When you use carp bait blind without knowing how it works you are using blind faith. In contrast, if you understood far more how and why key aspects of that bait induced bites and had the power to manipulate these potent effect far more then your catches will definitely improve. Read on to find out more…

Confidence in a bag, (or bottle) when it come to bait is one of great personal opinions for every angler, because the truth is everyone has different experiences even on the same baits, at different waters, and many anglers with put down other baits even though they have never even used them, which is a tad bit short-sighted perhaps. Confidence mostly comes from perceptions in fishing, and certainly not from first-hand experience. But it is first-hand personal experience that is the only thing you can truly trust as fact, but I do not mean by this that claims about commercial bait quality and effectiveness are not true.

But why would you need to know anything about bait; maybe you catch your share, maybe you know a range of baits that have worked on your waters previously that you can turn to. Well if you know little about carp vital senses and how to manipulate them to induce more takes you are missing out; big-time and it’s like using putting back on the shelf a flavour with 10 times the potency of anther because the packaging is less flashy, and choosing another flavour that you like the smell of, never realising how much it lacks compared to the other flavour… For instance, many anglers just think flavours are solvent based or natural, or nature-identical and pretty much all the same, but the actual definition of flavours in fishing are extremely diverse and some flavours like chilli compounds even stimulate carp senses more powerfully than usual pulling fish to your swim from ranges many other flavours fail to.

Many secrets are hidden from our senses but uncovered very easily by a little messing about with baits and some very elementary science, for instance, many carp bait substances change when in water into different ones to those we experience as humans in air… Garlic releases that pungent smell when broken in air and we are all familiar with similar compounds from onions and chives for example. But the smells from garlic we associate with its success are not strictly accurate, as certain of the key chemicals do not get produced in water the same as in air, and this might suggest to some thinking anglers that far more is going on, perhaps on a more deeper level to do with the biology of the fish in response to bioactive garlic substances rather than just a smell or taste.

Carp are turned-on by far more than a vanilla or strawberry flavour combination and in fact often these will provide no response at all as they are not true feeding triggers as such, but some bait substances compensate for this by affecting carp in far more profound ways internally! Science is hard right; well I did an easy test on carp baits today by eating wheat-free biscuits and a wheat free doughnut; all done in interests of science and in the best possible taste! Sometimes there are substances used in foods and baits which are naturally there or added deliberately which induce you brain create the sensation of pleasure so you enjoy them more…

Now when I ate these foods, the bit that made me want another wheat-based doughnut or biscuit after eating the first one had disappeared from the wheat-free products, (and what a surprise and disappointment that was!) This meant that something beyond just taste and smell impacts was involved. Something that effected the release of those feel-good hormones in the brain were gone and I really noticed the difference!

If you ate food frequently that tasted and smelled good but had no further incentive to keep you eating more of it, you will more than likely eat something else in preference if that food does has an extra feel-good brain chemical releasing impact. The bait or food which creates more pleasure is preferential in humans and it is the same in fish! You brain chemicals are directing your actions on a basic level and when it comes to the impact of a key part of wheat, your actions as a result of eating it can very easily be to eat more; more cake, toast, biscuits, doughnuts etc, this is one vital reason people so easily over-eat these foods and create behavioural cyclic eating problems!

When you look, you won’t believe how hard it is to get away from wheat in your diet as it is exploited so much in modern foods to get you to eat more and buy more in regular, habitual ways! Even in carp fishing it is recognised that fish eating baits without supplemental nutritional foods can drop weight as with fish addicted to tiger nuts or peanuts alone, so using such things as part of your nutritional bait is a massive edge. You might not call it manipulating carp behaviours in your favour, or call it creating addictive or habit-forming behaviours, but it works in practice; you are your own guinea-pig every day! These edges are supplied to you by the bait secrets ebooks author with more experience of eating healthy biscuits and doughnuts (probably,) than any other author!

Tim Richardson.

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