Wonder Baits...

[Birds Nest]

Most of my plans for the new year/Season will be based around beds of particles and ground bait for Tench, carp and Barbel with various baits over the top.. But one area that has grabbed my interest recently is the area of "Designer Baits" and all the magic that goes into them...

I've had reasonable success with chub using a cheese paste made up with a pastry base, cheese added and a squirt of Nutrabaits Cheese elite flavouring... Similarly I've had fish using the same pastry base with a helping of strawberry flavouring from the same company...

From there, what is the benefit of dropping the pastry base and going for a boily base mix for the paste, like a 50/50 base... Or one of the more advance mixes like Nutrabaits HiNuval or big fish mix... I assume the latter mixes have various additives in them, such as appetite stimulants...

Which brings me on to the cute, but expensive tubs and bottles I see on the shelf... Heres a few I've spotted and heard mentioned...

Betain, Looks like a white powder... Reminds me of MSG from the Chinese supermarkets.. Is it an attractor ? Stimulant ? Same goes for Green lipped mussel extract... What about N-Butyric Acid ??


Then comes the Oils.. I'm assuming if your knocking together a paste for the cold water of winter, you'd look at add a high level of oil that doesn't freeze ?

what about Essential Oils ?

Lots of questions any advice would be appreciated, the more I've looked at this sort of thing the more I've got confused !!!!!!

Tight lines,

S

 

[John Pleasance]

The only area I feel confident enough to comment on with that lot is the cheesepaste. Cheesepaste doesn't have to be particularly sophisticated to work well.There would I feel be a drawback in adding base mixes to it in that cheesepaste works best if left to mature, however,fishmeals don't work very well at all if they are not of good quality and fresh.I'm not sure about the birdfoods and milk proteins but I suspect that they will work better in good condition as well.

 

[Carp Angler]

Cheese paste or any highly flavoured paste is an out and out attractor bait.
The benefits of using a base mix would only surface when you are thinking of prebaiting or using the same bait over a period of time.

Digestability and longer term attraction and nutrition are the main reasons, so unless you are fishing the same areas with the same bait then I wouldn't bother.

If you are thinking of longer term then I'll take a pop at some of your questions.

 

[Birds Nest]

If you could Rik I'd appreciate it.. I assume the idea is to "build" a bait that is accepted as a source of nutrition, as opposed to a highly attractive "instant" bait...