Big Carp and Catfish Bait Flavours And Feeding Triggers!
As a plea to the average carp and catfish angler; it is possible to double and treble your catches (and more but you probably would not believe me,) by treating fish as swimming tongues! It seems to go right over most anglers heads that fish can be manipulated (big-time) by what is dissolved into the water that surrounds them from specifically adapted baits… So why not let this be the start of something big for you too!
To begin with, I will group carp and catfish together, because many anglers catch both or target both and seek the biggest ones possible. These fish share so many dietary essential requirements that baits meant for big carp or catfish will often catch specimens from each group. Carp and catfish are like swimming tongues because they are covered in receptors cells inside and out that maximise the ability to detect potential many food substances in concentrations as low as 1 part in a million or even 3 parts in a billion!
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!
Apart from cells involved in chemical detection in the water better known in olfaction and chemoreception, there are many others, such as the specialised lateral line pit cells. These continue from the tale, along the flanks and down around the eye and along the bottom of the jaw ending very near the mouth. These are so vital to Cyprindae fish for example, that the jaw of these fish is shaped to allow this distribution of nerves and sensory pit arrangements from millions of years ago in their evolution.
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 are able to detect these solutions and home in and follow the concentrations back to where they are highest and so find your free baits and hook baits for example. This is where balanced nutritional baits and nutritionally boosted readymade baits can really do manipulate fish feeding behaviours and dominate fisheries and catches! This is especially in the case where as many essential needs are covered as possible in a bait; so giving your fish multiple essential reasons to eat your bait and all the so-called bio-active substances used in baits all add to this impact!
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.