Free Bass and Trout Fishing Information
BIG FISH BAITS - Not a Question of Luck
Author: Tim Richardson
Article:
Some days when you're fishing for bigger fish of the carp or
catfish kind, it seems like everything you try just won't
produce a 'bite.' But then something happens that changes
everything. What is that special something? Let's see...
You know those days when those fish are seen cruising and
sunning themselves and look easy enough to catch in a big net if
you got close enough! But to get them to eat a bait seems
utterly futile? Generally these hard times can be attributed to
the prevailing temperatures and air pressures, or angling
pressure, or fish may pre-occupied with spawning rituals and
preparation etc.
These times can seem pointless when all your tried and trusted
rigs and bait changes don't produce anything near a positive
feeding response. But the secret may well be that it's just your
timing is out by a few hours or even a few days. A few hours or
days later and you could be having the catch of a lifetime.
Fish feeding and the secrets of their natural rhythms which are
intricately linked to prevailing conditions affecting the
aquatic environment are key to successful fishing trips. When
you have the long experience of 'reading' the water and have an
inner mental picture of where the fish are and what they are
possibly doing in present weather conditions you are normally a
few steps ahead of the beginner already.
Take into recent weather patterns, current angling activity, the
affects of anglers' free baiting on possible predictable fish
movements and get armed with details of recent captures. Now you
can really predict at least where feeding fish might be if not
today, then perhaps tonight, or in the morning or in a few days
time.
Fishing can sometimes be like a game of chess. Success can often
be about taking actions to affect fish movements instead of
relying on their complicity by handily eating your bait
immediately you begin fishing. This is often not necessarily the
case.
Therefore you might want to put the odds a bit more in your
favour. Many anglers think that all bait is equal. But in the
case of big carp and catfish fishing, this is not so. I once
fished virtually full-time on a quite hard water for carp and
catfish. This was over a summer period of about 3 months.
The purpose was to build up a 'bigger picture' of what happens
when anglers arrive at a fishery, start fishing in a predictable
way, bait up in a standard predictable way and then leave. I did
this over a winter a different year for the same reasons which
also gave a fantastic insight into fish behaviour in response to
anglers' activities and baiting up among many other factors.
The biggest surprise of the summer fishing was the affect fresh
baiting up had on fishing results. This fishery was a very
hard-fished and heavily free-baited commercial fishery with some
very large catfish and a few big carp too. This fishery was
netted and had at least two thirds of its stock removed.
As a result, daily catches for an experienced angler fell from
possibly 6 carp of upper double size to over 35 pounds, to a
usual result of a single fish or a blank day. Over the summer
the visiting anglers unfortunately 'blanked' over 75 percent of
their trips.
The fish in this water became extremely sensitive to angling
activity and would very obviously stop feeding if an angler did
not approach the water with stealth and fish sensibly and
quietly. For instance, anglers with lines running high through
the water from their rods tips would 'spook' the fish out of
their swims or would simply not get a bite, or only small fish.
The same would happen to anglers who cast their heavy leads and
rigs out much more than perhaps 3 times in a day.
However, the effects of fishing 4 or 5 days out of 7 for me
meant I could effect the fish movements to a great degree. Most
importantly I could 'educate' the fish to eat my own homemade
bait. The bait use was key but only in line with the natural
fish feeding rhythms. Once this bait was established it became
very difficult for the visiting angers to achieve bites on their
competing baits despite them being popular commercial proven
baits elsewhere. These baits had previously been successful at
this water too.
It seemed that provided sufficient bait of the one type was free
baited, it could actually affect not only where and when the
majority of the biggest fish would move to in order to feed, buy
very definitely exactly which baits they would eat and would not
eat.
The overall effect of this long-term baiting for me as a single
angler, was that it took about 12 weeks for the negative effects
of hooking so many big fish, to really register with the fish
before they became wary of the bait and fed in different ways on
the bait instead of just eating it with great confidence in the
outset.
The natural feeding rhythms of the fish seemed to change from a
previous and very obvious twice daily, morning and evening
feeding spell when multiple fish would be caught by multiple
anglers. The new obvious feeding pattern and opportunistic
confident feeding behaviour became an infrequent 15 minute
'binge' at those times when the majority of anglers had left the
water, or a good feeding spell every 3 or 4 days.
This impacted on my results too. Even by baiting up and fishing
very carefully and quietly, the carp would only get caught one
at a time, perhaps one each day but the multiple catches of
previous times were generally absent. Obviously, being a small
water, the disturbance caused by the generally big 25 to 35
pound fish, would 'turn off' the feeding of other fish and send
them up the other end of the lake.
The catfish were equally elusive, mainly because there were so
few in the lake and the natural prey small fish population
really benefited from the removal from the lake of so many
bigger fish.
This period was very hard on the anglers who spent their money
to catch fish but could not because they simply did not realise
the effects that the current fish sensitivity to angling
pressure had and the effect of a regular baiting programme had
on fish bait preferences. I fact with any more than 3 anglers
spread around this small lake, it would simply 'go off the feed'
for everyone!
However, it was extremely obvious the fish knew angers were not
there. This is because after a period of totally fishless days
with many anglers on the lake, within a half hour to half a day
of them leaving, the fish would feed and would get caught -
often when I was the last angler on the lake. At such times,
multiple catches of the biggest fish in the lake often occurred.
The effect of knowing how to fish that particular lake very
sensitively and constant baiting up with well designed quality
homemade protein based free baits produced un-equalled big fish
results at the time. You may think that you simply have to fish
on a water for days on end to get the results you want. Well
this too was not true.
Other anglers arrived with the same plan to bait up and effect
the fish movements, but for some reason their boilies and
pellets did not produce the regular big fish they were after.
This really points to the dominant effect that one very well
established particular bait can have for some time on a water,
even when only introduced by one angler but in sufficient
quantity.
In fact the fishing only changed when the bait stopped being
introduced and this is something very interesting to think
about. Sometimes you will need to find ways to break the
successful 'monopoly' that one bait might be having on your
fishery. But of course, it does help if you know what that bait
is. In my case no-one ever knew what that bait was. It is a good
long-term advantage to keep your bait secret.
Once the successful bait is known then there are various ways to
change it to prolong its success, often by adjusting a flavour
or attractor in it and even by soaking these into the bait is
enough to do the trick with popular successful commercial
boilies and well known ingredients, flavours, additives, oils
etc.
Simply adding rock or sea salts, extra betaine hydrochloride,
liquid amino acids or vitamin and mineral supplements to the
'going' commercial baits can be amazing. Repeatedly freezing and
defrosting these examples and or many others into your baits can
produce many more bites when a dominant bait has been discovered
which a fortunate few had been 'emptying' the water by using and
which is beginning to slow down.
But the best position to be in is where it is your bait that the
fish turn to when they first start feeding. By using forms of
pre - baiting to help position those fish in advance of their
natural feeding rhythms, you will benefit greatly and still not
have to fish for hours or days or weeks to achieve results.
Baiting can be done while actually fishing but you fish a
different are to the bait being fed in.
Luckily, no bait dominates a fishery exclusively as fish have
essential dietary needs and preferences which no one bait can
ever completely satisfy for every individual fish. It is
noticeable that some big fish get caught more often on one
particular flavour and simultaneously a different big fish will
appear to 'prefer' a completely different flavour or flavour
combination and be captured repeatedly on this instead. When
times are hard or when certain big fish have not been captured
for a very long time, perhaps a completely new 'angle' on a
flavour or attractor combination with a different focus on
particular nutritional aspects of your bait like minerals and
trace elements or vitamins, could be the answer you need. Even
supplementing with more of a particular amino acid like lysine
perhaps.
Not following the herd is always the first and easiest edge to
put into practice, followed by sustained creative thinking.
The author has many more fishing and bait 'edges' up his sleeve.
Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning:
This article is protected by copyright.)
By Tim Richardson. 'The thinking angler's fishing author and
expert bait making guru.'
For 'cutting-edge' bait techniques see the expert acclaimed
new ebooks / books:
"BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!"
http://www.baitbigfish.com
About the author:
Tim Richardson is an internationally acclaimed carp and catfish
bait-making expert, and a highly successful big fish angler. See
his world acclaimed bait making and bait enhancing books /
ebooks:
"BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!"
http://www.baitbigfish.com * His books are even used by members
of the 'world elite' "British Carp Study Group" for expert
reference. * (A dedicated fishing bait making website.)
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