Most fishermen use a wide range of baits straight from the tub or bag and often miss out on improved results by not enhancing these baits in unusual ways before use!

For example, the humble worm or maggot can be dipped in a variety of flavours. Many anglers might think of those based on solvents for example, but I’m talking more about using real worm juice to boost attraction. But commercially available bait sprays are excellent for boosting attraction of natural baits. Scopex or Tutti Fruitti flavour sprayed onto boilies can really boost results making them stand out. Hemp seed cooked with the addition of anything from aniseed oil, chilli powder, liquid yeast or corn steep liquor will enhance it and make it different from the usual hemp introduced. Using a dip composed of different manufacturers dips mixed together can be devastating as can mixing different based flavours or essential oils together in a standard dip.

Colouring baits can make a big difference and some days fish might take bait of one colour and not another. Edible dyes come in an amazing variety these days. Again maggots are a good example here where bronze coloured ones and reds even pink ones can out-fish the usual natural white. Maggots are becoming more popular for carp fishing and on that subject; boilies are certainly made more effective by using certain colours. Black bird food free baits with a white fish meal hook bait over the top works very well...

Many boilies are in the red and brown range and a yellow or pink hook bait can really stand out from a bed of dull coloured baits. But why not try it the other way round, or at least do things the opposite to most anglers? Think of the impact on the fish of using the same basic carp base mix to make boilies and paste baits for free baiting, but which are all different in some way. You could make them different colours, different shapes, buoyancies, densities, hardness, and textures, with different flavours and so on. With this attack, Mr Carp has a very tougher job sorting which bait is your hook bait! I often wonder why most anglers fish with round baits of only 1 type when this approach works so extremely well. Perhaps it does not fit in with bait adverts in the carp magazines or something?

Sweetcorn can be much more effective in a Day-Glo pink or dull brown than the obvious natural yellow. Flavoured sweetcorn is very good as free bait or as hook baits. Maize is a mainstay of many carp anglers and making some stand out by adding something buoyant to you hook or bait hair can really help. Bait form, bits of cork and even rubber or plastic baits some of which come flavoured these days all help boost catch results. In fact the practice of using rubber or soft plastic foam on the hook is a

well-known one among anglers fishing on the surface or when fishing using a ‘zig-rig’ at various depths.

I discovered that using flavoured pre-soaked foam on the hook to be a massive edge on one carp water in particular in the late eighties. The fish had become very wise to dog and cat biscuits and even used to eye-up surface fished boilies inspecting them very closely, even popping them out of the side of their mouths to test how naturally they moved!

I noticed as with many pressured waters that surface feeders will often attack a large bait attempting to break it into smaller pieces which would be much safer to eat with far less chance of a hook inside. Therefore the method I came up with was to make 2 baits out of foam one about 3 inches across by about 2 inches deep. At the opposite end of this bait to where it was threaded onto the line there was about a centimetre of line coming out. This end held a size ten hook with a wide gap and very sharp point with a very dull surface. Upon this hook and carefully shaved to maximise hooking efficiency combined with an odd shaped bait was another piece of foam which had also been pre-soaked in attractor. All it took was a fish to close its lips around this small bait and the vast majority of times the fish was hooked.

The principle was that fish would play with the big bait drawn by its big sized silhouette on the surface and the attractors leaching from it. They’d attempt to break it up and end up taking the smaller bait hanging from underneath it thinking this was safe. I found Rod Hutchinson’s ‘Seafood Sense Appeal’ extremely effective with this method. (It works on the bottom and other levels and in conjunction with other baits too...)

You can do this with pellets strung together to form ‘the big bait and use a small pellet hook bait just off it or use meat and other simple baits. I have done very well for much bigger fish using this method. In this case the big bait is made from an apple sized ball of boilies with a bait hanging off the side. No lead is necessary with this rig. I really like these types of ‘captive method’ rigs. You can even really get the bigger fish confused by putting about 5 or 7 small baits in a ball on your hair and fished with a PVA bag of big boilies.

This can really turn up trumps but there are many more edges available here. You can fish a variety of baits in a ball on the hair including maggots, worms, pellets, different ‘going’ boilies, particles, shellfish etc. The fish are going to want something in there and how many times do they ever encounter such a bait all bound tightly together? You can even pop this type of bait up and fish it mid-water or just under the surface and it is excellent for catfish! There’s lots more edges than this one...

As a quick finishing note, if you are stuck for an additive to boost your carp or catfish baits try soaking them in a mixture of prepared gravy with added yeast extract. If you add some liquidized liver or liver pate too then all the better! Adding honey or brown sugar, garlic granules or even that alcohol based menthol cough syrup can help greatly differentiate your bait from normal shop-bought baits and produce big surprises. The ribonucleotides, salts, amino acids and other factors in such a mixture have similarity to the contents of some popular proprietary fishing bait attractor and enhancer mixtures.

Experimenting with soaking baits with these simple ideas instead of just using the most popular bait dip or soak or your water can really pay-off and fast! Now where did I put that crab pate, salmon paste and fish source dip?

By Tim Richardson.

* For a really massively comprehensive look at vital fish feeding triggers, incitants, flavours, bioactive components, making homemade flavours, effective bait formulation, palatability, hormones, chemical, electrical and pH effects, fish senses including: olfaction and chemoreception exploitation; and reasons fish pick-up your baits - (including fake baits!) get this secrets volume:

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