| KEVIN PERKINS | |
Never mind smelling the flowers, don’t forget to take time out to see the satirical side of fishing life and grab a laugh along the way as well. So here’s a regular column from Kevin Perkins to remind us that life is for laughing at, or taking the p*** out of, whenever we can. But he does have a serious side occasionally……. |
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BOILIE-ING POINT
Please accept from the outset that this is intended as a genuine discussion point. It is not one of my more usual (feeble!) attempts at humour, but something that has puzzled me for some time..
A recent forum posting intrigued me. It asked what other anglers would do in the event of the discovery of a ‘Superbait’ which was irresistible to fish. Hmm…. Correct me if I am wrong, but from an outsider looking into the wonderful world of carp fishing, isn’t that exactly what those anglers are trying to achieve with all these different flavours and colourings?
It sometimes appears to be a headlong, frantic search for the ‘Alchemist’s Stone’ of baits, (and indeed, rigs) that will bring forth guaranteed success to its creator, or at the very least, a significant advantage over fellow anglers.
Just how much does a carp eat?
Can I begin this with a simple question: How much does a carp eat? In some of the less densely populated waters that contain perhaps twenty to thirty ‘known’ fish, are they being overfed, or indeed underfed with free offerings? And how would we know? Like a lot of things in fishing, let’s start with a supposition, in that we will assume that this is a water where the fish have not been introduced to angler’s baits. If you start with Bait A, how much will you have to introduce to encourage the fish to feed? You have some success after pre-baiting, and return the following week, go through the exact same procedures, and get not a sniff.
Do you continue with Bait A, or switch to Bait B? It may be that another angler has been feeding different bait in your absence (Bait Z), and because you hadn’t fed enough to keep them interested, their tastes had gone over to his bait. You pile in Bait B, which appears is not to their liking at all, and blank. Now the fish have seen three different baits in the space of one week. You, on the other hand, are faced with the dilemma of reverting to Bait A, (which was successful), giving Bait B a second chance, (not very likely) or switching to all singing, all dancing Bait C. I suspect that most would plump for ‘C’. What you don’t know is that ‘B’ was wolfed down by the fish, but this was because they didn’t find it until the day after you had gone!
The fish are now frantically looking round for baits ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘Z’ so the very next week, you come along and fill the lake in with bait ‘D’…….
Perhaps the above seems a little far-fetched, but who knows, it may not be too distant from the reality of what is happening on some carp waters. Let me say that within walking distance of my home there is a 50 acre lake that contains carp to 25lb+. During the summer it is fished by around thirty anglers at a time. If they only change baits three times in a season that is close to one hundred different flavours they have been subjected to. Will that make those carp more likely to go for a ‘new’ flavour/colour combination, or will they not care as long as they are boilies of some kind, or will it just confuse them completely?
Do we make too many assumptions when it comes to the dietary choices made by fish. Boilies would be an unnatural food to a carp, but they are now conditioned by the amount they are exposed to. But then the same can be said for lobworms; would enough of them really find their way into a lake naturally, to be considered a staple food source?
Can individual carp develop individual tastes?
And on top of all this, can individual carp develop individual tastes? In which case, are you wasting your time trying to concoct a universal attractor, and should you be targeting single fish, and if so, how the hell are you supposed to know what it prefers? (This is like spooning trout to find out what they are taking, first of all, you need to catch a trout…..)
I am not asking for a lesson on amino acids, nutritional values etc, etc…. I am just bemused by the amount of science/chemistry that (apparently) needs to be applied to bait-making these days. Should we not be looking for a taste/flavour that would appear more ‘natural’ to carp, rather that the bewildering variety of chemical cocktails that are being proffered in the name of ‘food’
How about a boilie that tastes of freshwater shrimp, or snail, for instance? Is it not possible that buried inside a fish’s DNA is a trigger that would recognise certain tastes as food, and therefore ‘guarantee’ success (as long as they are hungry!)
Wouldn’t that be a simple starting point, or is that far too simple, and I have got it all (horribly) wrong, again?
