*  An introduction to making your own homemade carp fishing and catfishing baits based on experiences in the UK; choosing cool ingredients:  *

'Homemade' can mean 'simple or basic', but when applied to making carp or catfish bait, the subject certainly deserves far more explanation for optimum results and catches!

To begin with, your bait really has just one main function; to get the fishing hook into the carp’s or catfish’s mouth, so giving the opportunity for it to be hooked! To achieve this, the bait needs either:

* To emit a recognizable carp food signal, or stimulate carp curiosity.

* Be representative of, or a mimic of a natural food source.

Carp are curious and will examine any new potential food item they come across. Whether ‘packbait,’ paste / dough or boilies, it needs to be resilient enough to be put on the hook or ‘hair’, for it to withstand the fishs’ attention and enter the mouth.

In the UK, ‘Boilie’ baits are the more scientifically proven kind that have evolved from the days of the ‘Specials’ baits. These were often based on ground - up dog, cat, fish foods and farm animal foods in pellet, biscuit and tinned form. They were bound together with eggs, and fished as pastes. In the 1950 to the early 1970’s these were often fished ‘free lined’ with big hooks, with no weight, and individual baits could be the size of an orange, in order to deter bait-whittling smaller fish!

In the States this is still practiced with more advanced dough balls made from layers of different mixtures to breakdown and release attraction at different rates in different conditions. Many competition carp anglers are truly expert at this approach and some even come from 4 generations of this practice and really know what they’re doing!

In the UK, other common ‘kitchen’ type ingredients were also incorporated to enhance paste effectiveness, like minced tinned fish, curry powders and various spices, bottled condiment sources, yeast powders, milk powders, grated cheese, salt and pepper, herbs, yeast extract, cake baking flavours, whole - wheat flour, corn flour, bird foods, ground fish meal pellets, and animal / pet food pellets, shrimps and prawns, beans, peas, seeds, and many food oils have been used; many of which have proved themselves to be consistent carp catchers.

Many, in original or extract form, are still used in commercial boilie baits pellets and ground bait mixes today.

Baits were originally boiled to allow them to be thrown much further out into the water, as carp moved out in response to increased angling pressure and tackle improvements. The idea that boilies deter the attentions of smaller fish is very limited! The fact that nearly every other fish that swims along with much smaller carp can eat boilies, has shown that the ‘hard skinned boilie idea didn’t really work. In fact many species, like big roach, tench, bream, catfish etc, now eat boilies as part of their staple diets in the UK and their improved growth rates can attest to this fact.

The ideal ‘average’ size established for boilies used to be a recommended ‘15 millimeters in diameter,’ (Kevin Maddocks)  although today highly pressured waters often see better results on much smaller sizes. In certain situations bigger bait can do very well where they are needed and even 35 millimeter ones or bigger can sort out the big fish. The practice of using 2 or even 3 very large boilies is more common now and I can assure you this can work very well!

If you were an average carp angler, fishing in the UK around 1980, then you were most likely still experimenting with many of these ‘simple kitchen ingredients,’ to give you an ‘edge’ over those pesky carp! However, there were an advanced minority, who kept the latest bait and rig secret developments private among themselves. Pockets of carp anglers developed different ‘edges’ and bait formulas which could totally out - fish the old ‘special’ boilie and paste baits.

This was because they were based upon, and maximized, scientifically proven data, on the carp diet and preference mechanism under ‘certain conditions!’ Understanding the scientifically proven carp data, on the carp’s dietary preference mechanisms and baits designed on this basis, resulted in more highly nutritionally balanced baits. So giving carp the maximum energy and dietary requirements, for the ‘least cost in energy’ in location, digestion etc.

(Scientific data is only a very ‘abstract’ part of successful carp bait formulation as genuine field testing in angling pressured conditions over a long period is the only certain way to prove a bait is a consistent success.)

It must be stressed here that high protein baits are not necessary to catch carp at all and even a piece of cork or plastic corn or even small dead fish can do that! (And there are waters where in the past, even the best ‘milk protein based baits’ have failed to make much impression.)

(The successful use of carbohydrate not protein based baits is evidence that great attractors and flavours are all you need in so many fishing situations.)

If you need an indication of just how powerful some flavours, just take a look at certain ‘E – numbers’ in childrens’ candies and their effecting hyperactivity, then transfer that to carp!

When it comes to creating very successful and consistent baits the real missing ingredient, for very many carp anglers, today, is in having even a cursory understanding of why a carp eats any of these carp ‘boilie’ or pellet foods at all. And why carp can actually seem ‘prefer’ some baits to the exclusion of all the rest at times!

I feel much of this comes down to what food is available at any point in time and is extremely dependant on the volume of food and types fed into lakes over the preceding time before fishing. Natural food avalability, water quality and fish behaviour in response to carp angling activity and pressure all come into play too, along with lots of ‘unknown factors.’

There are some very interesting examples of carp becoming temporarily pre-occupied on certain baits but for very different reasons! Baits definitely stimulate the ‘carp feeding response’ in wildly different ways! Examples vary, from peanuts, tiger nuts and hemp seed, to the infamous ‘halibut pellet.’ There are times and carp waters where it can be very difficult to get an equal number of ‘takes’ on any other bait, without a significant period ‘free-baiting’ of the new bait first.

It is a fact that in many waters where boilies have not been used before they often need significant ‘free-baiting’ first to get the fish to ‘get on to them.’ I have some waters and carp are far more ‘resistent to new baits’ than others. However, these waters produce very well once once the bait has been established. I feel it is often a good idea to fish a new ‘boilie base mix’ with ‘instant attactor’ flavour and extracts combinations to really get fish on them much faster. Then cut down the flavour and attractor levels.

The actual reasons why carp pick up ‘artificial’ and boilie type baits are very significant to catches. This is an important area I feel, that has been neglected. This has left many modern carp anglers with less understanding of the ‘baits and approaches’ available to him and how best to choose how and when to use them. (Because this can be a very important ‘edge’ in itself!)

Also I feel it is as important to really understand why your ‘shop-bought bait’ catches and does not catch, in different circumstances, seasonal and weather conditions, and at different types of waters against different ‘dominant baits.’

Of course it is not vital to know, or understand these things to catch carp! But usually, only the most exceptionally talented outstanding and experienced anglers catch big carp consistently. This is using a ‘normal number of fishing hours’ to achieve these results.

This is when compared to the ‘average’ majority, who are usually those having taken up carp fishing in the last 5 to 15 years or so and often to struggle to maintain big fish catches consistency all year round, unlike much more experienced and ‘bait wise’ anglers. Having said that, there will always be great differences in reasons why anglers actually fish and their motivation to catch big fish at all. The majority seem to carp fish for the pure satisfaction of being in natural environment with friends where the bigger fish are a hoped for bonus.

So I feel it is important to help explain how to become more satisfied and consistent in your carp fishing, because these days it can be a large sacrifice, both in time and money, to pursue this sport. I believe, especially newer carp anglers, need impartial guidance when it comes to the importance of bait. (Which is often a complete after-thought!), when frequently thousands of pounds have been spent on carp fishing tackle!

Boilies still appear the most important method of attracting carp to your hook, and base mixes of these these can be made into pellets too, so here’s a very simple introduction to some boilie ingredients for ‘practical purposes:’

Often boilies (dough baits boiled or steamed to give them a protective ‘skin,’) are usually made using mixtures of dry powders and meal ingredients. Usually this mixture is referred to using a dry ‘500 gram or 1 pound or 16 ounce mix.’ Using a combination of natural and synthetic materials, bait may be bound together usually with eggs or ‘artificial’ or other natural binding ingredients and ‘gels etc, to form dough balls or shaped boilies.

A base mix can be formulated using weight units of  each ingredient therefore making it easy to formulate new bait mixes and re-make any successful mix exactly.

The most effective size and dimensions of your boilie baits vary depending upon your fishing situation, and could be 8 to 30 millimeters plus. (Never underestimate how fish preferences alter over time and even at different times during a session!)

It pays to make different sizes, shapes, and density boilies: this helps take away a ‘danger’ reference point, i.e. it reduces the fish treating it with extreme suspicion and more easily fools the carp into mouthing, testing and eating the hook bait with the hook (which is the point, isn’t it?!)

Boilies have conventionally been and are often labelled in terms of the food group which forms the majority percentage of the bait, i.e:

* Milk protein (whole milk and it’s derivatives, ultrafiltrations etc.)

* Carrier carbohydrate (soya flour / semolina.)

* Bird foods (seed mixes, rearing foods and extracts, etc.)

* Fishmeal (ground trout pellets, oily fish meals, crustacean meals, seafood extracts.)     

* Meat meals (beef, poultry, pork flakes, hydrolyzed feather meal, etc.)

And so on…

Of course, these labels are misleading to some folks these days because baits can be  highly complex.  The benefits of mixing the nutrients of different ‘ood groups’in the same bait mix, means there may be no single food group in any given bait!

So how do you choose which ingredients to use, which ratios to use of these?  It seems to me it often does not matter that much as you will still catch!  But to start with it really helps in practical terms to make a dough or paste or boilie mix that will bind together and roll well.

To produce a boilie from various ingredients without proven instructions on ratios of each ingredient takes some preliminary testing. This can turn out to be very frustrating and wasteful of ingredients! So only test rolling and binding in small amounts; this will reduce frustration and increase confidence and experience.

Therefore it is wise to start by using one large hen’s egg (or similar), mixed with a small amount of any liquid ingredients, with you new dry powder base mix, to confirm that your test ingredients when mixed actually bind and roll well into balls to make boiled baits.

If not, add more egg, a small amount of vegetable oil or ‘binding material’. Or add more porous ingredients. One of the biggest things to remove in binding and rolling baits seems to be the premature drying out and cracking of bait. Yes it is OK to chuck in some simple binder ingredients as this most often removes this problem. I don’t mind that much these days if it lowers the ‘protein content’ providing the added binder has attraction and nutritional characteristics. (More of this later.)

It’s not absolutely necessary, but ideally I’d start by putting the carp’s dietary needs first when making bait, and begin with the bulk ‘whole protein food’ content of ingredients at 25 % to 50 % of your preliminary 100 % dry mixture. Such examples used could be combinations of some of the following: milk caseins, lactalbumin, fish meals, meat meals, whey protein.

The main significance of doing this is that water soluble amino acids from these protein ingredients are proven to be among the most effective carp feeding triggers and are very easily detected in water by carp. I would even go as far to say if your bait is ‘purely an amino acid delivery system’ you will not go far wrong.

Bait solubility and digestibility are other extremely important factors here.

Usually you will require a binding material to hold the protein food together in the bait. This may require using dry binding ingredients commonly like semolina, wheat gluten, wheat flour, soya flour etc for up to 50 % of the mix, necessary for many types of coarse bird food meals, shellfish meals, meat and fish meals.

Different bait materials will alter this approximate ratio, but if you do not have much experience with ingredients, their characteristics practical applications in baits I’d use the ratio that rolls first and increase the protein content from there. (Note that using eggs or egg powder combinations to bind your bait, adds a great nutritional added profile as it is a ‘complete protein’ food.)

Examples of binders:

Hen’s eggs.

Egg powder / extracts.

Whey gel.Bread crumbs.

Full fat ‘yellow’ semolina.

Maize meal.Corn starch / meal / syrup.

Potato starch.

White ground rice flour.

Wheat flour.

Wheat gluten.

Potato gluten.

Full fat soya flour.

Ground seeds.

Ground ‘Sluis CLO.’

Ground ‘EMP.’

Ground ‘CeDe.’

Ground ‘Red band’ pigeon seed mix.

Beef gelatin based binding products.

Chemical / ‘Jelly style’ foods.

Some of the most effective attraction of your bait comes from the water solubility of the particular ingredients used. Good bait mixes might have many ingredients with this characteristic and they could constitute 10 % up to 30 % or more of your mix. Whole milk powder and baby milks are a simple examples.

Making a resilient practical boilie mix may require the addition or reduction of only one ingredient to ensure it gives off sufficient soluble attraction while remaining intact on the hook or ‘hair rig.’

Some of the best baits you will ever discover are made by the trial and error process. The solubility of ingredients is especially recommended if an ingredient has high protein value, such as sodium and calcium caseinates, calf milk replacers, yeast powder, hydrolyzed fish and shellfish proteins etc...

Some of these are used at much lower levels, e.g. 0.2 % to 6 % of your bait; e.g. hydrolyzed fish protein, hydrolyzed spirulina extract,  squid extract, anchovy extract, green crab / lobster / scallop / shrimp / oyster / baby clam extracts, green lip mussel extract etc. These are also effective as most are extremely quickly and efficiently digested with immediate benefits that the carp can ‘feel’ direct through their gut.

The effects of betaine and amino acids from combining any these ingredients in baits is awesome.

I prefer to fresh freeze baits, or ‘air dry’ them naturally, or preserve them in a flavour / amino acid / supplement compound, rather than using a chemical preservative in the bait like ascorbic acid. However, there are proprietary ‘bait preservatives’ that do not seem to put the fish off and even enhance their attraction.

But I just prefer mine ‘natural.’

Carp require oils (essential fatty acids) but only in small amounts e.g., up to 5 % added to your total dry mix. Oily fish meals and shellfish meals are already rich in these, as are flax seed, hemp seed, sesame seeds, salmon oil, cod liver oil, crustacean oil, etc. If you are absolutely into a balanced biological nutritional value / profile bait and really must meet minimum carp dietary requirements; try adding perhaps around 1 milliliter to 3 milliliters of a good quality nutritional oil per egg, (maximum in oily base mixes.)

At times of year when water temperatures drop below 55 Fahrenheit / 13 Degrees Celsius, it’s sensible to drop the oil levels used or use emulsified oil or add a liquid emulsifier to create a more carp attractive emulsion. It also pays to reduce some of your ‘whole protein food’ content and instead add more predigested ingredients or substitute with for example 3 ounces of wheat germ per pound dry mix; this is a proven method of improving the ‘biological conversion’ of your bait inside the carp by making your bait more digestible and usable.

Carp love to crunch food and in doing so send out all kinds of feeding signals to other carp, allowing attractive food particles to pass out of the gills.

Nutritional ingredients can be used for this effect, e.g. bird foods – ‘Robin Red’, ‘Red Factor’,‘Nectarblend’, Ground ‘Red Band’ pigeon food, prepared ground mixed nuts and seeds; prepared tiger nuts and hempseed, millet, egg - biscuit myna - bird rearing food, niger seeds, ‘RRR’, ground birdseeds ‘Ce De’, ‘PTX’, ground insects, dried larvae, coarse kelp meal etc.

Also used are crushed oyster shell and eggshell. These also allow bait to release attractors faster, putting more out to attract carp quicker and more effectively, especially in lower water temperatures. They also help the fish to eat more bait by helping them pass it through their systems faster.

Test each individually because their properties vary. Use, e.g., 0.5 ounces per pound for shell through to e.g., 2 ounces  per pound of course kelp meal, to e.g., 3 ounces per pound of ‘Robin Red’, ground birdseed e.g., 6 ounces per pound, up to 8 ounces per pound of ‘Nectar Blend’. (‘Chitin’ in shell has adding benefits…)

Here are some examples of recognized ‘nutritional’ bird food ingredients:

‘PTX.’

‘Robin Red.’

‘Red Factor.’

‘Nectar Blend.’

‘RRR’ Spanish peppers.

‘Prosecto Insectivorous.’

‘Sluis’ CLO.

‘Sluis’Universal.

‘Sluis’ Mynhah bird food.

‘CeDe.’

‘EMP.’

‘Red Venom’ carophyll red liquid pigment attractor.

Ground-up wild bird food.

Other ingredients are used to change resilience, texture, attractor leak-off,

e.g., milk powders, whole milk, ‘Vitamealo’ at, e.g., 4 ounces per pound),

or in a very soluble bait to bind it ‘tighter’ (or ‘harder’) e.g., whey gel at 3 ounces per pound, or make it ‘tougher’ e.g. blood powder at e.g. 4 ounces per pound, egg albumin at e.g., 2 ounces per pound, whole egg powder at, e.g., 3 ounces per pound.

To avoid silt or to make baits more buoyant, include ingredients like sodium caseinate, e.g. 5 ounces per pound, or shrimp meal, e.g. 3 ounces per pound or krill meal at e.g., 3 ounces per pound. Try raising your flavours levels to combat silt ‘smell masking!’

Vitamins and minerals are great attractors too, being essential for carp health and growth. Many of the above extracts supply these, they can leach out of bait very fast. Adding black strap molasses, sea or rock salt, betaine hydrochloride to the mix and as a liquid soak really helps.

Other ingredients can be added  in very low levels to enhance your bait, or give it an ‘extra special attractive note’ e.g., 1 teaspoon per pound, of powdered taste enhancer, or sweeteners like sodium saccharin and fishing company proprietary brands liquid and powdered sweeteners. Carp do seem to prefer sweetened baits even if the base mix is definitely savoury like fish or meat!

So, when you mix new ingredients together always test your mixture first. Try using one egg as a binder, to see if you have your ratios right for practical binding and rolling purposes. Always prepare your wet ingredients first and add dry ingredients to the wet ones gradually as you become accustomed to the ingredients you’re using, this part will become simple and much faster! (Always keep notes!)

You can refine your bait’s ‘nutritional profile’ content, attraction properties and additional ‘practical physical’ properties, as you become more familiar with getting a practical bait together; that works right for you and catches carp consistently! (Big ones preferably!

You will soon find it’s very easy to make all kinds of extremely successful boilies, doughs, pastes, pellets and ground baits etc, and your personal ‘secret’ bait armory will fill you with confidence and your albums with big carp!

The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article is protected by copyright.)  

By Tim Richardson.