Ever used a supplemental amino acid?

What are they and are they any good?

Well yeah... and their NOT just some 'wonder bait additive' designed in a Laguna lab for carp anglers! Even without realising it, pretty much everyone who has ever used real food baits will have inadvertently caught fish due to the natural amino acids present. Worms for example are full of amino acid, as are lots of other protein bait foods.

Simply put; Amino acids are biologically important organic compounds - the natural building blocks of proteins that attract fish.

What type?
About 500 amino acids are known and can be classified in many ways. They can be classified according to the core structural functional groups, others relate to polarity, pH level, and side-chain group types.

L-type amino acids generally have a positive effect on fish olfactory senses.


How to use them:
Many baits can be improved with a supplemental dose of amino acids in the form of a pure powder - brilliant when added to ground baits and method mixes (use as around 10g per Kg of bait) or;
As a liquid made up with cold water for rehydrating boilies, use them as a glug/soak for expander pellets etc.

Ever considered using a supplemental amino acid?

Apart from mashing a worm/maggot to death (literally) in colder months to try to stir up interest, no I haven't.

I also swear by dynamite baits amino black groundbait in the winter, however quite how much amino acids they put in (if any??) I don't know.

I'd be really interested in hearing what product you add to what and what results you've had?

I recall reading in an old Abu guide/catalogue about salmon being scared off by serine, which (they said) created the same effect when anglers washed their sweaty hands in the river upstream of the salmon, so i fear as much could go wrong as could work.

Taurine and caffeine do help one focus, though, - soft-focus if you add a Jaegermeister!

A thought: as they're coming up to spawning time, they'll need masses of nucleic acids and such, especially the males. The obvious source would be soft roes - anyone used them?

Alan Tyler said:

I recall reading in an old Abu guide/catalogue about salmon being scared off by serine, which (they said) created the same effect when anglers washed their sweaty hands in the river upstream of the salmon, so i fear as much could go wrong as could work.

Taurine and caffeine do help one focus, though, - soft-focus if you add a Jaegermeister!

A thought: as they're coming up to spawning time, they'll need masses of nucleic acids and such, especially the males. The obvious source would be soft roes - anyone used them?

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I doubt anyone would admit to that here in this Country Alan. Salmon roe (unless your referring to roes i.e. fish bollox?) is a brilliant bait, ask any poacher or better still, ask any steelheaders out in Canada and the USA, they catch, gut and remove roe from salmon 'cure' them and fish em in little sac nooses on the hook.

Serine is polar so readily mixes and disperses in water, and its true, not all amino acids attract fish, some actually repel them too. Serine is a none essential amino acid as is Taurine.

I have a confession: my free sample has been expertly mislaid.

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laguna said:

..., not all amino acids attract fish, some actually repel them too. Serine is a none essential amino acid as is Taurine.

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Is taurine repellent? I went through a period of adding a big glug of taurine-containing energy drink to my pellet soaks with pretty good results.

What free sample Rob, is it something you've ordered from us?

Re Taurine, not repellent as far as I'm aware mate. Its not one of the 10 essential amino acids fish require in their diet, so its likely just 'less' appealing.

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Here's the list of all 10 essential (indispensable) amino acids that cannot be synthesized by fish:
Methionine, arginine, threonine, tryptophan, histidine, isoleucine, lysine, leucine, valine and phenylalanine.

laguna said:

I doubt anyone would admit to that here in this Country Alan. Salmon roe (unless your referring to roes i.e. fish bollox?) is a brilliant bait, ask any poacher or better still, ask any steelheaders out in Canada and the USA, they catch, gut and remove roe from salmon 'cure' them and fish em in little sac nooses on the hook.

Serine is polar so readily mixes and disperses in water, and its true, not all amino acids attract fish, some actually repel them too. Serine is a none essential amino acid as is Taurine.

Click to expand...

I remember during the seventies my mate brought back some caviar in foil packets from a Florida holiday, we caught Tench on it from a MK leisure park, Cosgrove, we could not obtain any more at anything approaching reasonable expense, it works but hook sizes were limited to small.

wanderer said:

I remember during the seventies my mate brought back some caviar in foil packets from a Florida holiday, we caught Tench on it from a MK leisure park, Cosgrove, we could not obtain any more at anything approaching reasonable expense, it works but hook sizes were limited to small.

Click to expand...

There's a definite knack to fishing with roe Steve, cod roe is a good cheap alternative but check byelaws. Obviously you cant just hook em because they will burst (the reason we developed the hookable synthetic Aqua-SPAWN for the UK market), instead the Yanks put a teaspoon full in fine spawn mesh which is secured to the hook shank by a loop through the eye acting as a noose. There's a few different rig tools and methods of bait presentation.

This on Youtube
https://youtu.be/uvuuRZo8wr4

I was thinking not of eggs (illegal, especially salmon) but soft roe - fish testes. Each sperm cell has the same amount of DNA as each egg, but there's about a million times as many of them, probably many millions of times... Herring roes used to be cheap(-ish) and could easily be mashed into a paste.

Alan Tyler said:

I was thinking not of eggs (illegal, especially salmon) but soft roe - fish testes. Each sperm cell has the same amount of DNA as each egg, but there's about a million times as many of them, probably many millions of times... Herring roes used to be cheap(-ish) and could easily be mashed into a paste.

Click to expand...

Ha fish gonads! dirty boy lol

Ive seen tins in Sainsbury's, didn't realise and just walked past that isle, thought I was looking at a tin of roe as opposed to 'soft'.




Not to my taste at all tbh uke: but as a bait... why not?
Apparently the consistency of pate so should mash up well enough. At least they're legal to use and as you say; should make a great paste Alan.


Thanks for that, its put me right off me supper!

In all my years of Tench fishing, i never found a big water bait to beat freshwater mussel, your views Chris please, and on the use of salt.

I thought soft roes would be disgusting until I tried them (fresh from the 'erring, not tried the tinned) floured& fried, on toast. One of those things , like tripe, kidneys, haggis or stuffed heart*, which are delicious as long as you don't think about where they came from.

* Or any dairy product, come to that. Or Honey.