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If you have ever wondered about your bait, what’s in it that makes it ‘work’ then some clues might be right in front of you in household items which you use every day... Often these especially feature solvents of many kinds, (including water.) Below is a short list of a sample of ingredients of common household items pertinent to how and why your carp bait may work and for many varied different reasons... Skin cream: Forms of potent salicylates as found naturally in waterside plants for example. Washing powder: ‘Biologically active’ enzymes from micro-organisms. Hair gel: Potato starch. Propylene glycol. Glycerine. Limonene. Body cream: Limonene, Citronellal. Urea! Sodium chloride. Herb extracts, e.g. Borago officinalis seed oil. Forms of alcohol. Propylene glycol. Coconut oil. Sesame seed oil. Evening primrose oil. Mouthwash: Sodium saccharin. Washing-up liquid: Surfactants (like lecithins in foods, supplements etc.) Fragrances. Shampoo: Forms of betaine. (Some are among the most highly stimulatory of carp bait additives.) Almond oil. Ascorbic acid. Citric acid. Propylene glycol. Sodium chloride and other salt forms. Acetate forms. Geraniol. Limonene. Glycerine. Hydrolysed wheat protein. Hydrolysed soy protein. ‘Methyl’ containing substances. Perfumes / fragrances / smells and components, e.g. Amyl cinnamol. Lysine hydrochloride. Forms of alcohol. ‘Organic’ acids. Vegetable amino acids. Hydrolysed keratin. Conditioner: Hydrolysed silk. Forms of lysine. Vegetable amino acids. Hydrolysed soy protein. Forms of alcohol. Citric acid. Glycerine. Cleaners: Solvents, fragrances (Smells etc,) e.g. Limonene, citronellal. Cough syrup: Herbal extracts. Liquorice. Glucose. Sucrose. Citric acid. Lemon oil. The truth about why so many of these substances and those like them effect a fish to consume your hook is not necessarily a series of ‘scientific absolutes.’ We can base many theories on results conducted in laboratory conditions, but these still do not represent real fishing scenario results. However, here’s a few suggestions: The carp’s whole body, taste and smell organs in fish are designed and arranged to maximise the resources opportunities and warn of threats to health and well-being and are truly advanced. Fish can detect electrical fields some of which are more favourable and attractive to them. They even detect their environment in part by detecting small water pressure wave changes in the water around them. They have good eyesight although significantly different to ours which is a bonus when chasing other fish. This might surprise some anglers carp are ‘omnivorous’ like us, but can turn predatory like us too. I’ve seen live fry jumping out from the mouth of a hooked and landed carp at a time when small fry were the most abundant food source in a lake at the time for instance. Their ‘food message’ receptors have evolved to especially be tuned to substances which enable them to survive at the basic level. This includes detecting salinity changes in the water, reproductive hormones and other hormones like stress hormones from a fighting hooked fish released into the water. The basic essentials of their diet differ in particular ways from a human one, but then they are aquatic with totally different predominant natural diets to air breathing mammals for example. They are especially stimulated and attracted to those substances essential for life. Very high sensitivity to salts, amino acids (building blocks of proteins) even certain compounds given off by a putrefying fish and even urea have proven extremely stimulatory to actual feeding response. Substances like betaine, a wide variety of acids, oils, natural plant extracts (like salicylates, phenols,) etc occur naturally in their environment. There is good reason why fruiting mulberry bushes overhanging a water are a great attraction to carp. Many natural food items have proven to have amino acid profiles which attract carp more than others. Many shelled food items contain betaine so carp are well tuned to find this food having evolved to exploit the life forms around them. Obviously many flavours, solvents, fragrances, alcohols etc are far more easily detected when highly soluble in water. Some flavours actually taste sour or bitter and their attraction may be more related to smell effects and bait taste-changing and bait pH effects. (The impact of acids of many kinds is very significant for example.) Glycerine is found in some commercial fish farm stimulant mixtures (along with amino acid supplementation, betaine, herbal extracts etc.) It is clear that amino acids which are very important in the diet and may often be in short supply in the diet will have a more stimulatory effect on carp food message receptors. (Lysine, methionine, arginine and alanine for example.) Of course carp have no hands and can only sample potential food by touching it with various parts of its body with receptors in the skin etc like in the fins barbels, head, around the mouth etc. Fortunately for us anglers, carp have specially adapted receptors in the mouth which help further determine if a food item is actually edible or not. (But this does not mean carp get it right all the time and also never make mistakes.) Using sweeteners like forms of sugar can really help bait performance as these have proven to particularly stimulate receptors inside the mouth (the ‘palatial’ receptors.) Many items catch carp which have no food value at all directly, but may well help to improve digestion, even contribute to the natural balance of gut bacteria essential for complete digestion. Many substances used in baits in terms of ‘smell’ and ‘flavours’ are stimulatory to the ‘search and find’ fish mode of behaviour, if only very temporarily. Some flavour components are far more stimulatory than others, sometimes it depends on pH of the water and temperature, others on the type and concentration of acids detected by the fish. A good example is the now famous ‘n-butyric acid’ currently often used in conjunction with a pineapple flavour in a boilie. ‘Flavours’ are a very complex subject indeed but it is true that many bait formulations do not need ‘flavours’ of any kind depending upon their ingredients own particular features and benefits to impact the fish. Some so-called ‘flavours’ may really be seen as well designed fish receptor triggers with properties and actions on fish which go far beyond taste and smell, even stimulating a fish’s metabolism and consequential favourable behaviour. Many ingredients are particularly effective beyond any nutritional attraction and have great smell / taste properties. For example, blue cheese powder (E.g., proteins, amino acids, salts, flavours and significantly, n-butyric acid.) The fact that a totally ‘neutral’ flavourless piece of plastic can fool a carp into consuming a hook is a very interesting one. However, I’ve found neutral artificial baits benefit from additional extracts impregnated into them and when treated completely out-fish plain untreated ones. Many hydrolysed (‘predigested’) ingredients are used in carp and catfish baits.) Fermented shrimp paste is one notable old secret additive. Apart from nutritional attraction, certain additives and flavours exert powerful effects upon the nervous state and brain chemistry of fish. Certain substances act as brain-altering and behaviour altering agents. In certain ways, many of the effectively proven ingredients used in baits are literally ‘drugging’ the fish and altering behaviour so raising chances of hooking an excitedly stimulated fish in your swim. For example, everyone knows about hemp, although hemp provides serious health and nutritional benefits and attraction even containing live enzymes. (Yes it does contain a substance which was a popular drug taken recreationally in the 1960’s / 70’s etc.) Resinous or oleoresinous compounds are very often attractive to carp containing powerful substances and the ‘tetrahydrocannabinol’ in hemp resin is a prime example. Different industries are developing new products all the time and many new discoveries may also be of interest to us. It’s only recently that synthetic resins from certain carp attractive peppers have been made widely available. It makes you wonder what the future holds, what form ‘ultimate baits’ might take. I for one am passionate about carp because the fish I am most interested in catching are not necessarily easy to catch and the variables keep changing all the time which makes things so much more interesting. I realise some of you reading this can catch carp with ease due to insignificant angling pressure where a strawberry ‘Wheatie’ or sweetcorn from the can might be all you’ll ever need. However many anglers need far more than that to even get a bite at some ‘pressured’ carp waters in a whole year and any extra edge really does make all the difference. The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ any of which can have a huge impact on your catches. By Tim Richardson.
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