Many anglers ask what the best bait recipe or bait format is, be it boilies, pellets, paste or particle or natural or fake baits etc. But it must be obvious to anyone by now, but no single person is emptying lakes wherever they go without hard work! If magical baits exist one of the biggest drawbacks to them is that carp are not robots and they instinctively constantly adapt to avoid any potential dangers from baits! So if you want improved baits and better catches read on now!

A potential danger can be any bait they had had any reason to be suspicious of in the past. But in order to detect potential threats then a threat usually needs characteristics that can be associated with danger. Human babies can instinctively and hold their breathe and start to swim when in water for the very first time and this is a great example of survival instincts at work. But remember that babies develop within a liquid environment before they ever take their first breath. This liquid-based link is very interesting and humans have many similarities to ancient teleost fish such as carp in terms of instincts and physiological needs, processes and responses to stimuli.

Just hypothetically speaking, would a human baby (when swimming) react to a great white shark in water the same as it would to a cuddly toy when on land? After only one bad experience of the shark the baby will more than likely be terrified for ever more of literally anything that reminds him or her of the shark threat and may never ever even go near let alone ever dip a toe in! Any stimuli that reminds the baby of a negative experience conditions future behaviours to avoid literally any possible potential threats and this is the essence of conditioned unconscious instinctive survival mechanisms at work.

Think about it, without such mechanisms, both fish and their descendants including humans would have died out eons ago! Surely the point about bait is that it is supposed to maximise confidence and entice fish into taking hooks into their mouths as many times as possible sp providing you the maximum possible number of chances of hooking fish and landing them successfully. However, many carp baits simply do not do this anywhere near their maximum potential.

This is because they have so many characteristics that cause them to be regarded with suspicion due to countless negative experiences of them and similar baits and associated circumstances and places where they are encountered. It does make me laugh when you get a bait designed to be a nutritionally valuable bait made into a conventional ball, barrel or pellet shape. Such carp bait shapes are well and truly past their point of best potential on waters where they have been used en masse by the masses already!

So many angling-pressured carp survive by avoiding readymade baits when they are introduced as fresh intact baits packed full of flavours, aromas and smells. Ironically enough carp can feed on dissolved substances issuing from boilies well before they actually decide to sample them by touching them with fins or lips for instance (if they do at all while such baits are still intact and not washed-out!)

The small picture makes things look like carp keep getting caught very highly successfully on firm round densely-packed balls of whatever. The vast majority of readymade carp boilies are made to last a minimum of 24 to 36 hours or more when immersed, even in warm water in summer as opposed to cold water in winter. But no matter how open-textured such baits are they are still characteristically the same as boilies and boilie pellets and pellets that carp have been experiencing and successfully dealing with and avoiding for decades.

Obviously the problem is not with the baits but with the fact that the majority of anglers are well behind the times in terms of perceptions and still think standard density and solubility boilies and pellets are the epitome of successful carp bait. Many carp anglers even think no further than perceiving carp boilies as uniformly shaped round barrel or pellet balls of semolina and soya with a fruity flavour with some pink, red, white, yellow, purple, blue, green or exotic dye mixtures to colour and tone them.

In fact many carp anglers are so hung up on making sure their baits look like a standard perceived format they want to preserve their baits using natural or synthetic preservatives. However carp detect food items very much by sensing dissolved substances in water formed from the actual chemical breakdown of whole substances not preserved ones! Preservatives are all well and good but surely one of the most naturally powerful ways of exploiting the way carp naturally detect their food in water is to ensure baits are as soluble as possible and break down easily – and more than this, that they will move about and disperse actively all around the different depths on the water column?

I have to laugh at how many anglers coat their relatively ineffective standard readymade boilies with paste when actually doing this simply demonstrates that the standard readymade boilie format (where the bait is fairly firm and usually pretty resistant to fast breakdown) is basically faulty! How many more sheeple will be mindlessly following this fashion and doing this in the coming weekend because the magazine gurus tell them it is logical (thus selling more of their brand of readymade paste?!) ( Note I do not mean to be demeaning of sheep nor people here; I am simply making an observational statement about natural human behaviour and the natural herding instinct used for survival in past eons to boost survival prospects that works against our interests as anglers today in many ways!) Look out for all the brand loyalty conditioning, selling of brand perceptions manipulations, and exploitation of mass markets which companies seek to grab bigger proportions of all the time and you will see what I mean!

Ultimately if you follow the herd and current fashions you miss some of the greatest edges over carp survival instincts because you will simply be thinking and fishing the same as the herd when far greater success is just an individual creative thought away! Do not forget it is the herd that actively conditions fish responses by its predominant paradigms of thoughts and activities and styles and methods of fishing at any particular point in time. For instance in the seventies and early eighties the fashions were Heron and Optonic alarms, canvas bell tents, nylon over-wraps and tilted Wavelock brollies, Mitchell reels, Walker and Maddocks carp rods milk protein and bird food baits and then Richworth frozen readymade boilies.

Then fashions really changed to carbon fibre rods, Japanese free spool reels, enclosed geodesic dome tents, fish meal baits and ever more readymade carp bait base mixes and additives became far more popular as the cult of carp fishing became increasingly more commercialised - and so moving on to one piece quilted suits instead of army jumpers and wellies and from giant sized Teflon monkey climbers to flashing both ways swinger indicators you can see from 800 yards!

Now it is all flashy big pit reels and rods you need a mortgage just to insure, clothing and luggage that make you look like a real tree, bush (or a fanatic of some kind out on a terrorist job.) What about the dizzying kaleidoscope of light emitting fake baits and fluorescent  readymade boilies, glow in the dark fake baits and dips, plus myriads of pellets and boilie pellets (usually of quite similar types of formulations and fashionable flavours.) Now there are million candle power multiple LED head torch lights that can bring down a 747 with the flick of a button and bite alarms that bleep 6 times so loudly whenever you turn them on that the ground shakes (and are great idea by the way for alerting the fish to your presence since fish hear in the same frequency humans do and sound travels very nicely through water thank you very much!) How much heavier can the average tackle barrow get – many versions sound like an elephant pounding their way into a swim (so much for watercraft and subtle presentation!)

How many more tree-less, wildlife-less commercial waters will spring up with instant fifties with swims so closely packed together you might as well share your bivvy with your neighbour, let him bait your rods and let him cast out and fish with your rods while you chat with his mates on his mobile and listen to his IPhone or IPod on full blast all night long! It might sound cynical, but when all you hear all night long are ring tones going off around a lake at full volume (that sound like the latest 20 megawatt bite alarms) followed by ignorant prats shouting on and on into their mobile megaphones as if they are deaf, you could be forgiven for thinking you had not gone fishing but had accidentally been transported to a loony bin for noise addicts! (No wonder such distraction addicted morons complain when they fail to catch fish as a direct result of them not blending in so very well to their natural surroundings and not putting fish as well at ease with their totally unnatural presence on the bank as possible - duh!

There is no helping such idiots who probably think what they are doing is normal so it is not a problem – the sooner they give up fishing and go raving or pubbing or clubbing every week or whatever they do instead the better! What they completely over-look is the very often dramatic negative impacts their presence on the bank has on fish awareness and consequent behaviours in response to anglers and their lines rigs and baits which inevitably lowers the chances of success not merely for them but for everyone else anywhere near them! Far too many carp anglers are too busy being addicted to their new electronic gadgets and new flashy gear (and making sure everyone else knows about them) instead of getting carp really confident in their swim and even addicted to their very own creative baits and using their own innovative fishing edges that guarantee success without any of the BS bells and whistles and shouting about it!

You might think this is over the top until you figure it out that literally every single negative impact that every angler on the bankside has on fish even if they are not aware of it can directly negatively influence fish behaviours that reduce other anglers chances in many ways that they cannot even comprehend! This is a growing problem with many more pressured fisheries getting ever more like circuses these days.

Sadly commercialisation in fishing is not all progress and most new carp anglers will never appreciate true peace much of the time while at the waterside when beside other carp anglers today. This is of course unless they happen to be extremely lucky in getting into select limited number syndicate waters (usually filling dead mens shoes these days,) where swims are very sensibly widely spaced apart for instance. They might get access to fish certain private waters, or choose to fish much less frequented reservoirs, unfashionable pits, or stretches of rivers or other waterways etc that (only presently) are neglected. But you can bet that this will soon change when they are finally visited by so many self-promoting advert-filled magazine gurus who will be followed by the masses like hypnotic Pied Pipers dressed like Robin Hoods in their obligatory Realtree must-have fishing costumes and props!

This is the same sad desperate attention-seeking copy-cat mentality that so many morons have today when driving about with every headlight and side light on at full eye-burning halogen beam power. How many of you notice that sidelights are now often even bigger now than actual headlights - yet up until 2009 it was almost as if side lights did not even exist they were so rarely used. (Now they are just an obvious means of seeking attention!) When enough accidents have happened (due to these beams that outshine the average lighthouse) and when enough of these idiots have blinded each other over the course of time, perhaps they will wake up and realise what blindingly ignorant retards they have been. Humans are not designed to be shot at with headache-inducing beams of halogen light - pumping ultraviolet light directly into your brain! Its time to shop being sheeple people!

(Everyone knows the story and moral of the Pied Piper right? If you do not then read it because its message is just as relevant and as powerful today as the day it was completed – sure self-education is not cool but you will find that the great successes of the world are predominantly self-educated men and they are the ones ultimately controlling and constantly conditioning the values, beliefs and behaviours of you and your society in their sole interests for profit!)

I reckon when every carp angler has got 20 grands worth of gear on the bank with his obligatory night vision goggles and invisibility tent, levitating zero pressure points bed chair and magnetic self-hooking baits, then it will be the time I take up golf! But presently the prospect of hitting a small ball with a stick around a field full of holes in the rain does not appear like sane behaviour to me. But then sitting in little green tents for days on end watching an in-bivvy entertainment system does seem a bit too far out to many observers too and in the past some of the giant TV aerials I have seen used at Darenth for instance have got to be seen to be believed!!

Nothing replaces sound watercraft skills, practical experience and a deep understanding of the fish in terms of their senses, substance sensitivities, how and why they adapt their behavioural responses and how to induce, manipulate and exploit all these against them in your own favour! In all this it is very easy to forget that a wary carp will easily take a worm, or fresh duck poop instead of fashionable pineapple chilli chicken boilie pellets.

Boilies work for many reasons other than what appear to be very standard conventional bait characteristics like bait shape, flavour, colour (and tone,) texture, buoyancy, liquid contents and their viscosity, permeability to water and water resistance or lack of, biologically-available stimulatory nutritional values etc. Pellets are just the same; some of the currently most successful pellets do not look or even act like any standard marine type halibut pellets for instance.

Very many characteristics of standard readymade boilies and pellets and boilie pellets are common to them and yet removing as many of these similarities can easily improve your catches as you are obviously avoiding those vital danger reference points that carp have come to associate with them.

Some of you might be saying well I use fake baits and I catch good fish but do you know every single reason why carp pick up such bits of completely synthetic items within their surroundings? And far more importantly, do you have any idea just how carp detect such things and why they actually bother to pick them up considering they have in effect no nutritional value as such at all even if they carry an aroma?

Many anglers have used candy and flavoured sweets of many forms over the years with success. I even fished with bits of a car freshener with success. This had a violets type of aroma and was a rubbery gel-like plastic material that looked clear in water. The basis of such a bait is so similar to fishing with flavoured jelly baits.

It is obvious that science does not know everything about carp senses – far from it in fact. New rubber and plastic baits and baits that carry no strong aromas (as in neutral boilies for instance) are different to normal baits that carp have been experiencing and dealing with for decades. This is just one part of their success. In related investigations into robins it was discovered that they have photosensitive cells in their eyes that can track electromagnetic lines which they need to follow. (For instance it has been proven that without such super senses they cannot migrate and just get lost!) They also have specialised cells in their noses that also detect electromagnetic fields.

Carp detect electrical fields too and perhaps the way rubber and plastic baits act in water compared to natural baits and standard baits issuing water-altering and electrical field-altering dissolved substances is significant. Questions need to be asked; what really are the true natures of light energies for instance?! We humans have magnetite in our brains and this helps us navigate and orientate ourselves to natural magnetic (or artificial) north but I am certain it has more profound applications and purposes!

Anyway, I guess that north is such an important direction because that is obviously the major region that is colder and that requires more energy and specialist skills and adaptations in many respects to survive in compared to a more southerly region for instance. This is where a temperature of around 22 degrees Celsius is a comfortable ambient temperature that is very efficient for our human bodies to exist in with least energy wastage in cooling down or in keeping warm by various natural or invented means.

Carp are different being cold-blooded and their bodies match the temperature of the water surrounding them which very much determines their internal processes, metabolism and behaviours, digestion rates, times of spawning etc. But they too have their natural comfort zones in many regards and of course they instinctively prefer to be as energy-efficient as possible as this rather improves their chances of survival! (Being constantly stressed in pressured angling situations and when in the proximity of recognisable potentially dangerous baits is not necessarily particularly energy-efficient!)

It is for science to yet discover what further super senses carp are capable of in sensing any of our baits used in fishing so keep an open mind! Science has discovered more in the past 100 years than ever before but in such a short time it has mostly grown extremely arrogant and closed-minded too.

Please ask yourself why fluorine is added to your tap water when it is in the list of the top 30 most toxic substances on the planet and well over 50 percent of it ends up down the drain as waste water from leaks in the overall water delivery networks. If I was paying taxes for a government approved scheme to dose drinking water with such a powerful toxin used in mental institutions and initially in concentration camps by the Nazis to manipulate mood and behaviours when over half of it is chucked straight down the drain - I would be very concerned about what is really going on!

Einsteins nephew commented on the real damaging power of fluorine in tap water stating that if you drank such water for just a year your body, brain skeleton and mind will never be the same again and be permanently damaged and altered on subtle levels. Notably it even can permanently lower human intelligence and it makes people become more subservient in their behaviours (it is even used in mental institutions for this purpose to control patients!)

Fluorination of public water is really about cheap disposal of toxic waste and controlling the behaviour of the masses; if you need proof, just discover how much it costs to dispose of toxic fluoride waste from the production of nuclear weapons and from power stations and why it gets dumped in our water! By the way, sodium fluoride is not the safe natural form but an extremely toxic one – look up just how toxic it is compared to cyanide!

If you think dentists are completely brainwashed by bad science into recommending this stuff to children for actually taking into their mouths to control teeth (followed by flushing out with fluorinated water) you are dead right! All my scientist relatives who went to Cambridge or Oxford Universities and are now professors in medical research (including my PhD biochemist partner) all use safe natural alternatives instead of sodium fluoride – they know much better despite what any dentist thinks! (Note that natural can mean bad as well as good – the truth is in the details and small print!) Just another tip; why not try looking into the components of pure peppermint oil to discover out why this is used in particular to make the taste of toothpaste more palatable (it will be of use to you in boosting your carp baits effects!)

Getting rid of fluorine wastes safely is exceptionally expensive and we are talking about millions of gallons of it that needs disposing somehow! Scientifically artificially skewed biased studies are still being held up as justification by whoever the faceless authorities are that even today still justify the enforced use of water fluorination!

Reverse osmosis method is the most widely regarded method of ensuring your drinking and bathing water is as pure from contaminants and harmful chemicals as possible. Just be aware that every time you take a hot bath or shower you are actually soaking into your skin and into your lungs chemicals that react when heated by vaporising!

The core studies on the safety of fluoride are totally outdated and just used to justifying the cheap easy dumping of waste into public water supplies and these originally come from vested interests and you guessed it – a body of specially selected scientists working in connection with nuclear developments back very early at the start of the cold war era! And guess who worked for the Americans in nuclear developments in the space race; many Germans including those from operation paperclip (including Nazis.) The old data still used to justify public fluorination was far from totally scientific, was certainly not from completely sound and impartial studies and is basically BS touted by vested interests. Using fluorine in a public water supply to control the masses was first done in Germany during the reign of Hitler and knowing the habitually manipulative and totalitarian habits of the Nazis it is very obvious that this new strategy was put into action for the good of public teeth hygiene! When you know that someone as prominent a scientist as Einsteins nephew was against such applications you can be sure it is very wrong!

All more recent findings on the damage that fluoride does to teeth and the body are ignored most western governments so do yourself a big favour for your kids sakes and look up how fluoride directly actually damages teeth! It might strike you as strange, but instead of using a toxin to clean your teeth there is a very effective alternative called eugenol tooth paste which is completely safe. Eugenol is the most potently antimicrobial spice extract and is also found in certain herbs too.

Carp are great instinctive judges of immunity stimulants that are best for them and you will find that eugenol is in very many flavours and bait additives which are especially effective in colder water and the winter and spring months when carp are most vulnerable to developing immunity-related conditions! (By contrast I cannot find any carp baits and flavours at all that include sodium fluoride in their formulations to help carp build up their health or boost their immune systems!)

All I am aiming to do here is get you to think for yourself because science and currently socially accepted norms are certainly not infallible and certainly many socially accepted maxims and perceptions are not always in your own interests – far from it! Just do your homework into how American industry moguls engineered the mass consumption of commercially-available goods by exploiting powerful new psychological technology harnessing the power of colour advertising in the paper media like newspapers, magazines and posters for instance plus the most hypnotic media of all; television (and now the internet!)

The work of Dr Freud was used for this purpose among others and in use of extremely persuasive hidden subliminal sexual imagery that manipulates the subconscious mind is still going on all over the place from buses and TV adverts to internet adverts, album covers, logos and much more besides – so buyer beware! In recent times who could blame so many people from taking out loans they could not afford when they were literally battered into it by irresistible consistent subliminal and direct messages in all forms of media brainwashing them into doing it! (In effect the recipients of such powerful messages have little choice but to conform so how can the banks blame them for what they have basically hypnotised and conditioned them into doing?!)

Just mindlessly going out and buying the same fishing baits that thousands of other anglers are mindlessly going out and buying does not necessarily mean you will be the top rod – but it inferred all the time. But unfortunately most of the time most anglers will be Mr Average at best while constantly wondering why the high profile cult figure hot shots in the media always appear to catching endless big fish! It is an illusion my friend; most of them are full-time anglers, sponsored anglers or anglers with incredible advantages in terms of the access to superior information, better up to date angling intelligence, access to limited access big fish waters, swim and pre-baiting advantages that build up over time etc.

Certain anglers have access to far better competitive fishing information being in the kind of exclusive cliques that can make all the difference. Many top anglers strive to develop their own style far more than average anglers which might mean exceptional skills in getting information out of people, or getting access to waters, or in terms of watercraft and fish location, or in casting distance and accuracy, or in bait application, or in fishing methods or bait design or in developing new tactics and strategies and so on. Add all these advantages to the fact that relatively few anglers are exceptionally talented and few are exceptionally driven to succeed far beyond the average angler.  Then the truth behind the success of many of the most recognisable and famous carp anglers of the past begins to emerge. Today many of the high profile anglers are riding the commercial wave and are certainly not in the same league as the pioneers who made carp fishing the cult is today! The truth is that most usually long years of incredible hard work is the real key to genuine success!

For instance, who else noticed that Mr Terry Hearn obviously did not follow the culturally conditioned norm that involves the wife, house and 2.2 kids route on his path to outstanding success, fame, fortune (and now fashionable cult idol of the masses?!) It is very obvious that he set out to learn his craft and seriously graft and put the hours in and made it his intention to make certain sacrifices to reach the top of his chosen field. The real truth is that growing and stretching generally hurts – it takes incredible efforts to reach the top in anything and that means you will inevitable have to fail far more than so-called normal Mr Average people on the way to your outstanding success. Plus in fishing there seems to be such an incredible amount of egomaniacs just inching to knock, mock, put down, bad-mouth and even defame others at the slightest chance that they could be doing better than they are. Just see almost any forum online and they will appear like magic!

However failure and genuine knock backs are just an illusion too because real feedback is the lifeblood you need to fine-tune, adjust and refine everything you need to on your road to success; success really is the journey as much as what you achieve by what you become! As Kevin Maddocks very intelligently put in so many words, it is just as important to understand why you do not catch - as much as understanding why you do!

Much of successful carp bait design, much about it comes down to energy efficiency; you can spend your time going round in circles in ignorance and waste your energy criticising others for instance, or you can get to work and turn yourself into a success by your own efficiently planned and visualised efforts of self-improvement with focussed intent! It is a fact that you learn an incredible amount to help you towards your own success by helping your fellow anglers and not merely by competing against them! (This has been proven to me for example through the feedback from friends I have made in over 50 countries through my fishing bait secrets site which not surprisingly has seriously helped me further my own understanding of baits in countless forms and of fishing strategies etc.)

More than one British carp study group member expressed their opinion to me that Kevin Maddocks is the most gifted angler they ever knew. However, talent is no good on its own and it needs honing. Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy with a towering musical genius but even he had a very hard time because he stated he was only the best because he knew he had to spent years studying the best from the very best – which he did! If you want to improve studying the best first hand is far better than reading second-hand hearsay in magazines. For instance double Olympic medallist Kelly Holmes had her own private athletics coach at the tender age of only 10 years old, while an 8 year old Leona Lewis already had a professional vocal coach who was already completely convinced little Leona would make it big! (I say little because I have spoken to her and she is surprisingly short; television is not a good guide to true perspective!)

 I once got into investigating the reality of reality television shows because I found them so mindless and irritating being so obviously fixed by psychologists and producers. I once shook hands with Simon Cowell (when I was not particularly enjoying being exploited on one of his shows as a wannabe when I was really there to discover the truth about these illusory media circuses.) (Simon Cowell is also shorter than he looks on screen.) Despite all the dubious aggressive and manipulative machinations of the man as seen on screen, he certainly demonstrates a personal discipline and a respect for the power of meticulous detailed preparation and practice that is often the hallmark of a winner. Having said that, similar things could be said of other egomaniacs like Hitler whose failure was due to not listening to anyone who disagreed with him – which will likely also be the case with Mr Cowell.

Ultimately the majority of incredibly successful people have the very best teachers, coaches and mentors or personal role models available which they could emulate. (People tend to become mirrors of those around them and it could be said that one way of measuring the of success of a person is the people they attract to them with whom they predominantly associate with.)

If you want to improve then here is another example. It is the whole recipe of success that matters and just having raw talent or a few abilities may not be enough without consistent hard work. As they say in martial arts perfect practice makes for perfect performance and how you train and who you train with really makes a gigantic difference whatever your level of natural ability. In carp bait terms this might equate to talking with mates on the bank who are of the type fixated by brands, cult fishing celebrities and specific currently fashionable methods and tackle.

Most often such people do not have a long experience of making carp baits in terms of exploiting carp sensitivities of multiple forms and generally have little knowledge of practical use about gaining competitive edges regarding baits, their designs and how they work and how to their maximise their effects internally or externally in regards to carp. Just remember that all you can see today is merely a snapshot in time and are predominantly built upon all kinds of progressive developments that were refined made over time. In theory and practice if you think for yourself you can conceive of baits and baiting applications etc that is completely new in fishing.

As this truly is the case you really can be the first to benefit from this and be a very long way ahead of the vast majority of anglers who merely follow fashions! Even the paradigm of thinking which most anglers take for granted involving the method of fishing using 3 rods and 3 alarms in very conventional static ways is just a method. This standard is obviously going to alter in the future just like the predominance of float fishing for carp changed to ledgering in the past. It is also interesting to see just how many baits and methods go around in cycles and is a good clue to what is around the corner in the future – with a twist!

The vast majority of carp bait additives hailed as the new big thing these days have already been the fashionable thing among anglers in the know over previous decades. Again this is another clue for all you curious anglers looking for edges carp are not already familiar with. In my own opinion, if a bait additive for example has not been hammered on a water for perhaps about 7 years or more then it is extremely likely most fish in a water will fall for it again if you used it today.

Looking back at historical articles and magazine pieces can be entertaining in many ways as thinking and many methods become obsolete or ineffective in fishing today, but they can also give you patterns in how products and thinking develop which you can use as short-cuts to success, plus you can exploit all kinds of ideas and baits that are simply not pushed through magazine advertorials because they are either not profitable to bait companies or they are just not in fashionable today. I ask you just how many particle baits are not used by the majority of carp anglers today – I can count at least 80 types of successful particle baits used in the past that most fashion-following anglers would be very resistant to trying simply because they are not presently pushed in the press by cult heroes! (Again this is just another example of a bait opportunity for you to exploit weaknesses in carp defences.)

It does make me chuckle when I see so and so company bringing out their new particle mix whatever it is, when thinking anglers whose focus is on fish responses and feeding behaviours etc and not fashions have been quietly exploiting them, or very similar mixtures or even more alternative ones, literally for decades. Another point I can mention is that I know of various bait company bosses and certain of their employees, who happen to use baits that are not on the market – and never will be instead of their own range of marketed products! What does that say about confidence in many readymade baits and how much better they can actually be made?! I am into baits of all kinds not just boilies or pellets for instance because what matters is fish responses and maximising bites not being fashionable. There have been times when captures are publically claimed to be made using readymade baits of various forms when the true bait used was in fact something else.

Certain bailiffs and capture witnesses on certain waters have affirmed this fact to me. My own insider information shows that some brands of bait did not the catch the largest this or that on this bait or that mix but in fact worms or tiger nuts or another bait was involved! How many people know that the old Richard Walker UK record from Redmire actually involved digging up a tree when the fish got snagged? I know this happened because Fred J. Taylor O.B.E. was part of the group fishing Redmire that week and happened to regale the tale to the barman in his local pub near Tenterden who also was a very keen angler (and who now decades later happens to be my local publican with whom I talk fishing with occasionally!)

First hand help and hints from those who really are in the know can be extremely invaluable in getting at useful first hand truth of the reality of things instead of being dependant on reading things second or third (or tenth-hand!) But of course I am not inferring that you go around digging up trees in order to successfully net your fish! Double Olympic gold medallist Kelly Holmes ended up getting help from the coach of a multiple world champion and she trained with Maria Mutola (the multiple world and previous Olympic champion.) I met Kelly while I lived near Tonbridge and she let me hold her gold medals which was a real honour; they were the product of 12 years of sustained training with all their ups and downs both physical and mental and emotional. I got to know Kellys grandfather a bit too and it was clear that the girl from the council house really did get the very best help and training available on her route to success even to the extent of FBI bodyguards when she first became a world celebrity and won world athlete of the year!

Meanwhile another great example of a champion is vocalist Leona Lewis who went to top UK stage and performing arts schools from a young age and was a contemporary in them alongside Katie Melua and Amy Winehouse. In fact her teachers stated she was the best singer they ever had yet all this gets edited out for television to create the illusion she was just another reality show auditionee! If you want to improve fast then making the effort to contact and source vastly experienced first hand help is definitely a fast-track method instead of going around in circles and not clearly seeing what you need to do or change or being stuck in an unproductive rut often for years!

This is because it really helps you to clear up your confusions and contradictions thus grooving certainties and confidence into you mind, brain and nervous system. Everyone knows you perform better and fish better when you are very confident! If you feel isolated and lost in the confusing myriad of choosing baits from so many readymade ones then get back to basics of fish senses and sensitivities and substances that fish naturally detect extremely easily. Simply ignore all the hype and advertorials that contradict each other and do your own unique thing instead and get digging and get real facts and first hand experiences on which to build and develop your success on!)

Without any exceptions all the world and Olympic champions I have met or trained with in various sports in the past followed their own unique training programme tailored to their goals and needs to most fully exploit the unique potential each of them had which maximised their unique talents and this has obviously enabled them to express their own dominating style. Style in fishing is something that most anglers will misunderstand and in this context is something much less to do with what brand of products you happen to use or wear but what you offer personally from within your own being that are natural advantages. It is about fishing to your own strengths and maximising them instead of aimlessly following every new trend without developing every strength and advantage you already can exploit and develop to an exceptional degree no matter what it is!

In years past when I trained with UK athletics head coach Frank Dick and world championship winning karate coach Ticky Donovan for example they would keep emphasising the power of regularly going back to basics, to keeping on perfecting your basics. Solid basics enable you to develop solid skills and a suitably conditioned personal development foundation and a style that can consistently lead to success because you are maximising the best of what you have naturally.

It is funny to see how the world of professional footballers and even rock stars are exploited in the fishing media to promote fishing itself or fishing tackle and bait products etc. You have probably observed that it is the very same personal qualities that enable a person to succeed in one field of endeavour that ensures increased chances of success in others. The best most usually learn from well chosen teachers and role models and you might be surprised to find that even Elvis modelled his style on strong successful characteristics of stars before him and this style was very deliberately and meticulously crafted making it totally unique!

You might have noticed that both professional footballers and top rock stars mostly spend a disproportionate amount of their time rehearsing or training in the course of their careers as do top match anglers for instance – and even in this something like physical fitness brings dividends. Again it is about getting the basic skills extremely strong. In fishing terms I might suggest that seriously getting to know far more about carp senses, their internal physiology in relation to bait substances, their natural and angler-conditioned behaviours in response to baits and angling methods etc, and how to exploit or manipulate every single one of their defensive mechanisms, are all grand short-cuts to far greater consistent success.

I get excited by making homemade baits because of all the huge advantages it has given me in my fishing compared to the majority of readymade bait dependant instant carp anglers who do not care how their baits work - nor why their baits might fail to produce fish in line with highly over-inflated expectations! Often it is very simply because such anglers do not know enough about fish or the baits that they can exploit the baits in forms and various ways that maximise their true potential.

Developing your own unique style is extremely important as this will allow you to consistently fish to your strengths! Developing you own personal unique style in fishing is a great edge and has the same powerful effects as in anything else be it in improving your speech patterns and range of vocabulary, in football or martial arts, in developing relationships, making sales calls, or preparing a fishing session or setting up in a swim and making every decision and action required while fishing!

The best bait is the bait that does the job of hooking a fish successfully at any one moment in time. You might prefer the confidence of establishing a nutritionally stimulating bait with their advantages or using massively-boosted attractor type low nutritional value baits, or use any kinds of other baits, natural, processed, live, plastic or whatever. The job is getting your hook into the mouth of a fish even if it is very wary and be able to hook it and catch it successfully – and not simply feed it and have it laugh at you wasting your time!

The best baits get hooks in mouths (ethically) in the main because somehow they get around defensive carp conditioning and behaviours that are naturally designed to avoid potentially dangerous hook baits. Whatever specific bait that happens to be used at any point in time is totally up to you to decide. But you can be sure that doing your own thing is a very sure route to being different from the crowd and in so many ways multiplying and improving your chances of success! So remember to always keep an open mind if you really want your baits to get around the natural cautionary behaviours of angling-conditioned fish.

Often it is baits that get the attention of fish in multiple or even just single ways that get under their instinctive defensive radar of automatic danger reference points and associations with previously experienced baits of whatever forms.

A further investigation into carp senses and what triggers feeding or even aggressive or competitive responses is extremely rewarding and worthwhile and this is something I can help you with. You can re-invent baits that were very successful 20, 30 or 40 years ago, or you can literally discover or dream up something completely new and innovative that may always keep you ahead of the crowd and be kept personal to only you (so it never hits the fishing shop shelves and be a great edge ruined by the herd all jumping on it!)

I hope this helps you think a bit more open-mindedly to consider more innovative options instead of following well-trodden paths all the time. If all you do is regularly read the glossy magazines in the hope of keeping up with the edges and success of other anglers perhaps it is time you starting thinking about the fish first instead and get thinking for yourself more and more as a unique individual with all the great personal satisfaction and extra success will bring you; champions are made not born! 

By Tim Richardson.

Why not seize this moment to improve your catches for life with this unique E-books series:

Together, the Ebooks below will maximise your catches and bait feed-triggering potential in real fishing situations, by leveraging details of unique bioactively potent substances - keeping you ahead of constantly adapting fish instincts and behaviours, and beating competing anglers' baits to land the warier fish. Your improved deeper practical understanding of bait and its application secrets will seriously speed up and enhance your success and give you the biggest picture as quickly as possible to keep ahead of the crowd big-time!

*SEE THE SPECIAL 2 AND 3 EBOOK SERIES DEALS ON A LIMITED TIME OFFER: 

“BIG CARP FLAVOURS FEEDING TRIGGERS AND CARP SENSES EXPLOITATION SECRETS!”

“BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!”

And “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” - the world-wide proven homemade bait making and readymade bait success secrets bibles!

Get all 3 Ebooks on a great deal - see the bottom of the Baitbigfish order page  Click Here Now!