Saving yourself the cost of expensive bait is one of the most important factors in fishing success for many carp fishermen. It can take quantities of expensive readymade bait to achieve great results and if you have a way of making this very quickly and very cheaply then you can save yourself untold fortunes and catch as many if not more fish than on readymade baits. Once you have a few basic bits of information on making baits you are free to create unique economical baits for big fish for years to come and save yourself a real fortune!

For the more technically minded fisherman, carp do not get their energy needs from carbohydrates but mostly protein and also fats and oils in their natural diet. Being aquatic they are extremely well adapted to extract far more energy from protein foods than humans on land. The very basic protein requirements of carp are extremely significant in terms of making effective baits because these are composed of basic building blocks called amino acids, some of which carp essentially need to consume in order to survive.

There are around 10 basic essential amino acids that carp need although there are a few others, but let’s keep things as simple as possible for now. These include: lysine, methionine, arginine, phenylalanine, valine, tryptophan, leucine, isoleucine, histidine and threonine. Carp eat foods containing these amino acids because they are essential. Using almost anything that a fish basically needs to survive can give you the edge you need to get bites although exploiting fish nutritional needs are not the only way to get bites; in fact, far from it!

It may be no surprise that both humans and carp have evolved in part due to the energy providing foods available for us to exploit in our environments. We can exploit how these foods are detected by smell and taste for example, by boosting the levels of the most highly stimulating substances within our baits. These may consist of natural food sources of soluble amino acids, flavors or even using specialist hormone preparations etc, but there are thousands to choose from!

Amino acid needs of carp are important because we can exploit them even in very simple baits to induce better feeding on baits and more bites. But these essential are not absolutely necessary to catch fish on homemade baits; far from it in fact and you can very often catch fish on competitive pressured fisheries on simple carbohydrate wheat and soya type baits which are extremely economical to make! To keep ahead of the fish you might simply just change certain aspects of the bait like attractors such as flavours or even treacles, honey, molasses, cordial syrups, or liqueurs etc.

But protein based baits are not strictly necessary to get bites of course and a multitude of baits including those based on carbohydrates like wheat flour or corn flour will still catch very well indeed providing they are altered to keep them in effect new and different to previous baits. Many of the most economical bait recipes based on carbohydrate ingredients have consistently caught big fish for decades despite arguments raging over quality food versus crap baits and other theories. If you keep changing your attractors even just by using alternative proprietary flavor dips you can always keep ahead of your fish on any particular fishery; just remember to exploit what stimulates fish naturally and avoid over-dosing with solvent based flavours unless you are fishing single bait style.

These days there is an abundance of over-stocked carp fisheries to choose from and your bait, whatever it may be is generally regarded as natural food by these hungry fish. This is one big reason why homemade simple baits will catch anywhere, but then any bait fished correctly will catch the biggest, wariest fish on the richest of waters. When you know a bit more about bait and how to really make it work for you efficiently are far reduced costs, the rewards will shock you; I have made homemade baits for decades and saved myself a fortune and caught enough big fish on readymade dominated fisheries to say that 80 percent of all my homemade baits over the years have caught big fish whatever they have been based on!

Many carp fishermen get confused between the nutritional aspect of bait as opposed to the stimulatory aspect and assume that a bait absolutely needs to be totally nutritionally attractive and stimulating as a complete food in order to do the job, but this is just not true. Many perceived simple ingredients may have very surprising nutritional attraction in any key aspect whether it be vitamins, or minerals, oils or some other aspect like simulating something which carp naturally eat confidently (many flavours do this but have zero nutritional value.) It is a fact however, that amino acids rank among the most highly feeding stimulatory substances for carp and so exploiting this aspect in your baits is advantageous, but then you have endless other possibilities and combinations to choose from, to save you money and hook you those dream fish; all you need is to know a bit more about bait!

By Tim Richardson.