Soaking your carp or catfish baits in special liquids to improve your catches can cost quite a bit when you are buying small pots. Another thing is that you can actually make your own bait soaks with equal if not even more effectiveness than readymade ones! So have your eyes opened; save money and catch loads more fish – read on now!

In more recent years, pellets have taken the carp and catfish and barbel fishing worlds by storm. Boilies are still of course the number one choice for big fish around the world however. There are endless creative ways to boost your readymade baits and homemade baits effectiveness. One very simple way is to crush up some of your choice (or mixed choices) of boilies, and soak the boilie crumb in hot water. This particular method ensures the bait recipe you are using equally matches the bait profile you are soaking, although this is not an essential ingredient for success and in fact your dip can be as different as you like from your bait itself.

Simply leave for a day or maybe more and stir the runny mixture so you have in effect boilies in solution. Your then simply soak your baits in this solution to boost their impacts. Its very easy and obvious! This is great for baits straight from the bag or baits that have been dehydrated.

You can use the same method or similar methods for boosting all kinds of pellets, and meat and fish baits and even fake baits for example. You have no need to even think about being afraid of over-loading with any solvent based flavours and anyway using this method is very likely to reap bigger more wary fish.

Of course you can boost your special baits dips and soaks in endless ways so that they are more bioactive, or even so they preserve your baits. There are ways to drop or raise the pH of the solutions, make them very much more palatable in terms of vitamin and mineral and amino acid contents etc; its all up to you. In the height of the warmer temperatures when carp and catfish metabolism is peaking you can obviously go for a higher oil approach; this supplying the higher energy requirements fish have at this time in particular among others.

I'd always add a very high-grade high PC liquid lecithin anyway to improve bait digestion and general bait performance in regards to oils in baits, whether bulk oils or essential oils. (Visit Carpfishingpellets for liquid lecithin plus added extras like high-grade pure liquid salmon protein, and triple-filtered Scottish salmon oil for instance, and pure betaine HCL; such things really are very effective individually or used together!)

Making homemade liquids to boost baits is a massive subject and I could write a book about it. You can use the same liquids to boost your ground baits, particles, slop mixes, pop-ups, boilies, stick mixes and almost anything. You can very seriously boost your baits with substances that trigger feeding or with substances that attract fish into your swim very highly effectively. You can use naturally-derived extracts extremely rich in natural feeding triggers to turn fish onto feeding, or even use very easily dispersed flavours to boost very open texture un-boiled baits, to seed you swims and spots, that wash out fast but leave a sediment of paste on the bottom for warier fish to home in on.

If you want an idea for just one unusual bait soak you might try an idea just off the top of my head – maybe combine CC Moore Kelp Complex with their awesome Liquid Salmon and Krill extract and perhaps tailor this and customise this in any additional way you wish – maybe boost it using Belachan, or Cyprivit and Feedstim XP powder, or hydrolysed poultry protein etc.

Liquid recipes can be as unusual and alternative as you like – as potent and as concentrated as you like; I aim to keep an open mind when experimenting and I always seem to be finding new substances not in popular use at all in carp or catfish fishing to use in my bait soaks. As a quick tip try some of the more esoterically orientated health food and alternative herbal type websites for instance. (See below for more on this stuff!)

The range of additives, ingredients, extracts and pure substances, both natural and artificially created can all have their place in your bait dips and soaks for very powerful reasons and your fish will certainly thank you by getting hooked more often! Revealed in my unique readymade bait and homemade bait carp and catfish bait secrets ebooks is far more powerful information – look up my unique website (Baitbigfish) and see my biography below for details of my ebooks deals right now!

By Tim Richardson.
 

Quite a few of folks assume that all these are only vital part of a fishing procedure and a great wholesale fishing rod doesn't exist on the planet and keep angling without removing these obstacles.Nevertheless, below are great tips so that you can pick the great wholesale fishing rod and reel which will boost your carp and also lessen your fishing each and every time.

Carbon fishing rod and reel is definitely the most perfect. It gives simply the proper fabrication for fishing rods and reels and won't compromise the support for span and length of the rod owing to its lower ratio of mass. A perfect fishing rod is usually a nicely balanced combination of Kevlar (some sort of sturdy carbon dioxide) and vinyl, rather than being fully carbon dioxide.Without the attribute of decreased scrubbing, a fishing rod and reel can not be measured as perfect. For that reason, many rod and reel manufacturers take it to be unique selling point for their own goods.

Frictions are always reduced over the material utilized in rings of it. The minimal amount of rings a best fishing rod and reel should have is 13. The line will secure itself on the fishing rod if one ring is lacking. They are usually extremely concentrated towards the tip of the rod. You can find three variants of rings: ceramic, chrome, and silicon, among them silicon rings are the most solid, the least heavy and thus the most high-priced of all. For amateur effort, a lot of people favor cost-effective ceramic rings. Although the power of chrome rings is far better, replacement are necessary  every time for fishing.

To maximize the carp, a superb fishing rod and reel also needs to help the right length. If you aren't sure, a thirteen feet fishing rod is definitely the very best. It's much better to buy a prolonged rod for extended out fishing which usually calls for far better maneuver and a not as long rod and reel for enclosures, which can cost you a great deal of fish should you overlook this simple truth when hunting for a fishing rod and reel.

Fishing Rod HandleWhen it comes to the wholesale fishing rod handle, you are able to make your decision based on your personal preference. You can try the foam and cork version of handle.

Tip of the rod and reel.You can find yet another 2 options as to wholesale fishing rod, which can be hollow-tip rods and spliced-tip rods and reels. It could be chosen according to your aimed catch. The perfect fishing rod and reel for chub, carp and tench which will  develop their fight resistant to the rod and reel steadily might be hollow tip rods and reels, even though spliced tip rods and reels are great for catch which will struggle violently.
 

Terry Hearn is quite possibly the most famous carp angler in the UK. Fishing the estate lake at Eynsham Hall in Oxford he shows just why he appears to catch more carp than anyone else….providing he can get past the tench. After a couple of tinca's took his bait, right at the death a lovely 20lb+ mirror carp came along to appear in front of the cameras.

Making your own secret catfish or carp baits is exciting and fun! It can result in catches you only ever dream of! But many fishermen resist making their own baits. Unfortunately, they give up before they have even started. This is due to having been given the false impression that it’s to complicated, and that it’s only for expert fishermen, when the reverse is true! In fact, when you make good homemade baits, you can catch loads more fish than other anglers of your experience level.

Now you can learn so much more, faster, because of your improved catch rate that you soon become ‘an expert’ yourself! The discouraged anglers are often doomed to a lifetime of missing out on many extraordinary catches and peak fishing experiences, because they rigidly stick to shop baits that are already known to catch fish. They do not fully appreciate that bait’s main advantage is that it has not been used yet, and has not hooked all the big fish in advance of the majority using it.

Using a particular shop bought baits is like entering a race, where you generally only get the best from them, when they are used for the first time on a water and where the fish do not associate them with danger yet. After they have been used for a while successfully, results become standard for everyone using them again, and only the very most talented anglers will still achieve outstanding catches on them, as they will again have lost that competitive edge of being new and different.

There is also that unique sense of joy and satisfaction at catching a personal best fish or perhaps lake record fish, on a bait you personally have designed and made yourself. This is something that makes for some very special moments in your personal archive of special fishing memories!

Making and mixing dry dough baits and boilies: (There’s more great information for more experienced anglers later in this article, so please bear this in mind!) To make things much easier for everyone, let’s start by using a ‘standardized starting measure’. Often it’s easiest to bring a combination of dry flours, meals and ground materials together, to form one dry powder mixture. You can then add this to eggs or water, to make dough bait, paste bait, or so-called ‘boilie’ baits.

Boiled baits are most often small round dough bait balls, with eggs included. When these dough baits are dropped into boiling water for a minute or two, then a tough resistant skin is created around each bait, and this helps them last much longer on the hook, or on the specialist carp ‘hair rig’. This is a short line loop (attached to your hook) of perhaps half an inch in length. A boilie bait is slid onto this loop, using a special baiting needle. The bait is held in place using a small piece of grooved plastic or rubber to hold it in place. Such baits can effectively last on this rig for over 24 hours in the water, if necessary.

A typical homemade ‘dry ingredients base mixture’, is usually divided into 1 pound weights or 16 ounces. (Approximately 500 grammes.) By doing this you can design your bait by listing it’s ingredients in individual ounces. You can use your fishing scales and a plastic bag to help you do this! You may prefer to use kilograms, as your ‘reference weight’ if you are making very large amounts of bait. Either way, this makes everything else easy, because you always know how much water, or eggs, or actual ingredients of which type you have put into your mix. It is very important to make notes of each ingredient and the amounts used in your bait base mixes. Also any liquid attractors like flavours, amounts of eggs used too, as this will save you much head scratching, and unnecessary mistakes later. Making detailed records is the key to successful bait making and makes everything easy!

A simple but effective beginner’s dry ‘base mix’ for example, is the following:

* 6 ounces of ground-up trout or salmon pellets or fish meal powder.

* 5 ounces of Semolina or ground rice flour.

* 5 ounces of ground-up soya beans (or flour.)

Start by placing your dry ingredients into a big strong polythene bag; it may be quicker and easier to mix up perhaps 6 to 10 pounds of powders at a time. (3 to 5 kilograms). Blow some air into the bag and tie up the top securely. Shake the contents very well until the powders flow and have mixed thoroughly and the mixture is an even color.

You can weigh out 1 pound or 1 kilogram batches of powders, and put these into sealed labelled individual bags for storage, for later use. It’s a good idea to weigh out a 1 pound of powders and put this into a container that holds approximately this amount. This means that from now on every time you make bait you can quickly just fill that can with any new base mix powder and you know you will have about a 1 pound dry mix to start with; to add to your liquid ingredients and eggs, etc.

Mixing your bait: Put some powders into a large bowl or pan, e.g. one pound of dry mix, crack 4 to 6 hen eggs into another large bowl and add your other liquid ingredients to them. (Some may require accurate measuring using a needle-less syringe.) Examples of additives to put in at this stage might include sweeteners, liquid molasses, squid extract, sweet garlic oil, liquid amino acid compound, liquid betaine, flavor components, honey, yeast extract, anise extract etc. Beat these very well until the consistency and color are even. I tend to over flavour with an alcohol based flavour if I’m making baits to be fished as purely lone ‘attractor baits’ with no free offerings being used.

Add the dry powders, small amounts at a time, until the mixture forms a moldable dough. (It’s sometimes good to leave the mix in a sealed bag somewhere cool for 2 to 3 hours, and even leave the ‘soaking’ paste dough in the fridge overnight. This allows the liquids to penetrate into even the least soluble ingredients and really helps bait performance by maximizing its water soluble liquid attraction!) By weighing any dry mix in a bowl, you can find the weight of dry mix required for each further 4 to 6 egg mix.

Please note that every base mix you design is different and needs refining for the best mixing, rolling, digestibility, attraction, and water solubility ratios and properties you require for your particular fishing circumstances! Roll the dough (like in bread making) to release air. You have many choices at this stage, like perhaps use a rolling pin to flatten the dough on a bread board, and then cut your dough into many odd shaped pieces. (A very quick bait making method, and a proven one for excellent catches!) Or perhaps squeeze small pieces into dense blobs, or roll dough into sausages and create cylinder shaped pellets or flat cylinder shapes, or flat discs. (Ideal for weed and silt etc). Or chop dough into pieces and hand roll them into balls of varied sizes. (And even chop these pieces in half for another alternative shape!)

A little vegetable oil on your palms will help if your baits are sticky. I aim to create baits that will really look, act and feel different to the regimented commercial baits that the majority of anglers slavishly use predominantly these days; doing this is well worthwhile; how many carp don’t see perfectly round shaped boilies these days and don’t know how to avoid the hook where these are used most frequently? Never forget that we anglers are training the carp to danger when we really need to keep re-educating them into thinking what we are offering them is safe! Well at least until they’ve been hooked!)

Prepared paste will ideally feel like a moldable bread dough without being sticky, this is very quick and easy to make boilies with minimum trouble, mess and time! Try placing sausages into an empty, very clean mastic gun with the end nozzle cut to a diameter of e.g. 15 millimeters, and extrude smaller sausages to put onto a bait rolling table (a dual half round grooved device that chops and rolls simultaneously producing many round baits very fast! I like to roll out sausages of various diameter and boil these, chopping them up when dry. I also make molded hook baits between thumb and forefinger, some with specially added cork granules to make them buoyant.

Put on a large pan of boiling water (when boiling I add sweeteners like molasses, honey, brown sugar, black treacle, and liquorice extract and sea salt. This really gives your boiled baits ‘different’ extra attraction despite having the usual firm skin). I will often spike my hook baits or cut pieces off them to ensure their surface releases attractors much faster and can also absorb bait soaks more efficient. This really produces noticeably faster too at times. I’ve even caught fish to mid twenty pounds ‘on the drop’ straight after casting the bait in the water. Put some bait into a sieve or chip fryer, and boil the baits for up to an average time of 90 seconds. (The less the better to retain the nutritional qualities of your bait.) Don’t forget that with using alcohol based flavors, these are boiling away into the air as vapors with every second! Milk proteins should have the minimum boiling, or you’ll reduce their nutritional attraction and benefits, by damaging various amino acids in the proteins, (some much more than others!) Smaller baits can take less time than e.g. 18 millimeter ones.

Whatever you do, remove them from the boiling water the moment they start floating. Lay the skinned baits to dry on cloths on wooden fruit boxes or cardboard boxes or bread trays and keep turning them over to dry and cool evenly. Leave them to dry, usually from a few hours in warm room temperatures to 3 days or more depending how hard or dry you want them! As they dry, your finished boiles will shrink and harden and absorb any strong smells or odors nearby, so ensure you dry them in a clean environment away from chemicals, paint, cleaning products etc that may be left around inadvertently and may taint your baits with fish repellent fumes! To preserve your baits there are many preservatives to mix with your dry bait mix before mixing, many are great for winter baits as they replace eggs which could affect results in colder water temperatures.

Put, for example, a pound of finished boilies into individually marked freezer bags, with the date and mix and attractors or flavors clearly written. Or carry on drying them until they’re 95 % plus dry, and store them in air-drying net bags, paper potato bags or similar, somewhere dry, away from rodents! I like to put about 30 to 60 milliliters of natural attractors additives and amino acid compound with boilies into freezer bags before freezing and shake the baits to distribute them. This can more than double your catch rate!

For winter, try adding a favorite ‘raw’ undiluted flavour, like “Tutti Fruitti,” “Scopex,” and “Megaspice” etc. For waters with excessive bait robbing fish or crayfish for example, use higher levels of casein in your dedicated hook bait mix, and after boiling and drying, leave your baits in a sealed container full of sugar. This is a very effective way to harden your baits and make them effectively last much longer!

To calculate the finished weight of prepared boilies from eggs and dry mix in advance of production, the eggs, (usually large hen’s eggs) are 30 to 40 % (average) the weight of the finished bait per pound. To make my baits different from many shop – bought, uniform shaped, machine rolled boiled baits, I boil my baits over a various range of times, e.g. short 10 to 90 seconds (with nutritional baits) up to 5 minutes with carbohydrate baits with overloaded attractors.

For a useful quick bait tip for short range hand thrown or catapulted baits for example, or in a bait delivery ‘spod’ cast out at range, use dough rolled flat and chopped finely into bait pieces. I even leave portions of this procedure un-boiled as paste pieces, to be used as free baits, and in water soluble polyvinyl alcohol (‘P.V.A.’) bags, and dry these separately. This gives baits of varied size, shape, consistency, texture and density, allowing for much greater attraction to carp, making it very much more difficult to detect the hook bait. This is very worthwhile and many of my biggest fish have come through using these types of techniques!

Floating or ‘pop-up’ boilies: As you are rolling all your paste into balls before boiling, put aside, e.g. 50, for buoyant hook baits. They can be great fished on their own over weed or silt, or as a ‘snowman’ when used on the hair or hook with a normal sinking boilie. You can incorporate cork or small balls of polystyrene into these or even use a high amount of cork granules in a dedicated base mix, to adjust the amount of buoyancy you want. These are available from the commercial companies. The advantage with these is that your hook baits are identical in nutritional make-up and signal leak – off to your ‘free’ or ground baits.

Another method is to put a small number of smaller, normal baits on a plate, and microwave them in time increments of, e.g. 20 seconds, removing them before they begin to burn. These are soaked in attractors before use, to maximize attraction.

Another method is to adjust the level of ingredients until you arrive at a floating test bait. I’ve also had this happen by accident, and not design while experimenting with more buoyant ingredients like sodium caseinate, shrimp and krill meals, even some egg biscuit based bird foods, for example. I use casein as the base with sodium caseinate and then other ingredients, as this offers great nutritional signals, while being a harder more resilient bait.

You can buy ‘pop-up’ base mixes from many commercial suppliers. These baits are best left to soak in a mixture of natural attractive extracts and flavours, with an added amino acid compound for example, to harden and preserve the baits and maximize their carp attraction qualities. Such baits fished just on their own on hard fished waters can be very productive, especially casting immediately to carp seen bubbling or ‘rolling, and ‘head and shouldering’!

So, why not give bait making a go; you really can have your ‘cake’ and eat it this is the tip of the ice-berg! The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches… By Tim Richardson.
 

Fishing in the UK is a sport that's both relaxing and exciting. The relaxing part is casting a baited hook into the water and waiting for an unsuspecting fish to happen by. The exciting part is when the fish takes the bait. Here's some information about two types of Fishing Equipment required for this enjoyable sport.

When you are starting out as a fisherman in the UK, it is best to start with the most simplistic form of Fishing Equipment. It really doesn’t require a lot of fishing gear to go fishing. However, a rod or pole is indeed a necessary piece of equipment. The fishing pole is used to suspend the line from which hangs the bait for the fish. Bamboo, fiberglass and carbon fiber are all basic materials used to make the poles. The fishing rod is used for the same purpose but is somewhat more sophisticated. They have various lengths and also vary in action. The sizes are available from a 24-inch rod to 20 foot one. The casting is better with the longer rod.

There are many different types of fishing rods. A carbon fiber pole is a more technologically advanced pole, which is usually used for coarse fishing in Europe. Fly fishing rods are made to cast artificial flies. They are part of the Fishing Equipment used to catch salmon in the UK. Many fishermen in the UK use this salmon fishing equipment each year for a successful catch. Normally salmon is fished from the rivers in England, although it can be done well in the sea also. In addition to the right rod, you will need waders for the majority of UK Rivers in order to get to the best fishing places.

When you are searching for sea fishing equipment in the UK, try to find sea rods made to be used on the open sea. These rods will be built stronger and longer than the other kinds. For sharks and other huge game, specialty rods are designed. Be sure that the deep-sea fishing rod that you have selected can hold up to the pressure of the resistant larger fish when they are hooked. Also be certain that it is constructed from material such as fiberglass or graphite, which will resist corrosion from the salt air.

Every other part of your tackle has to be able to fit with your rod. This includes the lines, lures, reels and hooks. If you aren’t sure about your choices, get advice from a more experienced fisherman. You need to bear in mind that no matter what kind of fish you are trying to catch in the UK, you have to have the right fishing equipment to be successful.
 

Has fishing been tough and you needed to use a hair rig but the fish just weren't eating corn or boilies, Well learn how to use bread and personal preparation baits on the hair rig.

Carp are sometimes hard to catch as they are very smart, easily spooked, and hard to trick.  If you plan on fly fishing for carp, there are a few things you should know to increase your success.  This article will give you a few tips.

Flies

It's best to use flies that imitate food that carp are used to eating.  You can use a fly that poses as a small aquatic organism such as a worm, small crayfish, or leech.  Flies that imitate mulberries and seeds from a cottonwood tree also have a higher success rate. 

Carp also feed on the dragonfly, damselfly, and mayfly larvae, so flies that look like that are also useful.SensesWhen fly fishing for carp, you should know that they are extremely sensitive to smell and taste.  Therefore, you should use a commercial product to add scent to the fly. 

Alternatively, you can take some mud from the river bank or bottom and rub it all over the fly.  It will do enough to help mask your scent although it'll come off after your initial cast.

Casting

Speaking of casting, you should always cast your fly as close to the carp's nose as possible.  They have tunnel vision when feeding.  This means that they won't go off course to eat your fly if you don't place it close enough.  You will have much more success only going after fish you have spotted as opposed to hoping one happens across your bait.

Spooking

As mentioned earlier, these fish are easily spooked.  Once you spook one of them, it will emit a pheromone to warn others of potential danger.  This means you usually only have one shot when fly fishing for carp.

Wind

Carp are usually found going into the direction of the wind.  However, this doesn't mean that you should try to cast downwind to catch them.  If you try to fish going downwind, they will detect your scent quicker.  As you already know, they have a great sense of smell.  So, make sure you cast from behind them or from one of their sides.
 

Part 4 of Bait and Particles Made Easy features Carp Angler Bryan Jarrett talking about the best way to use your particle baits for carp and specimen fishing. A step by step guide shows how to use these great fishing baits

Fly fishing for carp is a popular variation on fly fishing and many anglers enjoy this sport. However, most anglers think fly fishing is associated with trout and salmon,  but it is also associated with carp and even deep-sea fish. Carp are a real fighter and there is nothing about angling for this fish which is ordinary or average, hence the popularity of carp fly fishing today.

The secret to catching carp is simple, speed and accuracy. You need to spot him and have your line in the water before he spots you. The below items are a must as there is a fine line between being fast and accurate and having heavy enough gear to be able to land the beastie. The carp fly fisherman or woman needs to be able to spot the fish and cast accordingly, so the most important item is the rod. You and your rod have to be able to make a fast and accurate case over 3 to 15 m of water and whatever else is in your way so a 6 ' 8 graphite rod of between 8'6' and 9' in length is a good choice according to experts of this sport.

Because the carp put up something of a fight the butt of the rod needs a solid back-bone while the tip should be medium. If the carp are larger where you intend fishing then the 9 foot rod is also highly recommended, big is anything from 16 to 25 lbs! To be accurate and fast, means that a hard rod won't be accurate and if the rod is too soft, it won't be able to take the weight of these dirty fighters. Carp are energetic to say the least when they have been hooked and this is what makes them such an attractive prize for fishermen. The prize certainly isn't in the delicate flavor or great good looks.

A large reel with an expose rim is required and your hooked carp will give the reel a run for its money. It is a large an tricky fish so you need Micron or Dacron with at least a 20 pound weight. If the water is snaggy ' make this 30lbs, and have at least 150 m of backing line, carp will take out the maximum of line on many occasions. Use a tapered leader of 10lbs and additional tippet, carp will happily take many different flies, with woolly buggers being a favourite. Keep a good stock of all the woolly bugger colors and varieties, and try Daves hoppers, muddler minnows and others.

Carp eat insects as a big part of their diet, so getting them to take flies is not a problem. The problem lies in accurate, fast casting Because your cast has to be fast and accurate, a pair of polarized sunglasses is the next important item on your shopping list. Choose the amber or brown variety as these, cut glare to a minimum and create great contrast.
 

Going fishing is a trip that many look forward to. There are a lot of kinds of fishing that you can do, but whichever you choose to do is going to require a trip to fishing bait shops. You should make a trip to a bait shop and take your time in choosing all you are going to need in the way of tackle.

Every town has a bait shop it seems. You won't have any trouble finding one, especially near fishing lakes and rivers. If you are looking to go shopping for fishing tackle, you aren't going to have worry about finding just the right place to go. Some bait stores are very large like department stores just for fishing. You may also look online for bait shops. These kinds of shops are a fisherman's paradise.

The kind of water that you are going to be fishing doesn't matter when it comes to needing bait. However, the kind of fish you will be fishing for in that water does. Make sure to take the right bait for the kind of fish you want to try and catch. You aren't going to be able to use some freshwater bait for the big fish you can fish for in the ocean.

Many fishing bait shops offer a lot more than just bait. You can find everything you need to round off your tackle in the way of line, hooks, weights, poles, and nets. These are just a few of things you need on a fishing trip. You can even shop at online fishing bait shops.

Many bait stores offer tips for the best kind of fishing. You can find books about how to make your own lures to making your own stink bait. Fishing well comes with having a bit of experience out on the lake bank or in the john boat. You would do well to take the advice of the fisherman who has been fishing for a lot of years.

You may like to fly fish or maybe you would rather spend a lazy and laid back day kicked back as the lake. Either way, you will need the right bait. You should take with you a multiple selection of bait, from spinners to plastic worms to live bait like night crawlers and crickets. In this way, you at least have a selection if the fish aren't biting one kind of bait. It is always best to have another kind of bait to try.

If you are a fisherman, then you know the enjoyments you have when are at the lake or river, soaking up nature and fishing. When you make sure that you have all the right tackle with you, then your trip will be much more enjoyable.