – carp learn! So do yourself a favour and try being different with your baits especially as it is your the bait that truly hooks your fish and the more you know about bait the more power you will have over your fish!
By Tim Richardson.
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