Most anglers who buy baits use them with blind faith because they really do not appreciate what actually happens in the fish that induces them to take a bait into their mouths and in doing so get themselves hooked! Imagine the power of being able to harness this knowledge wherever applicable in your fishing practices, methods and tactics. How much do think this advantage over the fish and over other anglers will multiply your catches?

Bait always involves confidence and indeed many anglers constantly doubt their bait because they do not understand how they truly work, except having very limited and even incorrect ideas or impressions about proteins or flavours; as a result, many anglers are negative about certain baits, without even ever having used them personally!

Confidence catches fish for many reasons because it makes you fish better and be sharper and more tuned-in and expectant of success, so you tend to do more things right at the right time, more often, but you can all the confidence in the world and still blank because of a lack of knowledge and understanding! Confidence is the thing that sells commercial readymade baits and anglers take second-hand opinions from so-called big-name anglers thinking they will emulate their success using the same bait, forgetting that many (not all) big-name anglers are the most skilled and talented anglers of their generation.

For instance, many anglers just think flavours are solvent based or natural, or nature-identical and pretty much all the same, but the actual definition of flavours in fishing are extremely diverse. What we think of as flavours might be simple alcohol based flavour, or a sugar sweetener. But the definition of flavours applies to any substance the creatures detect even in parts as low as a few parts per billion in water. Many substances in fishing can be termed as being far more potently bioactive within the fish and at the point of interaction with fish senses, than others. The bioactive terpene vanillin in vanilla is one of the most used natural and synthetically produced compounds in the food industry – with obviously good reason, and it is found in far more fishing flavours than you might ever imagine!

Some popular flavours are designed by nature as animal repellents, yet are highly stimulatory because of this very effect. Many curry components and hot pepper compounds are bioactive irritants which are attractive to both humans and fish. The terpenes and attached capsaicinoids in capsicum chilli pepper compounds even stimulate carp senses more powerfully than usual pulling fish to your swim from ranges many other flavours fail to.

Science is tricky and seemingly irrelevant for many anglers until they realise the enormous significance that chemicals change in solution with water and many substances are simply not the same in water as air, and fish are experiencing different chemicals all over their bodies and not just on the tongue like humans.

Imagine garlic on the tongue; it is mixed with air and saliva, but in mixed just water, garlic produces different compounds and the tastes and smells we experience as humans will be different ones that carp experience. This means that the flavours or pungent smells we might imagine impact on the fish may well not be present in the same form at all, and this might mean that something else is triggering a response from carp, even an internal one where something in garlic is acting to produce thermogenic (metabolism and digestion speeding-up effects for example,) and even have very potent antioxidant and antimicrobial impacts etc.

Carp may be influenced far more profoundly by internal impacts on their bodies than a simple flavour or taste substance on receptor cells on the fins, body, or in the nose or inside the mouth or throat. Many flavours substances act as energisers, metabolites, enzymes and even amino acids are bioactive in the body. Many protein foods and fishing ingredients are thermogenic; involving that necessary extra releasing of energy to digest them, and salmon is a very successful example of this.

Poultry too are another example now popular in catfish and carp fishing for instance. Many proven bait ingredients and substances impact on the brain directly and by biofeedback, some far more powerfully than others! I tried an experiment today by eating wheat-free biscuits and an wheat-free doughnut too! However, after even the first bite, even though ingredients were virtually the same as the wheat-containing biscuits and doughnuts (but for only one key aspect,) taking another bite was more of a pain than a pleasure. All those good sweeteners, taste-enhancers, fruit flavours etc should have made me want to eat more right, but they did not, because I had got used

Carp are turned-on by far more than a simple solvent-based vanilla, pineapple, cranberry or strawberry flavour combination, and in fact often these will provide no response at all as they are not true feeding triggers as such, but some bait substances compensate for this by affecting carp in far more profound ways internally! Sometimes there are substances used commercially in foods and baits which are naturally there or added deliberately which induce you brain create the sensation of pleasure so you enjoy them more...

What a disappointment it was to eat the wheat-free foods and not want more! Although they still have all the same ingredients as wheat-containing foods; like the flavours, sweeteners and enhancers etc, something vital was missing that usually makes me want to keep on eating (and this is why I only had one doughnut.) Homer Simpson would have been shocked to say the least! There was no key vital substance in the food to make my brain release a rush of feel-good hormones that occurs naturally in the wheat-based foods...

If you ate food frequently that tasted and smelled good but had no further incentive to keep you eating more of it, you will more than likely eat something else in preference if that food does has an extra feel-good brain chemical releasing impact. The bait or food which creates more pleasure is preferential in humans and it is the same in fish!

Your brain chemicals are directing your actions on a basic level and when it comes to the impact of a key part of wheat, your actions as a result of eating it can very easily be to eat more; more cake, toast, biscuits, doughnuts etc, this is one vital reason people so easily over-eat these foods and create behavioural cyclic eating problems!

In fact many of the same ingredients are in so many foods that eaten regularly in bulk these are definitely harmful to the body, but do induce people to buy them! Any carp angler knows that tiger nuts and peanuts for instance also have substances that also lead to this type of behaviour (even though such substances are extremely beneficial in moderation!) Whether you term this induced habit-forming or addictive behaviour, it is just as profoundly significant, applicable and powerful when it comes to getting a bait edge over your carp and over other competing baits...

Many foods are made with substances that further impact on the brain to eat you to eat it more because it means the producers make more money and you actually get into a habit of eating it, and finding foods without such habit-inducing chemicals can be quite a hard thing to do if you try to rid your diet, body and brain to become free from their influence!

Think tiger nuts or peanuts, now these are not exactly the most packed nutritional foods on the planet, but even though hemp is a super food in its own right, it too has substances with brain influencing impacts and practical consideration these aspects of bait ingredients, flavours etc can really get you the edge over fish, and other competing baits. You can term it using habit-forming or addictive substances to manipulate fish behaviours or just call it good use of what a bait should really be – i.e. addictive! This is an effect that all the baitbigfish ebooks covers as a whole and in very great detail too, because it is so vitally important to be able to appreciate and put into your personal fishing practice, readymade bait bait-boosting and homemade bait making activities. 

You will find by reading my ebooks (in the following order,) you will truly be able to turn the power of fishing baits substances over fish senses and instincts into outstanding big fish catches - for life!

By Tim Richardson. 

1. "Big carp and catfish flavours secrets."

2. "Big carp bait secrets."

3. "Big catfish and carp bait secrets."