Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned bait maker there is always more you can learn and the potential to discover new secrets is always ongoing because even top fish scientists admit they are far from knowing it all! To improve your readymade baits or be able to make homemade baits that perform equally or even better than the vast majority of readymade baits takes technical knowledge and loads of field testing on a range of waters right through the year. But one thing is for sure – we all have to start somewhere; so why not start with big fish bait and read on for more!
Making small balls of baits containing protein for fish like carp and catfish goes back many centuries if not back into millennia. In far more recent times at least in the fifties and sixties guys like Fred Wilton brought about a sharper focus on which elements are essential to fish and how when these are combined in the form of high nutritive baits would improve your bait potential for catching loads of fish as a result. Homemade nutritional baits can be created that combine aspects of highly instant baits without becoming repellent to fish and homemade baits made like this work really great against the popular ready made baits!
Back in the days when fishing was extremely secretive the original HNV baits were built around caseins and other caseinates that provided extremely high levels of protein and stimulating and attractive amino acids that naturally turn fish onto feeding, although many other additives and ingredients were also used including liver, fish and yeast powders and meals etc. In the earlier days of carp fishing it was the milk proteins that had a dramatic impact on big fish catches for those making such potent homemade baits as readymade baits did not exist at that time and it was in later decades that fish meals and bird food baits and other combinations that really took precedence and making unique homemade baits is still incredibly popular – with good reason!
Although many bait companies still subsist by selling the kinds of bait recipes that were in common use even in the sixties and seventies HNV baits can be made using many ingredients that were not available then that have extremely high potency impacts on fish behaviours. Fish instinctively detect substances within their natural foods and in some baits to as much as a few parts in a billion and mechanisms within creatures tell them to feed on that substance or not dependent on factors such as essential nutritional requirements of the individual fish at that moment, bioactivity of ingredients, liquids additives etc and habit-forming effects, palatability and so on. Making unique homemade HNV baits really has proven to be a great leveller of fortunes for many anglers who fish in extremely competitive situations for big much sought-after fish and using popular ready made baits can be a disadvantage if the fish you are seeking to catch have reason to be wary of those baits perhaps due to previously being hooked on them by other anglers; with unique homemade baits this situation is impossible!
The best start point in designing baits is knowledge of fish essential needs, internal workings and how to manipulate these and feeding behaviours and habits using the most suitable substances as bait; this is why just knowing a bit about an ingredient or the odd additive or flavour is not going to be much of a massive advantage! Getting to know much more deeply about fish internally is like building muscle – the more you build the more power you can gain – in this case in manipulating fish feeding locations and intensities and modes of feeding in your personal favour! As they say; knowledge is power and in the case of fishing baits it is amazing how many anglers really do not get this; so many go for the short-term solution and expect miracles from readymade baits they do not understand and therefore cannot exploit to their full potential – no wonder the average carp angler using popular readymade baits is only getting average (or worse than average) results!
Once you have discovered a great deal about fish and their inner needs and workings then selecting bait ingredients is much easier and you can choose how you design your baits will masses of confidence because your baits will be built on what fish response strongly to and not just your personal preferences and guesswork! I began making homemade baits in the early seventies when literally everybody else was too and it was very hard to get information about the internal workings and interactions of bait substances and fish but I enthusiastically pursued this passion for decades to the point where many bait company bosses ask me for ingredients and bait reviews, articles on their products and for my bait secrets ebooks and personal advice. Things are much easier today in terms of finding uniquely stimulating ingredients and additives because the internet has provided endless suppliers of ingredients, additives etc; some can from bait companies but many substances come from other sources and using what bait companies do not sell is a very serious edge indeed in making homemade baits from particles, ground baits or pastes and boilies etc!
Years ago when so many anglers used milk protein baits these were mostly used in small amounts because they normally worked very fast and effectively compared to other baits of the time and it was just not necessary to pile in loads and loads of bait to catch loads of big fish! The original HNV baits were so high in protein they could fill fish up prematurely before being caught and also because the ingredients were costly it was far from the done thing to introduce 10 kilograms of free bait at the beginning of a fishing session unlike many anglers do as a habit today! Introducing many kilograms of bait really was a product of the use of much cheaper bird foods and fish meals and other forms of nutritional baits; but always remember you only need one bait in the right place on a suitable rig to hook a fish and you certainly do not need to make many kilograms of the most potent homemade baits to equal the results of the vast majority of the most expensive ready made baits!
In making homemade baits and adapting established ready made baits to give them a new lease of live and improved performance takes a good degree of knowledge not just of the insider secrets of bait substances but of the fish – and the water also; such bait-making information leads to being able to artificially create unique fish feeding opportunities that lead to multiple captures of big fish -even against more experienced or more talented anglers! As in my ebooks my homemade baits have now caught me 4 UK lake records including a leather carp over 46 pounds and a mirror carp of over 49 pounds plus over thirty catfish caught in the UK weighing between 68 pounds and 120 pounds; homemade baits really work and this is why I am so enthusiastic about getting the word out – plus they can save you a fortune and give you even more confidence and satisfaction than any readymade bait ever will! Now for some homemade food bait recipe ideas to get you started on the road to bait-making success that has a few alternative features and performance benefits – for big fish!
This bait is not rocket science but explaining science behind aspects of it could be quite involved but needless to say this starter bait will catch big fish! The bulk of the bait is low temperature fish meal with a few binding additions and extras to boost other things such as nutritional value, bait palatability, improve digestion and bait performance, and to make the bait a little different to standard readymade baits! It should be stated here that this is not an absolute bait and it is flexible in amounts, used or other additions, or ingredient availability and according to your pocket (or your own preferences; it is certainly not optimised in terms of digestion for example, but it will catch big fish (of that there is no doubt!)
7 ounces of low temperature fish meal. 2 ounces of calcium caseinate. 1 ounce of 90 mesh casein. 2 ounces of CLO. 1 ounce of blood plasma. 1 ounce of hydrolysed poultry protein. 1 ounce of blue cheese powder. 1 ounce of chopped fennel seeds.
You might make this homemade mix using eggs plus liquid kelp complex and shellfish extract for instance plus perhaps a small dose of triple-filtered pure salmon oil plus a little krill oil to boost internal impacts. You might want to use flavours, palatants, and appetite stimulators etc; try CC Moore Ultrasweet with corn sweet syrup for instance plus maybe some geranium essential oil mixed with eucalyptus and you might use a range of suppliers from on-line bait companies to your local health store and supermarkets and so on. (For much more detailed helpful information on making, adapting, designing and boosting all your baits see my dedicated website Baitbigfish right now!)
By Tim Richardson.
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