Fishing Baits Secrets To Treble Your Carp And Catfish Catches!

It might sound strange to imagine a fish as a tongue, but that is what they are in effect in water; and exploiting this fact is well proven to catch you a shocking amount of fish! Too many anglers think like anglers instead of seeing and sensing things from a fish perspective and this often is the difference between an average angler and a big-name one! It's the substances leaching and dissolving into water from your baits that seriously impact on specialised taste and smell cells, (plus other senses) all over the external and internal surfaces of fish and realising that this is similar to taste buds on your tongue is something you can hugely exploit with bait to totally transform your catches...

Carp and catfish often live in the same waters and are targeted by anglers fishing in similar ways for each so I'll place these together. A good reason to use catfish and carp together as examples of tongues that swim is the sheer number of physical similarities in substance detection and also their shared quite similar essential nutritional needs that often means the same bait design can catch both; and very big ones too! Many anglers know little about the specifically adapted cells in and outside of fish that enable them to detect substances in water on a chemical level even down to a few parts in a million or even billion, and this is one of the most powerful aspects of fish we can exploit with our baits to make them far easier to catch!

Humans tasting a bait substance is rather an exercise in personal taste and opinion as opposed to a scientific method of selection, as our senses have been severely dulled over the course of evolution and recent cultural revolutions such as that of farming; but some indigenous hunter tribes eyesight is perfect at 20 / 25! Another point is that specially evolved cells called receptor cells are found in various concentrations on the external and interior of fish. These have many various special adaptations.

Carp find many potential food substances including your baits by using cells adapted for the purpose which are extremely sensitive to essential substances especially, like various combinations of amino acids. The cells that detect very many substances are located externally in the facial skin, areas of the head and flanks, the lips, fins, in the nose, the barbels, in the mouth, throat and other lesser known significant areas too! The so-called receptor cells are very sensitive and so can detect oils in water not supposedly water soluble, however, even these are to a small degree and using lecithins with oils obviously improves their detectability and attraction!

The smelling and tasting of chemical substances (and their changes) in water are well known in the various internal and external detection systems known as olfaction and chemoreception, and these are very complex, extremely highly evolved and sensitive to the presence of many natural substances and their copies etc and involves the utilisation and input of the lateral line too. This line extends from the tail to the mouth and composes of special pits and cells gathering vital information from the aquatic environment. The lateral line is very significant in bait detection (and it can be specially exploited,) and its nerves and structure have been essential for carp and other species survival for millions of years!

The potential food, opportunities and predator detection systems in carp and other fish represent a multipurpose aquatic scanner which we would be very short-sighted not to exploit using our baits for maximum effect! Knowing more about the sensitive systems of fish such as carp, can help us locate them in the water, and concentrations of carbonic acid or ammonia for example can lead to fish being located and feeding in one swim more than in others through different temperatures and seasons for example. The highly adapted cells in carp and other fish will often detect things humans cannot detect and often carp will appear to behave appropriately in advance of certain changing weather patterns, changing air pressures and temperature changes etc, and water density and pressure changes may be involved more than we might think.

The worm-like projections around the mouth of a carp help in the vital decisions and behaviours made in testing or eating an item, or rejecting it, and these are packed with high concentrations of specialised receptor cells; so getting your bait right is essential! You baits can absorb water so releasing substances, or even simply dissolve into the water in the case of highly soluble or hygroscopic additives, ingredients and flavour components like glycerol for instance. Now the chemical substances from your bait are most concentrated near your bait and this message in solution gets weaker travelling further away and this is obviously very significant in drawing fish to your bait!

Fish will track-down your bait by following the concentration gradients of substances leaching outwards from your baits. Making the most of bait produced concentration gradients in many ways really gives you the edge, and making your own baits and ground baits, and being able to adapt ready made ones for this purpose especially is such a massive edge! A bait packed with many of the essential dietary requirements of carp will give carp far more reason to pick-up your bait and actually consume it compared to many baits with much less vital reasons on offer, and you can boost this effect in many extremely potent ways in your homemade baits and ground baits or in any ready made boilies, pellets, particle baits etc...

Your bait exploitation of substances that intensely excite your big carp and catfish is simply one of the most potent edges you can give yourself; and this is why knowing more about bait is such a valuable, powerful advantage over competing anglers and their baits! Discovering more potent information about bait manipulation costs peanuts when compared to remaining perhaps relatively ignorant; and maybe blanking more, or not catching those dream fish you could potentially catch so much faster!

By Tim Richardson.