Ray Roberts
Well-known member
Well coffee should wake them up Mark.
Your weirdest bait additive?
- Thread starter Aknib
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seth49
Well-known member
The HP sauce and geranium oil does work, I started using it after Ian mentioned it on the HDYGO thread and I had some good catches on it, I got a small bottle of the oil from Holland and Barrett, not cheap but you only use a bit.
Ray Roberts
Well-known member
I didn’t due to poor health get a chance to try the aniseed powder properly before the end of the season. I didn’t catch much with aniseed and Lo-salt punch on the river but did catch a fair few on a lake the same day, so at least it doesn’t turn them off. I bought some desiccated coconut, as mark recommended, to mix in with the licky bread and will see if the Tackle Box has some Ground hemp. They should make it a bit more active in the feeder. The lake I fished is fairly easy fishing but the next lake will be a bit harder, with a larger variety of species.
Keith M
Well-known member
Not really weird but when a mate and I used to travel all the way down to the river Kennet from Northwood (near Watford); during the colder months after Chub; it was my job to knead our bread/cheese paste around a large scored onion while my mate was doing the driving. The more raw onion juice I could get into the paste then the more chub we caught using it.
Any leftover paste was put into the freezer for the next time; and added to any new paste that we made.
After being in and out of the freezer several times it would start to feel extra cold to the touch even on a warm day and we surmised that it was the amino acids in it starting to break down; and when it was like that it was especially deadly for the Chub and the Roach.
Keith
Any leftover paste was put into the freezer for the next time; and added to any new paste that we made.
After being in and out of the freezer several times it would start to feel extra cold to the touch even on a warm day and we surmised that it was the amino acids in it starting to break down; and when it was like that it was especially deadly for the Chub and the Roach.
Keith
@Clive
Well-known member
I think that a lot of bait additives will work simply because the bait that they are adhered to would work anyway. There was an experiment conducted on pollack whereby they established that their food of choice was clams. A secondary experiment was conducted whereby the clams were coated with all sorts of additives including diesel oil and the pollack still chose clams over anything else.
The use of aniseed was as far as I know first carried out by 19th century gamekeepers. Pheasants will wander in search of food and the gamekeepers were losing a number of the birds that they bred and released to neighbouring shoots. Aniseed was introduced as an additive to the wheat grains on the basis that the pheasants would associate the smell of aniseed with feed and eventually would only eat if the scent on the grains was there. This was adapted by pigeon racing people who were often frustrated when their pigeons arrived back at the loft, but dawdled outside where the owner couldn't get at them to take their racing ring off and clock it. They added aniseed into the pigeon's feed hoping that the smell would lure them inside more quickly.
Anglers fall into the same trap as the old gamekeepers did in that initially their scent trail proved useful, but when everybody else used the same it lost its advantage.
I've been down the paprika, cumin, aniseed, vanilla route and cannot claim that anything is the magic ingredient. My own additives now are mainly based on what fish need in their diet. Predominantly from the Vitamin B complex or fermented grains. But we all have our own ideas and the secret magic bait subject is and always has been a big part of angling. Right back in the 15th century there are bait recipes, some totally disgusting, that the authors claimed to be essential. Human fat and milk anyone?
The use of aniseed was as far as I know first carried out by 19th century gamekeepers. Pheasants will wander in search of food and the gamekeepers were losing a number of the birds that they bred and released to neighbouring shoots. Aniseed was introduced as an additive to the wheat grains on the basis that the pheasants would associate the smell of aniseed with feed and eventually would only eat if the scent on the grains was there. This was adapted by pigeon racing people who were often frustrated when their pigeons arrived back at the loft, but dawdled outside where the owner couldn't get at them to take their racing ring off and clock it. They added aniseed into the pigeon's feed hoping that the smell would lure them inside more quickly.
Anglers fall into the same trap as the old gamekeepers did in that initially their scent trail proved useful, but when everybody else used the same it lost its advantage.
I've been down the paprika, cumin, aniseed, vanilla route and cannot claim that anything is the magic ingredient. My own additives now are mainly based on what fish need in their diet. Predominantly from the Vitamin B complex or fermented grains. But we all have our own ideas and the secret magic bait subject is and always has been a big part of angling. Right back in the 15th century there are bait recipes, some totally disgusting, that the authors claimed to be essential. Human fat and milk anyone?
It's all interesting stuff and I don't knock it. But it is hard to isolate the effect of flavours from everything else, and practically impossible to test in ways that prove success was down to the additive. I used breadflake flavoured with vintage Archie Braddock's Chub Magic last couple of times out. It added to my confidence, but what it did for the chub I couldn't be sure. Even if you alternate plain with flavoured flake on the day, each swim may or may not hold chub, so success is not down to the bait, and if you do it in the same swim, on a little river, chub number one might be easy to catch but chub two non-existent or affected by you catching chub one. Reading "science" about bait is interesting, but real situations are not a laboratory. The fact that flavours etc are a market that wants your money should be a caveat. (So here's to kitchen ingredient recipes)
Some things make intuitive sense, like smellier baits in more coloured water, or flavours when the standard pellet, corn etc has been used ad nauseam. If you rely on the attraction of hookbaits to interest fish on a one-at-a-time basis, a bait giving off strong food signals makes sense. But in a lot of my fishing - which isn't everyone's cup of tea - I rely on feeding small particle type baits to try and get fish interested and even competing for them. So while the flavouring is interesting, I'm usually happy with a couple of pints or casters, maggots, hemp, tares, corn etc or, more rarely, pellets out of the bag as they come. You can often catch the same carp some are after with the latest boilies with any old bait on a bed of hemp and groats. |And the same barbel some go for with an enriched seafood delight dumbbell by getting them worked up with a bucket of hemp and casters. All part of life's rich pageant.
Some things make intuitive sense, like smellier baits in more coloured water, or flavours when the standard pellet, corn etc has been used ad nauseam. If you rely on the attraction of hookbaits to interest fish on a one-at-a-time basis, a bait giving off strong food signals makes sense. But in a lot of my fishing - which isn't everyone's cup of tea - I rely on feeding small particle type baits to try and get fish interested and even competing for them. So while the flavouring is interesting, I'm usually happy with a couple of pints or casters, maggots, hemp, tares, corn etc or, more rarely, pellets out of the bag as they come. You can often catch the same carp some are after with the latest boilies with any old bait on a bed of hemp and groats. |And the same barbel some go for with an enriched seafood delight dumbbell by getting them worked up with a bucket of hemp and casters. All part of life's rich pageant.
So many creatures use smells in so many ways: birds and animals and even insects use it to attract, to repel, to trap and for courtship. It's inconceivable that fish don't use smells in similar ways. One of the major problems with fishing bait smells is to get the smell amount right, too much will repel. In the '80s when carp fishing I used garlic flavouring at 20ml to a 20oz mix and totally failed to catch. I kept lowering the amount of garlic and eventually found that a boilie mix with just 2ml to a 20oz mix worked extremely well and continued to do so. Incidentally sesame seed oil works well with garlic flavouring. The problem being it's so time consuming especially on low stocked waters. I think it was Archie Braddock who originally thought sweet in summer and spicy in winter, I think that he was definitely right.
markcw
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I read something a fair few years ago about anglers using small blobs of putty on the Welsh rivers . Trout were attracted to the linseed oil/flavour with it. There was a clampdown on this activity .
A Welsh angler I was friends with gave me ss film cannister full of salmon eggs and said try those on the hook . They may work on Welsh rivers but not so much on the canals, rivers and pool in the northwest .
They say a grain of sweetcorn represents a bunch of salmon eggs . I've had plenty of trout trotting a piece of sweetcorn on a couple of Scottish rivers .
A Welsh angler I was friends with gave me ss film cannister full of salmon eggs and said try those on the hook . They may work on Welsh rivers but not so much on the canals, rivers and pool in the northwest .
They say a grain of sweetcorn represents a bunch of salmon eggs . I've had plenty of trout trotting a piece of sweetcorn on a couple of Scottish rivers .
Alan Whitty
Well-known member
Bread is one of the best baits, yet in reality it doesn't smell that much, it is however very visual and fish know exactly what it is, putting flavours on it confuses the issue imo, as fish know what bread is meant to smell of, unless you have some jam or marmite on it 
, if you throw liquidised/mashed bread in and trot numerous flavoured bits of flake that would be no test at all, as you can have 50 trots and not get a bite with unflavoured bread, maggot/caster the same, just like pellets, only the poor ones don't attract fish, trout pellet is supremely attractive to fish...why put a lovely sweet one in, because YOU the angler like the smell...
, if you throw liquidised/mashed bread in and trot numerous flavoured bits of flake that would be no test at all, as you can have 50 trots and not get a bite with unflavoured bread, maggot/caster the same, just like pellets, only the poor ones don't attract fish, trout pellet is supremely attractive to fish...why put a lovely sweet one in, because YOU the angler like the smell...I see a couple of mentions of Geranium oil. I'd never have thought of using that. There are usually geraniums among the flowers I strew in pots around the house and garden every year, and dead-heading them leaves a sticky, stinky residue on your hands. Although these garden centre plants might be some hybrid different from the source of oil. I looked it up and they contain Geraniol, which is described as a perfume chemical, a natural insecticide and, in the world of touchy feely remedies, a cure for all sorts of ills, anti-oxidant, anti-bacterial, antimicrobial .......
@Clive
Well-known member
Bread is one of the best baits, yet in reality it doesn't smell that much, it is however very visual and fish know exactly what it is, putting flavours on it confuses the issue imo, as fish know what bread is meant to smell of, unless you have some jam or marmite on it
Bread has a lot of B Vitamins from wheat and yeast. These are not easily found in the aquatic diet of fish, but are necessary for their good health. Cheap modern bread however uses chemical raising agents and imo is not as good as that made using yeast. Twice I have failed to get chub to take free offerings from a baguette and both times they readily took blue cheese that had been rolled into small balls. Another instance I watched a carp totally ignoring my bread flake bait and instead grubbed about on the bottom for other food. I caught it on worm.
Keith M
Well-known member
I have a small tub of Archie Braddocks ‘Sweet and Spicy’ bait flavouring that I’ve never ever used; it smells very spicy but tastes very sweet which I didn’t think was a logical combination, but I might be trying it out this year.
I used to use Rod Hutchinsons ‘Brandy Boilee flavouring’ which I used to use mix with a tiny drop of Hutchinson Bun Spice flavouring and it caught me loads of Carp back in the 80s/90s. I read in some article at the time; that Water Lillies emit a similar aroma during the flowering season and I assumed that the reason that Brandy flavouring was working so well was related somehow to this and it wasn’t so strange a flavour to them as we thought.
Whether a flavouring works or not; as long as it doesn’t put the fish off; and it gives the angler a bit of confidence; then that can only be a good thing; can’t it?
Keith
I used to use Rod Hutchinsons ‘Brandy Boilee flavouring’ which I used to use mix with a tiny drop of Hutchinson Bun Spice flavouring and it caught me loads of Carp back in the 80s/90s. I read in some article at the time; that Water Lillies emit a similar aroma during the flowering season and I assumed that the reason that Brandy flavouring was working so well was related somehow to this and it wasn’t so strange a flavour to them as we thought.
Whether a flavouring works or not; as long as it doesn’t put the fish off; and it gives the angler a bit of confidence; then that can only be a good thing; can’t it?
Keith
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Ray Roberts
Well-known member
I’ve tried a variety of different bait additives over the years and you can never know for sure what works and what doesn’t. It’s very much a confidence thing. I can say that I’ve the greatest confidence in Lo-salt as an additive, it doesn’t mask the natural scent of the bait, except for making it taste saltier to us, how fish perceive it I don’t know. The only testing I’ve done is to compare what I catch, particularly on a day when it’s hard, to what others are catching around me. The problem with that is that you may end up fishing next door to Clive’s old mate who sat by the waterside without a hook for fear of snagging up, and If you couldn’t catch more than him, then you would be in trouble, lol.
Fish do seek out certain minerals to supplement their diet. Carp anglers sometimes put rock-salt in their bait or in the area they want to put their bait in and the carp are attracted to this salt and actively root about searching for it. Ages ago on here, I think it was Laguna who mentioned that potassium salts were a good attractant and they were part of the recipe in some of the additives that he sold. Lo-salt contains potassium chloride, so I thought I would give Lo-salt a go. It’s cheap easily obtainable and with the exception of living baits can be added to almost anything. I’ve tried various other additives over the years. Garum masala powder, garlic, hemp oil, and loads of other things. Sometimes they seem to make a difference and sometimes not. The only one that I found that actively put fish off was some sweetcorn that had betaine in it. I had bought three tins from a tackle shop and when I had run out of the normal JGG I opened a tin of that. Twice the fish were really having it and as soon as I chucked some of the betaine laced corn in it killed the swim stone dead. Tin three went binways.
Matchmen are a good barometer in deciding if additives work I would have thought. All sorts of liquids and powders are sold to enhance baits and specialist ground baits contain all sorts of additives, from pigeon sh1t, to molasses, fish meal, ground hemp, breadcrumb and god only knows what else are added. If plain crumb worked as well why would they bother with the far more expensive alternatives.
A club I joined years ago go acquired a small estate lake that hadn’t been fished for a decade at least and most probably even longer. The club sent a memo out to people interested in fishing it, they said that the lake was an unknown quantity and all they really knew was that it was badly silted, had a small head of wild carp and some decent tench. Also, for the first few weeks fishing would have to be booked to limit numbers but the first day would be committee members only. Interestingly there was a note saying natural baits were expected to fish best, as these fish had never seen a boilie or a pellet in their lives. I booked for the second day, found a nice swim and chucked out a handful of sweetcorn while I set up. First cast I was in to a decent tench and I had a field day. In the first newsletter the secretary said that on the inaugural day it fished poorly. Now the point I’m making is that sweetcorn isn’t really a natural bait, Sure it’s grown naturally but a fish is unlikely to ever come across this as part of their normal diet and they switched onto it almost immediately. Interestingly tinned sweetcorn has sugar and salt in it. It makes you think about what a natural bait is. Discounting anglers baits, a fish may see the odd worm if it’s washed in to the water after heavy rain but they would never make up a major part of their diet. Same for maggots or pellets. They may see the odd piece of bread if people feed ducks and swans but otherwise not. Yet some of these baits are almost an instant success. it’s also hard to tell when the fish are feeding avidly if any additives are working, as when they are feeding strongly and competing amongst each other they will take anything. When it’s harder maybe a stronger smell, aniseed or geranium oil will give the edge. Maybe a yeast solution sprayed on the bait could enhance it. It wouldn’t have to be bread as bait. Some carpers ferment; nuts and particles to enhance their attractiveness.
Fish do seek out certain minerals to supplement their diet. Carp anglers sometimes put rock-salt in their bait or in the area they want to put their bait in and the carp are attracted to this salt and actively root about searching for it. Ages ago on here, I think it was Laguna who mentioned that potassium salts were a good attractant and they were part of the recipe in some of the additives that he sold. Lo-salt contains potassium chloride, so I thought I would give Lo-salt a go. It’s cheap easily obtainable and with the exception of living baits can be added to almost anything. I’ve tried various other additives over the years. Garum masala powder, garlic, hemp oil, and loads of other things. Sometimes they seem to make a difference and sometimes not. The only one that I found that actively put fish off was some sweetcorn that had betaine in it. I had bought three tins from a tackle shop and when I had run out of the normal JGG I opened a tin of that. Twice the fish were really having it and as soon as I chucked some of the betaine laced corn in it killed the swim stone dead. Tin three went binways.
Matchmen are a good barometer in deciding if additives work I would have thought. All sorts of liquids and powders are sold to enhance baits and specialist ground baits contain all sorts of additives, from pigeon sh1t, to molasses, fish meal, ground hemp, breadcrumb and god only knows what else are added. If plain crumb worked as well why would they bother with the far more expensive alternatives.
A club I joined years ago go acquired a small estate lake that hadn’t been fished for a decade at least and most probably even longer. The club sent a memo out to people interested in fishing it, they said that the lake was an unknown quantity and all they really knew was that it was badly silted, had a small head of wild carp and some decent tench. Also, for the first few weeks fishing would have to be booked to limit numbers but the first day would be committee members only. Interestingly there was a note saying natural baits were expected to fish best, as these fish had never seen a boilie or a pellet in their lives. I booked for the second day, found a nice swim and chucked out a handful of sweetcorn while I set up. First cast I was in to a decent tench and I had a field day. In the first newsletter the secretary said that on the inaugural day it fished poorly. Now the point I’m making is that sweetcorn isn’t really a natural bait, Sure it’s grown naturally but a fish is unlikely to ever come across this as part of their normal diet and they switched onto it almost immediately. Interestingly tinned sweetcorn has sugar and salt in it. It makes you think about what a natural bait is. Discounting anglers baits, a fish may see the odd worm if it’s washed in to the water after heavy rain but they would never make up a major part of their diet. Same for maggots or pellets. They may see the odd piece of bread if people feed ducks and swans but otherwise not. Yet some of these baits are almost an instant success. it’s also hard to tell when the fish are feeding avidly if any additives are working, as when they are feeding strongly and competing amongst each other they will take anything. When it’s harder maybe a stronger smell, aniseed or geranium oil will give the edge. Maybe a yeast solution sprayed on the bait could enhance it. It wouldn’t have to be bread as bait. Some carpers ferment; nuts and particles to enhance their attractiveness.
Alan Whitty
Well-known member
We know fish like bread, I have said this before, but I believe they eat it because they like it it, or its become part of their natural diet through quantities seen.
@Clive
Well-known member
It is an interesting subject Ray. I have fished many waters where there has been little or no previous bait fishing. The fish readily take sweetcorn, cereals such as wheat, cooked maize and chick peas, luncheon meat and pellets / boilies right from the off. The biggest problem is that they don't respond as quickly to groundbait and free offerings. They are not conditioned to react to the sound of bait being thrown in.
Salts are used as taste enhancers in cooking and in animal foods. Someone, it might have been Colin Gordon, said that in spring they will actively seek out salt.
I'm sure fish can get conditioned to baits by being fed them by anglers. But I also find it easy to believe fish "know" what's good for them or what they need in a diet. They might not "know" it in the sense we know cognitively that x or y is good for us, but in the way these goats climb sheer faces to lick the salt that's lacking in their diet. There's more than one way to know something.
@Clive
Well-known member
Yes, I totally agree. I have read many scientific studies that conclude that fish and other animals will actively seek out nutrients required at certain times of year or to supplement their diets. We also have to consider the 'easy meal' aspect where fish will feed on baits simply because they are there and don't have to be hunted or searched for.
Ray Roberts
Well-known member
I wonder if anyone has tried MSG which is a taste enhancer. Again, it could maintain the taste of the bait but enhance it. I may get some from the local Chinese supermarket to try.