Big Carp Fishing Secrets You Cannot Afford To Miss!

How often do we hook big fish and never ever realise it? This happens all the time and is especially a problem where big wary fish are concerned and is a problem every angler needs to become aware of and focus on solving. Yesterday I visited a small water with a large stock of small fish and only a few big carp; within hours I hooked and landed one of the biggest; an upper-thirty pound mirror carp. But how did I do it? Read on to find out!

In so many big carp waters today you have fish cleaning up on free baits and avoiding the vast majority of hook baits, very frequently by actually ridding themselves of your hook without running or often without giving you even a single bleep on your alarm. In fact if we truly appreciated how frequently this happens we would be more than alarmed – very shocked is more like it! Just because you hook fish and you see lots of big carp caught in the angling weeklies and monthlies does not mean you cannot improve drastically upon your own catch results compared to your fellow anglers and some edges will treble or quadruple your catches if only you truly appreciated their true power!

Over the years I’ve tried all kinds of ways of converting more bleeps on the alarm to landed carp and it really does come down to refining every aspect of your fishing in many ways so you are able to maximise every opportunity at a take you can create. I can categorically state that non of the hooks I have used straight from the packet have converted as many carp bait bites into fish for me as my own extreme-sharpened hooks. Of course you might think this sounds like I have not used the sharpest chemically sharpened hooks in all their patterns, but in my case I have used probably all the leading brands and patterns over the years and deliberately tested them.

(Please note I have not tested the new circle style carp hooks recently introduced by a British carp tackle company; the reports of bite conversions on these sound fantastic.)

For a number of decades I lived in Essex time and often combined sea fishing from the beach alongside my carp fishing and catfish fishing activities. Fresh eels from the sea are very good eating and a great saving on supermarket bills! (I happen to have a great taste for eels especially when fried; they are like chicken to me, but I detest jelled eels!) Between 20 and 30 years ago I used to catch a number of eels from the shore during the warmer months often while carp fishing ponds and lakes near the sea side. Often eels really seemed to be a pest – that is until I tried frying and barbequing them!

Since then I have determined to eat every legal size fish within the limit (and within acceptable reason) that I catch from the sea, and this has included bass, sole, dabs, eels, mullet, codling, whiting, (and even a lobster) among others. I have also been lucky enough to sample fresh sea trout and also wild brown trout and rainbow trout that I caught from Scottish rivers during a period I lived in Scotland. (I even hook a twenty-plus pound salmon in a spate river (the river Girvan.)

The idea for purposely testing hooks abilities to avoid hook shedding and converting bites into landed fish came from an unusual experiment in itself. So I gradually increased the number of hooks on more paternoster booms of various lengths in theory to improve the number of fish hooked on a single cast when left out for longer. Please note that in more recent years eel numbers in our rivers have been very significantly declining and these days conservation is vitally important; the illegal poaching of elvers has been a big reason for this as well as over-exploitative commercial fishing and barriers to spawning stretches of rivers and pollution of the sea and rivers.

I the tests what happened was the eels simply shed the hooks. I recall waiting while a series of bites indicated another eel taking the worm baits on a 10 hook rig casts. Guess what happened? Just 1 or 2 eels were landed upon reeling in. The hooks of the rest of the rigs had all been twisted and the hooks had been shed leaving a bare hook and no fish! Now you might say this was no big deal as eels are slippery customers and can ties themselves up in knots to get off the hook literally tying themselves up in knots in the line and pulling themselves off.

But I noticed some hook were massively more consistent at preventing eels getting off the hook and there were the sharpest hooks of the sharpest patterns that I had specially sharpened. Over all the faster and deeper a hook penetrates the harder it is to shake free. I found that the hooks with the longer thinner points were the most successful. (This I have applied with indisputably better measurable results in carp fishing.) But there are very few hooks suitable with ideal characteristics and even these need specially sharpening!)

For example even the short and long shank Nailer type hooks convert many more bites into landed fish when very finely and skilfully sharpened. The greatest test is when using barbless hooks which so many fisheries demand these days; lost fish due to a non-maximised hooks are completely unnecessary. In the odd extremely rare occurrence that I have lost a big fish due to a hook point breaking or bending over I know the chances are I would never had achieved a take from the fish in the first place had the hook not been so skilfully honed!

Very much comes down to the thickness of the hook wire used in the region of the first 4 to 5 millimetres from the end of the point. The next incredibly important point is the thickness of the point. When I sharpen my hooks I hone them using a diamond hook sharpener and aim to get the first 4 5 millimetres thinner than needles and thickening out more only as the bend is approached.

Such hooks are supreme in performance to such a degree that without such hooks I know I will be missing out on at least 2 thirds of fish picking up baits (as they can simply mouth baits and slip the hook with ease and this is no exaggeration because I have measured this over 10 years of testing ultra sharp hooks beside chemically sharpened hooks straight from the packet!)

At the start of my many years of testing I did not use ordinary Cyprinus Carpio carp to test hooks - but crucian carp. These are very well known to be even more notorious for playing with baits and for being especially good at not getting hooked; even hitting fish mouthing baits when float fishing is a highly developed skill requiring endless hours of practice!

My testing originally involved ground baiting a shallow slope in the waters edge with bread paste. A series of 4 feet long lengths of line were tied down to bank sticks out of the water and small hooks of various patterns were attached and baited with bread paste and soft pellets. The crucian carp would come along feed on the ground bait and take the baited hooks and guess what? They could get off 9 out of 10 hooks of different patterns tried - every time! Any hooked fish were immediately returned as I was observing and making notes of all that was happening.

The results were so surprising and the implications were so shocking that it lead me to a big re-think about hooks completely. I discovered that just because a hook has what appears to have a sharp point it most certainly does not mean a carp cannot slip off the hook very easily and often so fast it is as if they were not actually initially hooked and often the sharper the hook the more easily it came off because the hook pattern simply did not do anything but allow this to happen – which rather defeats the point of it!

Bent hooks have obviously one solution but various hook patterns used like this are well known to have caused carp damage and as such are unethical and banned on pretty much all UK carp waters. The more flexible fish-friendly approach came in the form of line-aligner rigs, but these certainly do not do not work as great as anglers think and just because a hook turns due to the angle created it certainly does do mean the hook holds achieved are ideal even where a rig designed to penetrate the flesh of the bottom or scissors is used!

Even today thousands of carp are still lost on line-aligner rigs and anglers still keep suffering the either lack of bite indication due to fish instantly slipping the hook or get single and double bleeps on alarms where carp still shed the hooks anyway due to years of practice 24 hours a day in avoiding hooks! No-one I know claims a 99 percent conversion rate even with special (ethical) stiff rigs and stiff Withy Pool type rigs and so on.) Even so-called high profile anglers are still assuming chemically-sharpened hooks straight from the packet perform well enough compared to hooks skilfully honed to perfection by diamond sharpener in both in advance and before every single cast!

I hope this all makes you think! If you doubt the veracity of my testing why not get highly skilled with a diamond hook sharpener and do your own very strict tests fishing unsharpened hooks against the very thinnest finest of hand-sharpened hook points (sharpened at least for 5 millimetres) and the difference in your big fish results will become very well proven to you too!

You can design the best carp bait in the world but if the carp can get off your hook is all wasted, but an incredibly sharp hook in the correct pattern combined with a truly great unique bait is proven to catch more big fish. This is the explanation to why when I visited that small fish water yesterday I was able to hook that that rare upper thirty within hours. For more information on the sharpest big fish edges that can double or treble your catches, why not take a look at my uniquely researched and big fish catches-proven bait secrets bibles on line at my Baitbigfish site now; see my biography or Google for much more!

By Tim Richardson.

Now why not seize this moment to improve your catches for life with these unique fishing bibles: “BIG CARP FLAVOURS, FEEDING TRIGGERS AND CARP SENSES EXPLOITATION SECRETS!” “BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” For these and much more free information now visit: For secrets of making money-saving big fish baits see baitbigfish.COM (Home of world-wide proven readymade and homemade bait success secrets bibles and further free articles!

Carp Baits And Rig Secrets - Exploiting Milk Protein Baits and Rig Methods

Using milk proteins as pastes instead of boilies, is the most efficient method of delivering these type of baits carp come and eat me signals!

There is no damaging heating of the proteins in the boiling process and no coagulated protein barrier on the surface of dough or paste baits to affect and slow down attractors, smells and carp feeding triggering amino acids leaking-off.

This affects all coagulated egg skinned boilies! There are many ways to avoid or reduce this effect. (Like using a binder other than conventional eggs.) Or like skinning the baits for e.g. a maximum of 10 seconds.

Or by combining the use of skinned’ ‘boilie baits and air-dried dough paste baits as free baits on the hook, or in poly vinyl acetate or ‘PVA’ water-soluble bags attached to your hook rig.

I like to use a more selective method, by using fresh paste, plus air-dried paste baits (previously soaked in liquid extracts, molasses, corn steep liquor, etc) placed in a PVA water-soluble bag, filled with hemp oil. This leaves a small flat spot on the water surface to feed more paste baits very accurately to, creating a fantastic fish drawing ‘hotspot’, which carp are drawn to very quickly.

For a very unusual method, try wrapping your hook baits in more than one type of base mix paste, how about 3! A carp may prefer one to another, but has no choice but to pick it all up.

How about this unique heavy running lead method, using a 6 inch back-stop on the line behind the lead, to drive the hook point home? This very special rig really hooks big fish, by getting the hook into the mouth undetected: It is awesome!

First make a hook rig with 2 looped hairs

. One is attached to the back of the hook, just below the eye, the other comes off the back of the bend. These hairs are very fine and made from 5 pound monofilament. They are 3 or more centimeters long, from the hook to the end of the loops.

The hook is a tempered especially strong one. With a long curved point and wide gape. The gape is the distance between the hook point and the shank of the hook. I find wide gape hooks seem to hook very well and I invariably use a size 4 hook for this type of rig.

Actually hand select hooks from the boxes or packets, rejecting the ones with the shorter points, or blunt points. Use a ‘Fox’ diamond hook sharpener or similar, to sharpen the hooks selected, past needle sharpness.

(I do exactly the same for my sea fishing hooks, as I know I’m hooking 3 times more fish and retaining far more fish that would otherwise ‘wriggle and twist’ off the hook in the currents and waves.)

This effort produced 15 forties pretty much on the trot for me on a water in the UK and many big thirties from more difficult lakes.

Please note though, only severely sharpen the last 3 millimeters of each hook point. I have sharpened more than this length and lost a number of forties or bigger at the landing net, as a result of the hook point ‘bending-out’ under pressure! (But would these fish have been hooked initially, if it was not for this extreme sharpening?!)

Specially made tiny homemade boilies of only 6 millimeters diameter, are threaded onto the hairs so there are 6 on each hair. These boilies are made from milk protein ingredients and have been just scalded and then left to harden for a few days.

When you are actually fishing, around each whole end rig, mould fresh milk protein dough, so it covers each hair and hook to ABOVE the hook eye by about a centimeter or more, leaving the hairs positioned off the back of the hook and the wide gape hook point proud. I even glue 1 or 2 tiny beads above the hook, to hold the extra dough above the hook eye.

It is just fantastic for big wary carp; they take the whole soft melting lot into their mouths, have never dealt with a rig quite like this very much before, and bang – they are hooked! It is interesting to note that most of the big fish from the hard fished lakes were hooked perfectly deep in the mouth scissors.

I love to use this kind of sneaky edge, the results are outstanding and proven for me over many years and came as a result of trying to hook difficult feeding winter fish that would just sit over the bait and not move off! With a free running lead and a back stop the fish cannot use the lead as a pivot as much in order to twist and shake themselves off your hook! This fishing bait secrets books author has many more fishing and bait secrets in his bait secrets volumes and the best secrets are not free; as they are so very valuable!

By Tim Richardson.

Seize this moment to improve your catches for life with: “BIG CARP FLAVOURS AND FEEDING TRIGGER SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” For much more visit: http://www.baitbigfish.com These unique homemade bait making and enhancing fishing secrets guides are proven cutting-edge tools for success for anglers just like you now in 50 countries!

By TIM RICHARDSON

Making Homemade Big Catfish Baits For Specimen Fish!

I’ve caught cats to over 110 pounds on homemade baits and over 25 above 60 pounds here in the UK so I know these baits work! Making your own homemade baits has massive advantages. Homemade big catfish bait and homemade big carp bait design has many similarities especially in how you use nutritional essential requirements to trigger each fish into feeding!

You have full control over just how unique and potentially powerfully attracting these baits can be. These baits may be very simple or complicated, but they all catch to varying degrees of success some catching more bigger catfish than others.

Catfish are very fast growing fish and are especially in need of baits that supply energy and digestible protein. The many types of tinned meats in your larder will do great for a basic start. Live moving natural baits can be used, like various species of worms, leeches, and other amino acid secreting creatures.

Untold big catfish have been hooked on luncheon meat, spam and similar variations on this pork theme. Meat meals in carp fishing are rapidly gaining favour as fish meals and shellfish meals become less sustainable and these are very successful too.

Many dried and tinned cat and dog foods make excellent catfish baits and are specially full of taste enhancers and enzymes (like betaine) and bacteria to make the food as palatable, tasty and attractive and digestible as possible. In fact I researched this area for carp baits and discovered in some brands that up to half the ingredients were actually ‘commercially produced bacteria.’

In one instance there were twelve types of this in one canned dog food and this demonstrates just how important they are to great taste development (for dogs) and better digestibility. Match fishermen have used pellet type soft cat food extremely successfully for similar reasons I’m sure.

There seems no doubt that these fish love fatty meats. But it interesting to note that some brands catch more fish than others. This may be due to their better digestibility and solubility and breakdown and release of attractive amino acids, oils and bait fragments into the water.

Liver and congealed blood baits are very popular and the high protein content and massive amino acid leak-ff contribute much to their success. I may sound funny, but the wels catfish here in Europe and the UK are primarily surface feeding predators, sneaking up and ambushing potential prey from near the surface.

They can spend long periods of inactivity between ‘feeding binges’ and I find carp are much easier to catch regularly because their feeding seems far more regular. That is my observation using home made baits on the bottom or in buoyant form, from about 8 years of fishing for catfish. I have even caught fish to 40 pounds on the surface itself.

On one occasion, I used a very large garlic sausage bait which was sandwiched between foam to make it float. I had set-up fishing in the dark, and while in the still dark early morning hours I began to get lots of ‘line bites’ this went on for a while as waited with baited breath. As the first rays of day lit the foggy morning I could see that my baits which were only 2 yards from my own bank side, were actually sitting upon a dense bed of Canadian pondweed and so in fact one bait was half out of the water!

I put this down to another lesson of not wishing to shine a light at the water to check, and accepted it feeling positive that the catfish would track it down if they really wanted it. Half an hour later that bait was gulped down and a very hard-fighting 40 plus pound catfish graced the net!

There are so many opinions about catfish baits and I can only tell you my opinions based on my captures. One thing I will emphasise as in carp baits, is the use of ‘curing’ or part ‘fermenting’ your baits. This actually creates new flavours on and in the baits and release more amino acids, sugars alcohols, flavours etc. All very attractive!

You can try this with anything from herring or squid chunks to boilies. All you are really doing is heating the baits for a while to get bacterial enzyme activity working on starting to break down the bait. It seriously stinks and works a treat! (But don’t go spilling your squid in the car like I did, and you are best handling baits with gloves!)

Many types of boilies will catch big catfish including those of meat, fish, and shellfish varieties. The poultry types like chicken seem popular right now.

If you wish to enhance your boilies potential for catching catfish I cannot recommend enough liquidizing squid and soaking your baits in this or in liver powder or squid extract powder plus amino acid supplement like ‘Minamino,’ along with some pure salmon oil and sea salt.

Having said that, many preparatory preparations have the same effect as the above. It does seem to me that catfish fishing is very largely about soaking as much attraction into your baits as possible (including pellets) and ground baiting specifically to get your swim ‘alive’ with small fish to draw in the big catfish. This method may take some time or not!

But I have regularly caught enough big catfish on this method to satisfy me.

‘Live-baiting’ is not my thing. I once fished a 2 pound gold fish supplied by a fishery, on a water that held a catfish in excess of 100 pounds. All I could think was – this is just wrong!

I find that fishing over sweetcorn is interesting in that catfish seem to enjoy eating it too, although I realise many anglers reading this may prefer fermented maize or pellets of many descriptions. One memorable session I had was when I baited up with fermented herring and squid pieces of about one centimetre in diameter. I never saw so many tench bubbling on the baited area for hour after hour!

Tench seem like catfish magnets and this activity produced the biggest catfish in the lake not surprisingly!

After so many cat fishing experiences and big captures, I can honestly say, that I believe they can learn to avoid some baits in certain rich water situations if they get hooked on the same bait a few times, and I would always keep rotating and changing my baits and attractors.

To this end I leverage my experience and knowledge in designing baits for carp and very often fish paste or dough type baits which I know offer superior attractor leak-off of those all important essential amino acids, minerals, oils etc and very often provide far quicker results for big carp and catfish too. I now rate designed paste bait, maximizing certain aspect of catfish essential dietary requirements, over any other bait.

In fact I hooked one Lake (UK) record cat, just 10 minutes after arriving; I believe purely due to the massive leak-off of specialist attraction ingredients and additives from the bait and PVA bag paste baits and powders exploited, in order to maximise attraction and pulling power of the hook bait and baited area.

Well, these are just some very basic things to start you on your way instead of you religiously using whatever it is that perhaps is the reason you are reading this article!

Bait testing, experimentation and taking risks with new bait variations and versions while also utilising a control bait that you trust, will definitely massively multiply your results and keep you permanently ahead of the catfish and the crowd! This fishing bait secrets ebooks author has many more fishing and bait secrets in his bait secrets ebooks.

By Tim Richardson.

Seize this moment to improve your catches for life with: “BIG CARP FLAVOURS AND FEEDING TRIGGER SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” For much more visit: http://www.baitbigfish.com These unique homemade bait making and enhancing fishing secrets guides are proven cutting-edge tools for success for anglers just like you now in 50 countries!

By TIM RICHARDSON

Carp Fishing Secrets for Making Nutritional Homemade Baits!

Nutritional

carp baits or food baits are very popular now because they consistently produce big carp again and again!

The theory of balanced amino acid profile and nutrition carp baits, has been repeatedly proven by consistent catches of big carp for decades.

Your baits amino acid profile, that is its content, and biological availability of refined proteins to carp digestion, is central to your nutritional bait attraction and success. By refining these things in your baits, on the right fisheries, your big fish catches can really become the stuff most anglers only ever dream of…

This is mythical top secret homemade baits become a reality!

The numbers of big carp that get caught on other types of boilie baits have seriously reduced especially in the UK and Europe, where angling pressure has become so high. For numerous reasons, other baits will of course always catch plenty of carp.

Now we get to the interesting bit; the effect of a carps dietary requirement for individual amino acids. This is a variable between individual fish at any point in time!

There are about 13 essential amino acids for carp, (10 essentials for the majority of fish) and the easy definition of essential is: An amino acid that cannot be synthesized in the carps body from internal resources. Therefore, carp must consume them in their diet to not simply live healthily but to maintain being alive!

The advantages do not end there. Nutritional bait will often contain a complete balanced, nutritional profile, including essential fats, minerals, vitamins, trace elements, and salt, which are all proven carp attractors.

The individual components of the bait ingredients work together in the bait itself, and in the carps digestion and assimilation processes. This provides the optimal nutritional bait performance, and benefits in the carps body.

This multiplies the effect of all the individual bait ingredients for maximized carp attraction, and repeated desire for consumption of your bait.

How do you make your bait release even more carp attracting amino acids? Well, very water soluble, easily ‘digested’ amino acids are supplied in greater quantities by predigesting your baits, using bacterial action or ‘curing’ your baits, or by using artificial enzyme activity within your baits.

You can always add more ‘free’ form liquid amino acids as a bait dip or soak too to really maximize attraction.

To my knowledge, every top commercial bait manufacturer utilizes elements of, or all of these effects! So, if you fish a ‘pay lake’ where it seems most anglers have been using the same shop-bought bait, try applying your new homemade nutritional bait to give a top edge.

Soon, you’ll be the one catching all the biggest carp yourself, although you may need to introduce a very plentiful amount of bait in advance, to get the fish feeding confidently on it.

Such baits can become habit-forming, with seemingly addictive powers over the carp’s natural caution.

A bait triangle effect is at work with high nutritional bait:

Initially, this is where many types of fish will sample your bait to begin with, after its first introduction to a water. Different sizes of carp and bigger fish such as bream, tench and catfish will push out the competing smaller fish.

As the dietary benefits are experienced by fish eating the bait, the fish which have the largest, energy efficiency and dietary requirements push out the lesser size carp, when the bait is repeatedly introduced over a period of time.

At this stage the largest fish tend to monopolize the bait and will eat it in preference to other food and less nutritionally balanced baits.

This is why mixing bait ingredient weaknesses is so powerful; you can catch the biggest fish in a lake, in a very short period of time, by the balancing your bait nutrition and by regular feeding of free baits.

To use these baits most effectively, the very top successful fishermen keep their free baits going into their lake or swim very regularly, and this is especially important in winter fishing. It can require 3 visits to the water every week just to keep the carp searching for bait, feeding confidently on it, and feeling its beneficial effects.

So why bother doing this? Well, this activity can become so productive in terms of catch results; it can actually become addictive as your results just keep improving!

So, it is essential to mix bait ingredients, that have different weaknesses in their essential amino acids distributions; this limits nitrogen loss through ‘deamination’ and provides the best opportunity for protein utilization in the carp.

In the base mix, I prefer to use the highest levels possible of whole protein foods ingredients and predigested protein food extracts. I also maximize the levels of ‘free’ aqueous (in solution) amino acids compounds in the bait mix.

A mixed amino acid compound bait soak or dip, complete with naturally derived extracts like spices, attractors and ‘behaviour stimulators like sea salt , hot and red capsicum powders and natural flavours / special amino acid containing components like squid extract, will give your bait more attraction power and range.

The attractive benefits are maximized and enhanced further by important methods that sustain biological-activity within the bait. My baits are normally fermented or cured too, at the very least, to release further nutrition and enhance carp attraction factors.

Why not try making a nutritional carp bait yourself. Yes, bait making involves making mistakes and trial and error. In fact, some of my mistakes have led to some of my most productive baits so never be afraid to make your own! Owning your secret nutritional carp bait recipe can be a massive catches and confidence booster over using readymade baits! This fishing bait secrets ebooks author has many more fishing and bait secrets to share though his unique ebooks - so read on!

By Tim Richardson.

Seize this moment to improve your catches for life with: “BIG CARP FLAVOURS AND FEEDING TRIGGER SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” For much more please visit: http://www.baitbigfish.com These unique homemade bait making and enhancing fishing secrets guides are proven cutting-edge tools for success for anglers just like you now in 50 countries!

By TIM RICHARDSON

Fishing for pleasure and more pleasure

When I was a kid, my Dad and Uncle Larry and some friends of Dad's used to take us fishing at Barnegat Bay in New Jersey. At the time I thought the bay was as big as the ocean and often worried about finding our way back. But Dad and his friends seemed to have that under control and we always made it back with our catch. We were out looking for blowfish but also caught some bluefish, sea-bass and weakfish as well. But I always remember the blowfish. Sometimes when aggravated they would blow up like a balloon. Naturally my brothers and I thought that was funny. The other thing I remember was the teeth. They reminded me of rabbits teeth like in the cartoons. I remember that sometimes we would have a hard time getting our hooks back because they would clamp down on them with those big teeth.

After I joined the Air Force I had the opportunity to fish for several kinds of fish from the shore, from bridges and from boats. I've caught bass, walleye, pike, catfish, crappie and some I don't remember the names of. I've also caught snakes, turtles, clams, shrimp and crabs, usually not on purpose, except for the shrimp and crabs, but that's another story.

However, the best times I ever had fishing were during the 11 1/2 years I spent in Panama, the one with the Canal, not Florida. During my time there I went out about twice a month with friends and/or family. Usually we went to Gatun Lake in the Panama Canal, but I've also fished other lakes and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as well.

Because I was in the Air Force, I had access to the Army recreation facilities at Fort Clayton. There I could rent a 14 foot aluminum boat for $10.00 for the entire weekend. It came with the motor, gas tank, paddles (just in case) and life vests (also just in case) and trailer. We would usually pick it up on Friday afternoon and return it Monday.

On Saturday morning about 5:00 am, everybody would meet at my house and we would hook up the trailer and drive to the public ramp at Gatun, about 10 miles. On the way we would stop at one of the several bus stops where kids were selling live minnows, twenty for a dollar. Sometimes you could get some extra for a sandwich or soda. We would get a couple hundred and then go on our way.

Once we arrived at the ramp there would be some young kids charging five dollars to get your boat into the water, put your gear in the boat and then see you off. The same kids would be there when you returned to get you out and it didn't cost anything extra. It was slow going getting out to the canal because of all the boat traffic and the vegetation. Once we were in the canal we could crank up the motor and head for our favorite spots, of which there were many.

On the way we would pass ships of all sizes traversing the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific or vice versa. Usually people on the decks would wave to us and naturally we would wave back. We had to be careful of the wake coming from the ships. Sometimes if you were passing a ship, especially in a narrow part of the canal, the waves could be pretty big.

Usually we would go to the furthest favorite spot first and then work our way in during the day. A lot of the other parties seemed to prefer it the other way, that is, start close and then work their way out. Personally, I liked the boat ride early in the morning and was usually anxious to get on shore by the end of the day.

Anyway, we would find our spot and anchor in. What we were after were peacock bass or Sergento, sergeant in Spanish, because of the stripes. It was basically a big mouth bass. Now I have to tell you, in Panama you do not need a license to fish and there are no limits. As you can imagine being bordered by two oceans, seafood is plentiful in Panama and there are markets everywhere. Anyway, when we went fishing in the Panama Canal or Arenosa Lake we would usually have four people in the boat and would fish for about 6-8 hours. During that time we would catch 200 or more keepers and no, they don't just jump in the boat. They were simply so plentiful, that almost anywhere you dropped a line, you could catch something. The best thing about it is that every one we caught gave us a run for our money.

When we were done for the day we would come back into the dock where the same young man who saw us off, would now get us unloaded again. He would also fillet our catch for five cents a piece and maybe a soda or two. So all in all you couldn't have a better day. With the kids there to help you in and out and fillet the fish, all you had to do was catch fish and who wouldn't enjoy that? Like I said, some friends and I would usually go out about twice a month. The reason we didn't go out more is that our freezers could not hold all the fillets. I have numerous stories I could tell about my fishing trips, like the time a friend and I lost our way during a storm, but I'll save those for another time.

If you like fishing or know someone who does, then I have a couple of sites you will want to visit. You can learn more about Salmon Fishing and Cat fishing by going to my sites at www.Salmon.TellMeAboutThat.com and www.Catfishing.TellMeAboutThat.com. Well, enjoy yourself and then go to my blog at www.TellMeAboutThat.com and leave a comment to let me know how the trip turned out.

Tom Stabler is a retired Air Force logistics specialist. He has traveled extensively, mostly in the Middle East and Central America. During his travels he gained experience and insight into a variety of subjects. He uses his articles to talk about his life experiences as well as promote his blog and 94 websites at www.TellMeAboutThat.com. He currently lives in South Carolina with His wife of 32 years.

By TOM STABLER

Big Carp Fishing Bait Secrets Of Plant Extracts Bioactive In Your Baits!

When you think of fishing baits often meats and proteins come to mind. Worms and liver for example have their place, but what can you think of that can actually multiply the performance and catch rates of these baits? Why not turn your bait into a drug!

Some of the most important health providing and ‘recreational’ drugs originally have plant origins although these days, many are cloned or copied using synthetic chemicals. Even the most basic of whole plant product baits like sweetcorn, maize, hempseed and ‘chufas’ or tiger nuts or peanuts have powerful effects on fish, having brought brilliant and consistent catches for many fishermen in the past.

But do you really know what it is that has that effect on fish in these baits? They are not highly flavoured or high protein when compared to many commercial boilies so it must be other factors involved... (Think 'THC' in hemp; and one of the 2 most stimulatory substances in cannabis...

Obviously carp, like many fish will attach danger to a bait they have been hooked on and will begin to avoid eating it with enough repetition of captures. There are many ways to keep ahead of the fish, for instance, simply use a totally different bait like changing from maize to tiger nuts, to hazelnuts, to peanuts to black eyed peas etc.

Or keep on changing the colour, flavours or attractors soaked or cooked into these baits. The predominant baits for carp are boilies and pellets and there are many variations on physical properties of these baits. This includes, size, dimensions, densities, colours, solubility, porosity, oil content and quality, flavours, additives content, amino acid content, protein and quality of protein content and so on.

So many baits catch carp and other species of fish that eat the baits meant for carp that it can be very confusing how to choose which to use. This is especially confusing when it comes to using boilies with so many commercially produced ones and various ingredients to use!

Many fishermen will ‘swear by’ a bait or a company’s baits because they have caught fish on them. But this does not mean success cannot come on many other different boilie baits used in that fishing situation. Often a homemade boilie bait will score for big fish on its first cast simply because it has not been seen and has not hooked fish before.

In fact some very basic much cheaper baits than the commercially produced varieties can produce as many or more fish than commercial baits because they are so unique. Often the usual subjects of fishermen’s conversations about boilies revolves around different company’s baits and their favourite ones.

Multiply this effect by thousands and you have thousands of anglers fishing using very similar if not the same few most popular baits. This kind of defeats the object of bait. Ideally you want to keep ahead of the fish and the majority of anglers, by using a bait that has not already hooked all or most of the biggest fish in your water.

Unfortunately, the first few to use a commercial bait on a water, perhaps even the commercial company’s ‘bait testers’ will get the best effects and results from these new baits. So you might consider why bother using these baits now? After all, how can you match the results of people who fished a bait which the fish were not scared of which now does scare the fish even though they will still eat it?

You have in effect just made your fishing potentially far harder by using these baits after they have ‘proved successful’ on your water!

The trick is to keep ahead of the fish by ‘topping’ or adjusting these successful baits to make them ‘new’ to the fish in different ways. Many anglers like to add a favourite commercial flavour or special dip made from an amino acid supplement and possibly added oils or flavours. These characteristics help to a limited degree to boost the baits’ effectiveness.

However, there are far more powerful methods than this standard approach to altering commercial baits characteristics. These are in effect like adding ‘drugs’ to the baits. Perhaps instead of thinking of changing flavours or ‘labels’ from perhaps pineapple to cranberry, or ‘Scopex’ to crab, you might think of something that will actually change the stimulating effects of the bait completely!

Going back to plants, have you ever considered soaking your baits in neat essential oils? Or in chilli oil (oleoresins), or in pineapple powder in solution? (Think the multipurpose enzyme bromelain etc.) You might consider added ingredients like specific curry powders in solution, or individual spices like turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, or lemon grass or even take a look at the alcohol based mouth washes and cough mixtures or vitamin and mineral supplements available.

Even tooth paste brands contains highly volatile ingredients and have been very successful. All these things work by being highly active and volatile in water, making it very easy for the fish to detect your baits even in some cases from great ranges. They are also very successful because they are alternative and different to the usual baits attractors and flavours which are being used by those fishermen are usually found insisting particular commercial baits are their favourites.

There is no ‘super’ or ‘ultimate bait’ because everything changes too fast for them to last! As soon as fish ‘get wise’ to them they need to be changed or altered in some way to keep ahead of the fish and other anglers using them!

You might consider applying the use of tomato powder or asafoetida powder with added herb or spice extracts instead of a flavour. These do indeed affect the physiology of the fish in highly stimulating and beneficial ways beyond what the majority of most alcohol, glycerol, isopropanol or propylene glycol flavours can do for example!

So next time you’re thinking of what bait change to make or what homemade bait to make why not think of any food ‘stimulant’ you can’t stop eating or drinking. Apart from high protein or fatty foods with added salt, you will probably find them based on plant extracts and many will have sugar, a sweetener or stimulating plant extracts involved... You might also wonder why we put sugar, salt, herbs and spices on our food too; their combined effect is much greater working altogether upon senses and fish metabolism and digestion.

This fishing bait secrets ebooks author has many more fishing and bait edges; so read on to find out more about a very unique bait secrets ebooks series!

By Tim Richardson.

Seize this moment to improve your catches for life with: “BIG CARP FLAVOURS AND FEEDING TRIGGER SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” For much more visit: http://www.baitbigfish.com These unique homemade bait making and enhancing fishing secrets guides are proven cutting-edge tools for success for anglers just like you now in 50 countries!

By TIM RICHARDSON

Making Homemade Carp Fishing Baits Flavours And Sweeteners!

Flavours are one of the favourite topics of discussion among carp anglers. But some are many times more effective and have literally caught millions more carp than others! Let's take a deeper sniff at irrisistible flavours...

Many flavours general effectiveness on different waters differs over the season and in which bait they are used. Probably the biggest variable in using flavours is the best level to use in a bait or bait soak or dip mixture.

Flavours are often used conventionally as a ‘label’ to differentiate your bait from others, perhaps even on a similar base mix. The orthodox thinking of most anglers on ‘the bank’ is that flavours effect your bait pretty much solely by making it smell good Perhaps in a fruity, fishy, sweet or other appetising way. True, flavours can do this and at least this is how we as humans experience many flavours.

Many of the flavours which have stood the test of time in an increasingly competitive carp fishing market are feeding triggers of extraordinary dimensions. They can stimulate a search and feed response from various ranges in the water and impact on multiple carp senses and responses simultaneously.

My personal opinion is that this is the whole point of a bait anyway.

Most flavours can catch carp very effectively even if only for limited periods when used directly as a neat soak. Although the very much less water soluble propylene glycol flavours have been very much used in the UK, being a cheaper alternative, their use is now far less prevalent.

In the States and many parts of the world, propylene flavours and those supermarket cooking flavours based on acetic acid are used by the majority of anglers to good effect still. However, the fully water soluble alcohol and glycerol flavour, for example are much more popular in the UK for pressured carp water fishing.

Many Americans will mention the still popular ‘supermarket flavours’ as part of their homemade bait recipes. This goes for even those fishing competitively in pay lake tournaments; although many are learning there are much superior options available.

Almost invariably the 2 most commonly used cheap supermarket flavours seem to be Strawberry and vanilla, but chocolate and coffee are also popular along with other fruity ones. It might be a surprise that many Americans use ‘Cola’ or ‘Red Bull’ or ‘Cream Soda,’ or ‘Cool Aid’ to flavour carp baits in dough or boilie baits.

Flavours are most often complex combinations of quite volatile ingredients. Anglers have been able to achieve good results on many such alternatives from ‘Slush Puppy’ flavour, milk shakes, ice cream flavours and melted ice cream. I think at the last count the ‘MacDonald’s’ strawberry flavour formula had approaching 30 different components.

Everyday drinks make ideal flavours for many wide and deeply scientific reasons. From ‘vodka,’ ‘Tia Maria,’ whiskey, brand, liquors, condensed milk, coconut milk, in fact many nut and seed milks, like sesame seed ‘Tahini.’ Yeast extract and peanut butter blend with other ingredients and make great flavours; these 2 examples will enhance your bait’s taste and ‘palatability’ effects too.

In solution, kelp and seaweeds powders for example, add taste enhancing factors and very carp attractive minerals and certain important vitamins. There are many sugary concentrates that carp love and sugar extracts from various industrial processes and bye-products. Adding these gives a very attractive ‘difference’ to using simply straight liquid flavours.

For example, malt extract maltose, lactose, and fructose. Liquorice extract is another very sweet alternative if you are trying to avoid the usual use of the more commonly used sweeteners from fishing bait suppliers and supermarket ones like sodium saccharin, ‘Splenda’ and the like. (Saccharin is certainly not the best for a sweet after-taste and Splenda is positively unhealthy.)

Some of most well-known additives to sweeten your bait are 2 extremely sweet natural proteins available from bait suppliers; namely ‘Talin’ and ‘Thaumatin B.’ If all you use presently is a supermarket flavour like vanilla, and are just adding molasses, honey, black treacle or brown sugar, then using one of these super sweeteners will make a big difference to results. However, there are many forms of intense sweeteners and in the food and confectionary worlds these can range from new forms of sugars articficially created, to common amino acids you might not expect to be used for sweetening. The amine forms called betaines (yes there are many forms of this) is just one example. Some sweeteners are used to stabilise other factors such as food acidity, but in reality the ways substances work synergistically is very complex.

You may not favour anything that appears to be artificial but many of these flavour and sweetening substances are in fact highly beneficial and you need to dig deeper in order to discover what the effects and more significant drawbacks any of these might or might not have. Ccmoore Lactose B plus is a really well proven taste enhancer, feeding trigger, attractor and sweetener. Their fructose concentrate is outstandingly successful too. You can make up your own sweeteners and flavours etc by all kinds of means starting from simply mixing 2 substances together. Of course you can be as creative as you like becuse you are aiming to stimulate carp receptors not human ones. Once you have observed carp consuming duck or goose excrement your idea of what is attractive to carp has got to change. All those adverts pointing out the flavorist lingo of top notes and subtle tones, rich deep profiles etc of a pineapple or strawberry flavour are not particularly helpful and really intended to sell the bait to you.

Some of my best flavours and liquid complexes can easily make you feel physically sick to your stomach; but carp go mad for them, so think about it! Many kinds of solvents are used by glue sniffers. Why is this? Are you strangely drawn to take a second sniff of anything from amyl acetate, or nail polish remover, or Airfix glue perhaps? These should not be attractive (or should they?!) It comes down to our evolution of sensory reception and special sensitivity and adaptations to stimuli, (as seen in my flavours, feeding triggers and carp senses-explained, and exploited, ebook.)

I think most carp anglers would personally favour a bait substance resembling a ripe banana or fresh salmon than something relatively high in ammonia which drive carp mad but stink out everything when the bottle is opened! I laugh when I consider the impact of the Rod Hutchinson called Secret Agent and how spillage of this was a big deal and generally reminded you of its presence even for months afterwards.

Real extracts in solution work very well giving off fine particles off the bait along with dissolved compounds, flavours and so on. Vanilla extract, blue cheese powder, anchovy extract, garlic powder, chilli powder, spirulina powder, ‘Robin Red’ type products and kelp powder are good examples of what I’d term as ‘innate’ bait flavourings.

There are numerous tastes to exploit in flavours and one not mentioned in angling circles is that Japanese originating one called ‘unami.’ This is a unique taste which will give quite an edge in some competitive fishing situations and is worth exploiting.

As for the usual sweet, savoury, salty, fishy, spicy, meaty and bitter type tastes most of us are familiar with I have noticed an important trend. It seems that if a bait has milk type ingredients or fishy ingredients for example, then the flavour added by the average angler might well reflect the perceived characteristic of those ingredients.

A milk powder based bait would usually have a milky, creamy, sweet or fruity flavour. A fish and shellfish based bait might get flavours like crab, lobster, salmon etc, although fruit flavours are often used and compliment the acid nature of these protein type baits. It does pay to experiment and use flavours that are not normally thought of as used in that type of bait.

Combinations of fishing flavours have always been a good ‘edge’ whenever the dominantly successful single flavour on a water is losing its effectiveness. For example, adding another flavour to Scopex or Tutti Frutti can produce good results. Care needs to be taken not to over-do flavours most especially in hard pressured waters where carp may by very wary of strongly flavoured baits of particular types.

The flavours from bait companies have mostly been evolved from decades of use and testing in fishing situations and these are best used as the basis of your flavour combination if you are new to the practice of making your bait as unique and different to the normal as possible. This fishing bait secrets ebooks author has many more fishing and bait edges; so read on to find out more about a very unique bait secrets ebooks series!

By Tim Richardson.

Seize this moment to improve your catches for life with: “BIG CARP FLAVOURS AND FEEDING TRIGGER SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP AND CATFISH BAIT SECRETS!” And “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” For much more visit: http://www.baitbigfish.com These unique homemade bait making and enhancing fishing secrets guides are proven cutting-edge tools for success for anglers just like you now in 50 countries!

By TIM RICHARDSON

How to fish for Catfish

Most Anglers think the Catfish is an ugly beast, and perhaps they're right, but no one who has ever caught one thinks this way.

A truly extraordinary animal, no freshwater fish in Britain would fight harder, but yet, on the bank they are the most docile of creatures and can be handled by even a child. Give catfishing a try, you won't regret it...

Catfish Territory

Catfish live in only about 50 waters in England, most of which hold only very small stocks. Nearly all of the best catfish venues for the beginner, ones with large stocks of catfish of all sizes up to 30lb, are in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire & Hertfordshire. Anyone wishing to start catfishing and learning the techniques would have a much better chance of success by joining clubs specialising in this species, like The Leighton Buzzard Angling Club. Membership with them gives you access to three of the countries top waters, Clayton Lakes near Winslow in Buckinghamshire: Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire: and at Tiddenfoot pit and & Rackley Hills.

Claydon Lakes:

Deffinately the best place to start, holds a large number of catfish, quite snag free and probably the easiest water in the country. Beware of the word easy though, catfishing is extremely slow fishing and you'd have to be prepared to put in a lot of your time to catch very few fish. Catfish tend to go a long time between meals. Unlike most freshwater fish, a catfish has a true stomach. It fills its stomach when it does feed, then lies up for a long time while it slowly digests its meal. Only by putting in the rod hours can you be sure of having a baited hook in the water when a catfish goes on a feeding spree. Night fishing isn't permitted at Claydon but this doesn't matter as the water is very heavily coloured and the usually nocturnal cats feed well during the day. If the water is clear in a venue, you can expect the fish to only feed at night, rarely venturing out in the light of day.

When & Where

Like Tench, Catfish is a warm water fish, the best time of the year to catch them is from the beginning of the season until the end of September. Actual choice of swim is not usually particularly important as a feeding catfish is a cruising predator and scavenger covering a lot of water in its search for food. It's best not to fish close to any snags, however, as its virtually impossible to keep a catfish out of them on its first, extremely powerful run

To Tackle up for a Catfish adventure:

The absolute basic tackle required for fishing for catfish in Britain is a rod of at least 11ft with a 11/2 Test Curve, sporting a nice through action, A good quality reel with a fixed spool, loaded with at least 10 - 12lb line, and chemically sharpened forged hooks size 4-1/0. Buzzer bars and an electronic bite alarm will complete your set-up.

Smelly Baits are best

Good baits for catfish are 5-10cm live or dead fish. Livebaits are best hooked through the top lip or the root of the tail. Dead fish are best mounted so the hook is near the middle of the bait, with the point facing the tail, as catfish usually pick up deadbaits head first. Pieces of liver and squid are also excellent baits, in fact, anything that smells meaty or fishy could be used, always try to match the hook size to the bait size, and be careful to ensure that the hook point is exposed. You invariably miss the bite if you bury the hook point

To Strike and Play

Catfish will drop the bait if they feel any resistance so light indicators and an open bail arm are essential. When you get a run, strike immediatly to prevent deep hooking, and strike firmly, as a catfish has a tough mouth. Make sure you are able to give line immediately, as catfish fight incredibly hard and are impossible to hold. You can give line by backwinding, but the tremendous speed of the catfish can make this very difficult. The best way to give line is to have the reel open at the bail arm or use the clutch.

Landing and Handling

A big landing net, one with at least 40in arms is essential. Once you have got your catch safely on the bank, use forceps to take out the hook. Don't worry about the big gaping ugly mouth, although it contains hundreds of tiny teeth at the front. The catfish is completely harmless, you can even put your whole hand in its mouth without fear of losing your fingers

Catfish are best contained in a purpose made tube. When returning a cat, hold it upright in the water until it is ready to swim away. Remember, catfishing is a waiting game,they go a very long time between meals, the more you venture out, the better your prospects are for catching one, but once you do, you'll never look back

http://www.darbleyfish.com http://www.tackle-stop.com

By DARREN BRADLEY