Personal baits

[nick]

Originally Posted by Blue

Yea, simple to use really, just squeeze out a length of paste so it fits across the rolling table. Then you place the top half of the roller on it and roll left and right a couple of times. After a few goes you'll get the hang of it. You've just got to be a bit careful to get the consistency right with the mix, to wet and it sticks to the roller, to dry and it's a pain to roll and often crumbles. It's best to make it wetter and add to it, rather than make it to dry and ruin the mix. As with everything, practice makes perfect

As for prices, you can pay as little or as much as you like, at a guess Id say you could get a cheap gun for around £12-15, and tables about the same. Not looked lately really. Probably worth just getting the basics first just to see if you prefer to make your own or you'd rather buy frozen. It's a bit of a 'labour of love' really, but I get huge satisfaction catching with my own baits, even if it is a bit of a pain making 'em.

sounds about right.

the only thing i would say is start off simple and add or change things one at a time so you know if there is a change in the performance.

[steve hurst]

A nutritous, well designed base mix ( especially a fishmeal ) does not require any additional, chemical based flavour such as tutti fruiti, strawberry etc.

By adding such rubbish you probably won't make the bait inedible to the fish, but you will almost certainly be making it less attractive.

Flavours catch more anglers than fish.

[Deano]

Originally Posted by steve hurst

A nutritous, well designed base mix ( especially a fishmeal ) does not require any additional, chemical based flavour such as tutti fruiti, strawberry etc.

By adding such rubbish you probably won't make the bait inedible to the fish, but you will almost certainly be making it less attractive.

Flavours catch more anglers than fish.

Interesting reply.....but wheres the evidence to back it up......I'm not saying your right or wrong BUT most commercially available baits still contain a liquid additive or flavour if you like. However most of them do now contain more natural attractors but some contain chemicals as well. As you rightly say good base mixes are attractive in there own right as fish can home in on minute amounts of leaking amino acids....with a good bait that contains all the nutritional requirements for the fish flavours are really used as more of a 'label' so that the fish can associate that smell with that food source....however overflavoured single hookbaits still catch a lot of carp so the flavours must be attractive in their own right but this time the source is not nutritionally sound, it simply fools the fish or makes them investigate the source....as opposed to good HNV's which use the attractor to attract but this time the source is a good one hence 'good' baits can get better with time but chemical flavours do still catch.....confused....so am I

[Blue]

Originally Posted by steve hurst

By adding such rubbish you probably won't make the bait inedible to the fish, but you will almost certainly be making it less attractive.

Flavours catch more anglers than fish.

A bit of a harsh statement pal. Cant see what harm it does adding a mil or two of flavour to a 4 or 6 egg mix. As for making a bait less attractive by adding a bit of flavour, rubbish! Adding a bit extra to a bait dont hurt it.

Look at any of todays leading baits, 9/10 of them just require the base mix and matching liquid food additive, however, you look at some of the extra recipies that have been used/tried and tested with the same bait and you'll find extra sweetners, flavours, palatants etc. All your doing is making the baits a little different, if you wish.

[steve hurst]

[quote=Deano]Interesting reply.....but wheres the evidence to back it up...

Turning your question on it’s head Dean where’s the evidence to say that adding a solvent based flavour actaully improves a bait?

As for the flavour acting as a label then that is us humans thinking of bait from a human’s point of view rather than from a carp’s. Almost every base mix on the market, or home made, will have some common denominator whether it be eggs, casein, soya flour, semolina etc etc so how the hell can an angler give his bait a “unique” label by adding a flavour? The fact that many commercial flavours share the same solvent makes that theory even more flawed.

Even if anglers were to use a typical “crap” bait such as Soya Flour/Semo/Eggs etc with nothing else added, and provided boiling times were sensible then there is still an abundance of amino acid attraction from those items that would make a carp feed on that bait. An artificial flavour would not improve that or any bait.

[Deano]

Originally Posted by steve hurst

Turning your question on it’s head Dean where’s the evidence to say that adding a solvent based flavour actaully improves a bait?

As for the flavour acting as a label then that is us humans thinking of bait from a human’s point of view rather than from a carp’s. Almost every base mix on the market, or home made, will have some common denominator whether it be eggs, casein, soya flour, semolina etc etc so how the hell can an angler give his bait a “unique” label by adding a flavour? The fact that many commercial flavours share the same solvent makes that theory even more flawed.

Even if anglers were to use a typical “crap” bait such as Soya Flour/Semo/Eggs etc with nothing else added, and provided boiling times were sensible then there is still an abundance of amino acid attraction from those items that would make a carp feed on that bait. An artificial flavour would not improve that or any bait.

I never said that you could give a bait a unique flavour I merely questioned your reasoning that chemical or synthetic flavours were not attractive or even useless....as you say all baits made from common ingredients will have inherent attractiveness but if flavours were useless or failed to improve a bait why would the likes of Rod Hutchinson bother to develope a whole host of flavours using different solvents for differing applications? Even if the flavours share the same solvent this does not mean that their molecular structure is identical....chemicals can have exactly the same atoms in them and have vastly different properties dependant upon the way that these atoms are bonded together.So I would probably say that baits can have a totally unique smell and therefore act upon different receptors in both the gustatory organs and olfactory organs within a carp. Again as you say our ideas are anthropocentric and who knows for sure what carp can smell...but we definitely know that they can detect a whole host of different molecules at minute levels from many experiments including Kevin Maddocks' famous fish tank exploits.
However the biologically friendly or fish friendly nature of nutritional baits in that they make them feel good(again this is a theory...but a well established one) means that 'good' baits do continue to catch and can even get better the more that goes in.Again however there is always a flip side and it may be the flavour of this bait 'blows' and once changed the bait begins to work again. We could go on for pages and pages regarding bait theory but still get nowhere as a lot of it is theory....but its whether you subscribe to it or not

[johnny dry net]

Id say you just have to agree to disagree on this one lads, a fish will get on a bait as a good food source but it would have to be attracted to the bait in the first place to use it as a food source, or, a fish might pick up a bait with no added flavour just out of curiosity. The new bait from poachers that i think chesh is using is called purple haze, its got no real smell to it but it goes a purple colour in the water as to tempt the fish out of curiosity at first. As with a glugged bait there is loads of extra flavour depending on how long it is glugged for, so i guess it works both ways....... only the fish could tell us otherwise and i dont think thats going to happen

[Stig]

Ive caught thousands of fish on my own baits i used to breed my own maggots and still do dig my own worms and have had lots of fish from 1 oz gudgeon to 20lb + carp on them Its not all about boilies and pellets you know

[Joephus]

Surely the argumenet that flavours arent good in a bait depends alot on the quality of the flavour and its chemical make up?

If a flavour is highly soluble in water (very highly) then these are the baits that catch more fish in winter. This is not the actual flavour but the base and this is surely working by distributing well in the water and making more possible fish get up and have a little feed.

Yes some flavours are rather repulsive for carp i am sure, but a low level and hugh quality flavour backed up with high levels of natural extracts and oils is a winning bait. Now there arent many companies that do this as it doesnt always catch the anglers and often costs more but there are a few!

Now a fish doesnt now that a flavour is a flavour, it just senses the chemical in the water now there are alot of synthetic parts to flavours so the fish may find these new.....does that mean bad? Maybe interesting.

Just my thoughts on it but good to have a serious talk about something rather than a 'whats best than thread' keep it coming lads.

[steve hurst]

Dean, the "giving a bait a label" theory came to light in the 60s via the sterling work of Fred Wilton. Fred's cutting edge HNV theory is the reason why we have so many brilliant baits at our disposal today.

However it was 40 years ago and things have changed. For one I'm sure Fred didn't envisage the chemical flavour explosion that occured in the 70s and 80s. Also Fred advocated a bait made up almost exclusively of milk proteins. That was blown totally out of water on his own doorstep when the Tip Lake at Darenth was completely taken apart on the Premier fishmeal baits. The captures on these baits eclipsed any results seen previously there, and those fish had seen years and years of the best milk proteins man had to offer.

Rod Hutchinson marketed flavours to make money. As did Geoff Kemp, Richworth etc. Can you remember their flavour portfolios advertised in the mags in the 80s? There must have been literally hundreds and I bet the huge majority had never been into a boilie mix in their life. Just bought in from a manufacturer and bottled for us gullible carp men.

On the subject of Hutchinson he must have been a terrible businessman. The Hutchinson name should have been the biggest and best name in carp fishing had it been managed properly.

And what does anthropocentric mean...? Never heard of it mate.

And...do you know Mark Hilditch?

[Deano]

Originally Posted by steve hurst

However it was 40 years ago and things have changed.

but carp haven't changed though have they?......Yes I know Hilly

[Deano]

Originally Posted by steve hurst

that is us humans thinking of bait from a human’s point of view rather than from a carp’s

in one word...anthropocentric

[steve hurst]

OK here is my anthropocentric view on addding flavours to a quality food boilie.

Imagine a delicious smelling, nutritious meal sitting in front of you. Maybe fillet steak, new potatoes and a selection of vegetables. You've got first class protein, fibre, quality carbs and plenty of vitamins and minerals.

Now cover the thing in Aldi tomato ketchup.

You may still eat it if you were hungry, pick out the clean bits etc, but it wouldn't just be the same.

[TheDoctor46]

Yeh i could well agree with that, someone off here was having a discussion with me on the bank about it he said "you would not eat a mars bar with cheese would you?"
We were on about different flavours and such.

[Joephus]

Thats applying a far to human interpritation to this whole thing,i know thats what you were going for steve but just dont feel it works.

IMHO fish look at a boilie as a natural item, but already we are in a whole mess of definitions, does a carp now there is such thing as natural food and non natural? I very much doubt it. They come across a boilie and eat as they would a water snail, they eat a few more and learn they are easy to eat and the continue to eat them because they require little else to maintain or increase body weight. Now the flavour as long as it is none offensive to them should not hinder this. Massively high levels probably arent nice for a carp to eat , heart burn type of idea. But low level well rounded flavours on a sensible base i can see only helping a bait. They help carp find them through there soluble chemicals and other ways such as ph changes in the water.

Now this can be achieved with natural ingredients but often the solubility is more of an issue, not always a problem as if you are putting it on a spot they come to feed anyway why do you need to draw them there.

Flavours are a part of bait that companies wont remove for several reasons, massive profit on selling them and the fact that if people cant smell a strong smell when they open a bag of boilies they dont like to use them (well most of the public) But 'flavours or enchancers' like sense are appeal are so good and yet smell to us of nearly nothing.

Flavours have there place i feel in baits as some of the good ones help to round of the flavour of a bait and make it that bit easier for carp to find. If they all smelt to the same level as a water snail then we are slightly cutting our odds and that bit extra smell helps the fish maybe make a disision from some distance away to swim past other food and eat those boilies.

You also have the issue of a carps sense of taste and 'smell' which are very different to ours so something that smells and tastes nice to use could be awful for a carp. But do carp have a picky nature, can they afford to in the enviroment they live in? can they turn down food because although not harmful doesnt smell 'great.' We can because we live in wasteful and plentiful society. But put that plate of steak covered in the most horrible sauce you can find and put it infront of some really hungray individual and the flavour doesnt become an issue.

Sorry am properally waffling away here and typing as think so much of this is probably rubbish but there may be one or two useful points in there somewhere.

Joe