by Tim Richardson
You can always learn more whether you are new to making, adapting and improving baits or not. Improving readymade baits and making really outstanding homemade baits takes a good deal of experience and knowledge to get consistent at it but here will be provided a really sound starting point to get the ball rolling as it were! We all start somewhere in making and improving baits but why not start big and aim for unique reliable baits to catch big fish and read on!
The history of the modern phenomenon of boilie making could be said to go back many hundreds of years or thousands of year because high protein baits have been used in fishing for millennia. A guy called Fred Wilton did something unusual in that he took the essential needs of carp in particular and built his boilie and paste baits on essential fish needs to maximise possibilities that fish would need to consume his baits to top up their natural foods right through the year if possible. I personally think that high nutritive baits are just one option and I combine aspects of very instantly attractive and addictive substances chosen very specifically in my homemade baits and in fact do not aim to make a complete so-called food bait with balanced amino acids etc because it is simply not that vital to do this to catch fish – even against baits made like this!
The original protein-rich high nutritional value baits were designed around caseins and caseinates but other protein sources also figured including liver, yeast, and fish materials etc. From the fifties and onwards the rise of specialist baits really has exploded but a shift occurred from the mainly milk orientated baits of the seventies and early eighties to the fish meal and bird food and other combinations and styles of baits that predominated. It was realised by those who did their research well that fish need carbohydrates in baits to fully utilise the proteins in them, and also milk proteins sky-rocketed in price over the years so other protein sources have been sourced again and again; however, caseins still figure largely in nutritional baits of most kinds today! Fish meals really became popular in the eighties and nineties like the bird foods and other forms of ingredients as homemade bait-making anglers strove to cut costs while developing highly nutritional digestible baits and it can be significantly cheaper to make your own outstandingly successful potent baits than just depend upon ready made baits – especially if you are smart in how and where you buy your protein-rich ingredients!
Although many bait companies still subsist by selling the kinds of bait recipes that were in common use even in the sixties and seventies HNV baits can be made using many ingredients that were not available then that have extremely high potency impacts on fish behaviours. Fish instinctively detect substances within their natural foods and in some baits to as much as a few parts in a billion and mechanisms within creatures tell them to feed on that substance or not dependent on factors such as essential nutritional requirements of the individual fish at that moment, bioactivity of ingredients, liquids additives etc and habit-forming effects, palatability and so on. Making unique homemade HNV baits really has proven to be a great leveller of fortunes for many anglers who fish in extremely competitive situations for big much sought-after fish and using popular ready made baits can be a disadvantage if the fish you are seeking to catch have reason to be wary of those baits perhaps due to previously being hooked on them by other anglers; with unique homemade baits this situation is impossible!
Knowing how to manipulate and exploit fish behaviours and instinctive needs internally by bait substance secrets is the most powerful starting point in beginning to design fishing baits – and not just knowing a bit about a few additives, ingredients or flavours! Finding out about fish internally is really exciting because the more you know how to manipulate your fish using the leverage of baits substance secrets the easier they can be to catch! Knowledge really is power that leads to far better than average catches of big fish!
Once you have discovered a great deal about fish and their inner needs and workings then selecting bait ingredients is much easier and you can choose how you design your baits will masses of confidence because your baits will be built on what fish response strongly to and not just your personal preferences and guesswork! I began making homemade baits in the early seventies when literally everybody else was too and it was very hard to get information about the internal workings and interactions of bait substances and fish but I enthusiastically pursued this passion for decades to the point where many bait company bosses ask me for ingredients and bait reviews, articles on their products and for my bait secrets ebooks and personal advice. Things are much easier today in terms of finding uniquely stimulating ingredients and additives because the internet has provided endless suppliers of ingredients, additives etc; some can from bait companies but many substances come from other sources and using what bait companies do not sell is a very serious edge indeed in making homemade baits from particles, ground baits or pastes and boilies etc!
Years ago when so many anglers used milk protein baits these were mostly used in small amounts because they normally worked very fast and effectively compared to other baits of the time and it was just not necessary to pile in loads and loads of bait to catch loads of big fish! The original HNV baits were so high in protein they could fill fish up prematurely before being caught and also because the ingredients were costly it was far from the done thing to introduce 10 kilograms of free bait at the beginning of a fishing session unlike many anglers do as a habit today! Introducing many kilograms of bait really was a product of the use of much cheaper bird foods and fish meals and other forms of nutritional baits; but always remember you only need one bait in the right place on a suitable rig to hook a fish and you certainly do not need to make many kilograms of the most potent homemade baits to equal the results of the vast majority of the most expensive ready made baits!
In making homemade baits and adapting established ready made baits to give them a new lease of live and improved performance takes a good degree of knowledge not just of the insider secrets of bait substances but of the fish – and the water also; such bait-making information leads to being able to artificially create unique fish feeding opportunities that lead to multiple captures of big fish -even against more experienced or more talented anglers! As in my ebooks my homemade baits have now caught me 4 UK lake records including a leather carp over 46 pounds and a mirror carp of over 49 pounds plus over thirty catfish caught in the UK weighing between 68 pounds and 120 pounds; homemade baits really work and this is why I am so enthusiastic about getting the word out – plus they can save you a fortune and give you even more confidence and satisfaction than any readymade bait ever will! Now for some homemade food bait recipe ideas to get you started on the road to bait-making success that has a few alternative features and performance benefits – for big fish!
The bait below is not a complex one and anyone can make it – or versions of it with confidence when aiming for big carp or catfish for instance. This bait is based primarily on highly digestible fish meal and not caseins to keep costs low and there are additions in it that you may or may not utilise to boost effects and performance and make your bait especially unique. When making baits it is an art and not just science so bear in mind that levels and ingredients can be adjusted to however you like and this bait although digestible and highly nutritionally attractive is not as optimised for digestion as is possible looking at this recipe form a scientific standpoint – but your fish will not mind at all!
7 ounces of low temperature fish meal. 2 ounces of calcium caseinate. 1 ounce of 90 mesh casein. 2 ounces of CLO. 1 ounce of blood plasma. 1 ounce of hydrolysed poultry protein. 1 ounce of blue cheese powder. 1 ounce of chopped fennel seeds.
You might make this homemade mix using eggs plus liquid kelp complex and shellfish extract for instance plus perhaps a small dose of triple-filtered pure salmon oil plus a little krill oil to boost internal impacts. You might want to use flavours, palatants, and appetite stimulators etc; try CC Moore Ultrasweet with corn sweet syrup for instance plus maybe some geranium essential oil mixed with eucalyptus and you might use a range of suppliers from on-line bait companies to your local health store and supermarkets and so on. (For much more detailed helpful information on making, adapting, designing and boosting all your baits see my dedicated website Baitbigfish right now!)
By Tim Richardson.
About the Author:
Now why not grab your opportunity to improve your catches for life with these unique fishing bibles: Big
carp bait secrets, and Big carp flavours and feeding triggers secrets, plus Big carp and catfish bait secrets! For these and much more now visit Baitbigfish the home of the world-wide proven homemade bait making and readymade bait success bibles!
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