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!

Coat your baits in bait dough or paste. This is this best way to fish a base mix paste because all the water soluble goodies get to work to the maximum effect on carp stimulus receptors. You might liquidise or just mash some tinned salmon, sardines, herring or mackerel and add wheat flour or ground-up dog mixers with some hemp or sesame seed oil for example; aim to be different!

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!

Try coating pop-up baits with paste to improve the effect and impact. It does not need to correspond to the flavour or base mix colour or anything else to make that essential difference and catching edge you need. Try adding cork granules or cork dust to your paste to make it buoyant or pop-up.

Many ingredients can be added to a paste or dough to make it buoyant or float and cork dust or granules are one example. Fish can be fooled into taking buoyant baits because they counter-act the weight of the hook and rig material among other beneficial effects. I’ve caught many big fish by using this approach but using buoyant paste hook bait wraps and often fish can come surprisingly quickly to this method!

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.