Everyone has their favourite fishing baits and this is especially so when it comes to carp baits and flavours. But in the far more competitive carp fishing scenarios, the big question is, “Are your ‘favourite baits and flavors’ actually costing you more or bigger fish?!”

This may seem a very odd question, but when applied to waters where only a handful of commercial bait types are applied - but you will see the logic (As a WARNING: I've seen this in practice many times!).... 

It costs most carp fishermen quite a sacrifice in time and money to go carp fishing these days. You really want to put the odds as high in your favour as possible. Unfortunately this does not always mean simply buying the successful anglers bait from the last session on a water. But why is this? Surely commercial carp baits are the best option for your success and confidence, having been rigorously tested and proven and almost inevitably having already caught the big fish from your water.

Did it ever occur to anglers that one guy’s favourite bait may indeed be exactly the same bait as another guy prefers to use also? But perhaps he’s not alone and there are very many other anglers all fishing the same water with the same ‘favourite bait.’ Now are all anglers equal? No. Therefore somewhere along the line one or a handful of more talented, experienced, driven and motivated or time rich anglers will be befitting the most from the use of all the other anglers using and baiting up with the same bait.

Feeding a swim with ground bait or ‘chum’ (where allowable,) at the start of a fishing session, is the universally used ‘method’ for the majority of carp anglers these days. However, much of this bait does not necessarily actually contribute to the capture of fish by any particular angler who has baited up at that time. In fact, this baiting-up will almost certainly benefit the angler who follows him into that swim if he does not catch and has fished sensibly. Timing and conditions play such a large part in fishing too. Carp cannot always be caught ‘to order’ as it were!

Some anglers catches will certainly suffer as a result of fish getting caught by other anglers and this is very obvious where a commercially made ‘going bait’ like those from bigger bait companies like "Richworth" “Nash,” “Mainline” "Dynamite," or “Nutrabaits” are used.

On most well stocked carp waters, almost any bait that has effective feeding triggers, appetite stimulators or other means of exciting carp into feeding, will work. Not only this, but it has been shown that even on many waters where the latest high protein or modern ‘nutritionally balanced’ boilie baits have been used for years, low quality carbohydrate baits can still dominate catches, if enough quantities are applied.

This may seem like a strange occurrence given the theoretical ‘superiority’ of balanced nutritional baits. However, there are variables of many kinds in actual carp fishing reality, aquatic situations and nutritional dynamics which most average anglers are not aware of. For example, how much of a carp diet actually benefits from the energy provided by cheap carbohydrate baits used in quantity, when compared to lesser amounts of nutritionally superior baits.

How much does carp stock density and availability and benefits of natural food affect fishing results. How much does anglers daily baiting-up with high carbohydrate baits and protein or other balanced nutritional baits affect the feeding behaviour of carp in pressured watered where angling activity seriously impacts upon ‘natural’ carp behaviour?

Baits of even low quality can dominate a water for periods of time for particular reasons. Think of the success of particle baits composed mainly of starch or low protein nutritional value for proof of this phenomenon, even against the use of modern popular ‘commercial quality food baits.’

Whatever you do, it is best to keep the odds of success in your favour. You may even be one of the first anglers on your water on a new bait. But this does not insure you against failure if your target fish gets caught first by another angler on the same bait!

For example, I can think of one prime example where famous big fish angler, Dave Lane baited up for months in an area of a large lake that was easily accessible to all anglers fishing the lake. He was in pursuit of another fifty pound carp at the time.

He did the work, did the watercraft, and prepared the swim, feeding in a commercially made “Mainline” boilie bait, regularly, to get the big fish feeding confidently in the swim. Then just when conditions were ideal to catch the fish in the swim, another angler caught that fish on the same bait Dave had been worked so hard to establish.

That devastated Dave’s hopes of catching that fish that season. But carp fishing is like that when you are dead set on using a bait which anyone has access to and in a swim anyone has access to. The next season, Dave resorted to fishing in a very carefully prepared swim, carefully cut out of the bushes so forming a ‘hidden’ swim. Again he baited up for months as before and did succeed in catching that fifty pound carp.

But in your fishing, why should you bait up for others to catch fish on the bait you are using? Surely this is going to affect your results. Catching fish on a bait that anyone can use is like a lottery because you could do all the work putting in loads of bait and time to catch the biggest fish. Then anyone else who happens along using your commercially available bait can exploit the situation perhaps inadvertently and totally ignorant of your efforts and catch the biggest fish.

As you can see, this can happen all the time in carp fishing. You do not always know if you are fishing over other anglers’ boilies, pellets, particles or other baits and how that may have affected your catches, or fish activity and behaviour, or even presence in your chosen swim. But if your aim is to catch the biggest fish in a water, it can really make sense to absolutely ensure that your bait is totally unique. Even to the extent of using ingredients that the average fellow angler fishing your water would never think of using.

If you simply make homemade pastes or dough baits and your normal fishing session results in even just one fish rather than a ‘blank’ session, surely the attention to detail with bait is worth it.

The greatest ‘edge’ of an angler’s bait is the fact that ideally, it has not already caught or hooked the fish you are aiming to catch. Sure big fish get hooked on the same bait on repeated occasions, but this is not putting odds in your favour and you do want the odds in your favour right?!

By Tim Richardson.

REALLY PUT THE ODDS IN YOUR FAVOUR:

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