Many anglers get confused about bait because they assume it's all about how a bait might smell or taste, and even refer to their bait in terms of a flavour such as strawberry or some other familiar label for the smell we perceive as humans. It is pretty difficult to find any bait ingredient with such low levels of smell and taste that carp cannot detect them and even inert plastics or rubber fake corn or pellet baits contain significant substances contributing to their effect.

Even if a bait is formed with smells and taste factors in the levels of just 1 part per billion some might well be detected by carp. But they will certainly notice something in their environment which has virtually no stimulatory signals as this is not exactly a common occurrence in their natural environment and might make such a bait stand out precisely due to this. Despite all that is known about bait flavours it is noticeable that carp readily eat washed-out and leached baits and this is where the stimulatory components inherent in the ingredients used in a bait really play significant parts.

For instance, all you need to do is see the inherent flavour profile of casein, whey powder, or soya flour to know that these alone will attract carp attention. On more heavily fishing-pressured big carp waters, fishing a single fresh bait over a bed of baits already immersed and leached out after 12 or 24 hours or more in the water is a well proven tactic. Here we are talking more about the impact of true fish feeding stimulators as opposed to simple attractors which may grab the fish's attention by their high concentration in the water such as the impact of highly soluble solvent based flavours.

Fish feeding behaviours stretch far beyond just the act of consuming bait and going in reverse from there cover all kinds of related actions fish might do in advance of even mouthing a bait including stationary or mobile filter feeding and gulping on the scent trails in the water column issuing from baits.

Many of cheaper solvent based flavours have an instant impact on fish sensory receptors contributing to the success of fishing highly flavoured single bait methods etc. But the impact of substances inducing true feeding behaviour is often very markedly different. Sometimes instant or highly flavoured readymade baits might produce snatches or fast grabs or tentative lip pressing of baits a bit like tasting vinegar or citrus skin for the first time in effect for us humans.

But baits packed with true feeding triggers can induce frenzied and extremely competitive feeding behaviours indeed. Many proprietary bait ingredients, additives, oils, flavours and so on are based on the attraction or palatability side of things because if the combined taste and smell of bait is acceptable then chances are improved that it will be swallowed and not just mouthed. This obviously increases chances of hooking fish. But other aspects of such ingredients include natural substance carp have evolved to associate with feeding and indicate presence or approximation of their essential natural food items. If you look at the nutritional analysis of algae, (spirulina for example) or water fleas, or shrimps or mussels you will begin to see nutritional components which are essential to carp including amino acids, oils, vitamins, minerals, salts and so on. These are nutritional items fish need and eat daily just to survive. For example, minerals are involved in about 95 percent of essential biochemical body processes to some degree and human or fish life without nitrogen and amino acids in the diet would not occur. If your fish are deficient in such essentials chances are they will eat your bait if it contains them due to instinctive needs and associating with your bait among other things. (However many nutritionally designed baits may first need a short period of free bait introduction for best effect.)

The nutritional aspect of bait is very certainly well proven and the links between fish essential nutrition and what they eat in their environment is totally interrelated. Even blood has the same salinity as sea water and this is a tiny indication of just how linked to our environments fish and animals and humans are. When you fish are head-butting the bottom of you swim after every bait has been eaten, you can be sure they like it, and this is often the difference between the impact of a true fish feeding trigger and a simple attractor!

Some flavours have no actual feeding stimulatory effect on carp and it is obvious there is far more going on than just the smell and taste commonly associated with fishing baits; bioactivity and physiological, even psychological functions and impacts can all be present among others.

In the competitive world of big carp angling it is often the exact format and introduction details of your bait that catches the fish before any rig considerations and it is not correct to state any bait will catch any fish. Luckily we can exploit fish food detection systems and manipulate habitual fish feeding and movement behaviours. We can positively condition our target fish into regularly consuming our unique homemade baits or crafty specially adapted readymade baits, making our fish far more easily hooked than on all those already hammered popular readymade baits....

By Tim Richardson.

Carp live in an aquatic world where most of the food they eat is based on proteins which can also contain important essential oils which also provide extremely efficient energy and do not predominantly eat carbohydrates as with so many races of humans. Carp have evolved to extract the most energy as possible from the foods available; and this means from proteins especially. Making fishing baits which contain protein ingredients is so important and is in line with carp natural dietary (and naturally stimulatory bait requirements.)

Proteins are composed of amino acids which carp can easily detect and find stimulating; and there are around 10 plus essential ones which carp cannot synthesise in there own body and must consume in their food to survive. The carp essential amino acids list includes: Histidine, leucine, isoleucine, valine, tryptophan, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine and arginine and carp will eat foods and baits containing any of these as they are essential to them. Exploiting protein ingredients in your baits is obviously a good thing as you are offering something fish need to survive.

Our bodies and carp bodies have evolved and adapted to extract energy in the most efficient ways from food found in our natural environments. With carp we can simulate or even boost the natural attraction and stimulation of substances found in their natural foods in our baits. The range of ingredients, extracts, liquid attractors, flavors etc we can use to exploit carp natural food detection senses is phenomenal and ensures we can always make unique homemade baits!

Amino acid needs of carp are important because we can exploit them even in very simple baits to induce better feeding on baits and more bites. But these essential are not absolutely necessary to catch fish on homemade baits; far from it in fact and you can very often catch fish on competitive pressured fisheries on simple carbohydrate wheat and soya type baits which are extremely economical to make! To keep ahead of the fish you might simply just change certain aspects of the bait like attractors such as flavours or even treacles, honey, molasses, cordial syrups, or liqueurs etc.

In the UK many fishermen have the attitude that carp baits not made from very expensive protein ingredients are crap baits and catch few big fish, but the truth is that you can catch as many fish on carbohydrate based baits if you know what you are doing and have enough experience of other ingredients and how to fish such baits well and save yourself a fortune, which is what I have done successfully for decades. You just keep adjusting levels and types of stimulatory and attractive substances to create new baits regularly, so keeping ahead of the fish; and many big fish often fall to new unfamiliar baits with good reason...

These days there is an abundance of over-stocked carp fisheries to choose from and your bait, whatever it may be is generally regarded as natural food by these hungry fish. This is one big reason why homemade simple baits will catch anywhere, but then any bait fished correctly will catch the biggest, wariest fish on the richest of waters. When you know a bit more about bait and how to really make it work for you efficiently are far reduced costs, the rewards will shock you; I have made homemade baits for decades and saved myself a fortune and caught enough big fish on readymade dominated fisheries to say that 80 percent of all my homemade baits over the years have caught big fish whatever they have been based on!

Many carp fishermen get confused between the nutritional aspects of bait as opposed to the stimulatory aspect and assume that a bait absolutely needs to be totally nutritionally attractive and stimulating as a complete food in order to do the job, but this is just not true. Many perceived simple ingredients may have very surprising nutritional attraction in any key aspect whether it be vitamins, or minerals, oils or some other aspect like simulating something which carp naturally eat confidently (many flavours do this but have zero nutritional value.) It is a fact however, that amino acids rank among the most highly feeding stimulatory substances for carp and so exploiting this aspect in your baits is advantageous, but then you have endless other possibilities and combinations to choose from, to save you money and hook you those dream fish; all you need is to know a bit more about bait!

The fact is that any bait which the fish have little reason to fear and having many biophysical and even psychoactive reasons to consume for instance, will be sampled, at least once. After all, you only need one take from a fish to hook it even if it never even attempts to sample that bait ever again! But what in truth can actually make your bait stand out from the rest when fish can quite possibly eat and experience many different baits over the course of a day or a year?

Well this is one are where the much popularised theory of the high nutritional value (HNV) bait can seem a bit over-sold. How can a carp decide to eat one bait in preference to many other baits if they all contain very well balanced stimulating and essential nutrition within the ingredients and additives and so on? Do carp even have an instinctive food preference system at all?

It is clear that if carp or humans did not have such a mechanism we would have died out long ago. In fact humans would not have evolved because we are very long-lost descendants of teleost fish; we share many similarities in our essential amino acid requirements. These are the building blocks of our body's proteins and are essential in most of our bodies processes too including respiration and fish and human metabolism...

Without the absolutely essential amino acids from proteinn in the diet we would simply become unhealthy, diseased, weakened and die. Imagine what would happen to us as ancient humans if all we ate all day was peanuts; which are limited in the amino acid profile they offer and lacking in some of these extremely vital nutrients. When unfavourable conditions come along, like cold temperatures in winter with the biological stresses upon the immune system this causes, do you think our cave man ancestors bodies would have been resilient and healthy enough to cope?

In fish and in humans there very obviously a highly evolved survival system which instinctively tells us by biofeedback and other means which food in the environment will enable us to survive. Discernment may be for example via taste, smell and many other senses (plus ones yet to be fully revealed I'm sure.) It is obvious that organisms lacking this system have not survived; everything must fulfil its essential needs.

Now back to our carp fishing baits and what makes a bait truly stand out. Let's say that based upon all the data that marine scientists and fish nutritionists etc have to offer, we have a range of highly nutritional carp fishing baits which all catch fish on a range of different waters. These waters may differ in size, fishing pressure placed upon them, the strains of carp stocked, pH (alkalinity etc) and richness of natural food and its availability throughout the year etc.

You would expect that fished side by side all these baits would continue to produce fish year in year out equally well. The fact is that they do not, and this is just one of the key reasons why there is such a wide variety of bait recipes, ingredients, flavours formulas and so on (ignoring bait company product strategy etc.) Apart from all the variables concerned with the actual fishing pressures; which fish have been previously caught on which baits, natural food availability and other impacts upon results, there is one effect which appears mostly ignored.

This factor is the impact upon fish biologically in terms of essential nutritional needs satisfied by the baits themselves; which can in fact actually produce an effect which prevents fish eating more bait, even without being hooked on it. It stands to reason that when a carp has satisfied its essential nutritional requirements it no longer needs to eat bait, especially in a situation boosted by natural foods made even more abundant due to fish eating bait instead!

You may think that fish will eat the same bait indefinitely, but where the above effect occurs teamed with the anxiety and behavioural impacts caused by previous hooking on a bait then results can certainly diminish over time. So it means that a bait needs an extra edge other than just biological nutrition value, purely receptor stimulation, metabolism stimulation, pure digestibility and assimilation or conversion into body mass efficiency, or even superior basic energy efficiency. This edge could well mean a psychological or psychoactive edge.

These are the kind of effects that can truly sort out the baits which stand out as continually consistently successful against other proven nutritional baits. This is an area the true bait masters expertly exploit, (even using poorer nutrition carbohydrate based baits,) but which you will hear very little about!

 

Carp live in an aquatic world where most of the food they eat is based on proteins which can also contain important essential oils which also provide extremely efficient energy and do not predominantly eat carbohydrates as with so many races of humans. Carp have evolved to extract the most energy as possible from the foods available; and this means from proteins especially. Making fishing baits which contain protein ingredients is so important and is in line with carp natural dietary (and naturally stimulatory bait requirements.)

Proteins are composed of amino acids which carp can easily detect and find stimulating; and there are around 10 plus essential ones which carp cannot synthesise in there own body and must consume in their food to survive. The carp essential amino acids list includes: Histidine, leucine, isoleucine, valine, tryptophan, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine and arginine and carp will eat foods and baits containing any of these as they are essential to them. Exploiting protein ingredients in your baits is obviously a good thing as you are offering something fish need to survive.

Our bodies and carp bodies have evolved and adapted to extract energy in the most efficient ways from food found in our natural environments. With carp we can simulate or even boost the natural attraction and stimulation of substances found in their natural foods in our baits. The range of ingredients, extracts, liquid attractors, flavors etc we can use to exploit carp natural food detection senses is phenomenal and ensures we can always make unique homemade baits.

Amino acid needs of carp are important because we can exploit them even in very simple baits to induce better feeding on baits and more bites. But these essential are not absolutely necessary to catch fish on homemade baits; far from it in fact and you can very often catch fish on competitive pressured fisheries on simple carbohydrate wheat and soya type baits which are extremely economical to make! To keep ahead of the fish you might simply just change certain aspects of the bait like attractors such as flavours or even treacles, honey, molasses, cordial syrups, or liqueurs etc.

In the UK many fishermen have the attitude that carp baits not made from very expensive protein ingredients are crap baits and catch few big fish, but the truth is that you can catch as many fish on carbohydrate based baits if you know what you are doing and have enough experience of other ingredients and how to fish such baits well and save yourself a fortune, which is what I have done successfully for decades. You just keep adjusting levels and types of stimulatory and attractive substances to create new baits regularly, so keeping ahead of the fish; and many big fish often fall to new unfamiliar baits with good reason...

These days there is an abundance of over-stocked carp fisheries to choose from and your bait, whatever it may be is generally regarded as natural food by these hungry fish. This is one big reason why homemade simple baits will catch anywhere, but then any bait fished correctly will catch the biggest, wariest fish on the richest of waters. When you know a bit more about bait and how to really make it work for you efficiently are far reduced costs, the rewards will shock you; I have made homemade baits for decades and saved myself a fortune and caught enough big fish on readymade dominated fisheries to say that 80 percent of all my homemade baits over the years have caught big fish whatever they have been based on.

Many carp fishermen get confused between the nutritional aspects of bait as opposed to the stimulatory aspect and assume that a bait absolutely needs to be totally nutritionally attractive and stimulating as a complete food in order to do the job, but this is just not true. Many perceived simple ingredients may have very surprising nutritional attraction in any key aspect whether it be vitamins, or minerals, oils or some other aspect like simulating something which carp naturally eat confidently (many flavours do this but have zero nutritional value.) It is a fact however, that amino acids rank among the most highly feeding stimulatory substances for carp and so exploiting this aspect in your baits is advantageous, but then you have endless other possibilities and combinations to choose from, to save you money and hook you those dream fish; all you need is to know a bit more about bait.

The often different activity levels of other fish species and altered availability of many natural foods along with changes in carp behavior in colder water temperatures can contribute to making them a little easier to catch at specific times. Very often the impact of there being far less angling pressure with only the really keen anglers going fishing makes thing much easier. Sometimes you can have the pick of the most favored swims, although this can become a problem if fish are grouped in front of only 2 or 3 swims on a water.

Much less free bait fed is into fisheries compared to warmer months too and I'm certain this is a major factor in the downfall of many big fish which succumb to capture at this time. The easy free meals they have become used to may to a great degree disappear in winter time.

Some of my best most memorable big fish captures happen in winter between November and March. The catches can come in a variety of conditions and times and often during frantically active "binge" feeding behavior.

The periods after the water temperatures have evened out more after heavy frosts can be good for example in November. Evenings in November to December seem pretty productive in my part of the UK on certain waters when usually early morning (6 am to 8.30 am would be the usual feeding time. On the same water in January, on clear sunny days the fish might suddenly switch-on for a swift half-hour feeding "binge" at 1 pm in the afternoon. If prevailing winds push in from the south, west or combinations around these, feeding can happen at any time.

In February even during very heavy frosts which build up on your fishing shelter on top of frost from previous nights, the morning feeding may return again with fish appearing from 6 am. Around February and March, in swims most heated by the afternoon sun, fishing close to snags entering or in the water can be very productive.

Reed beds soak up the radiated heat so heating the surrounding water making things a bit more favorable for feeding. Margin fishing in winter is far more productive than many anglers appear to realize. In fact very often if fish will feed at all it will be in water under 4 feed deep and not in the deepest part of the lake.

Reeds are an especially favored area for me for this reason and they harbours all kinds of natural food too. Fishing under marginal overhanging bushes, branches and other cover are also productive. Any old established formerly productive feeding spots like shallow depressions, edges of drop-off's, bottoms of shelves, gullies, raised spots, weed beds and lily beds, marginal and island spots sheltered from a cold wind, all can produce fish.

It is often the case that fish will come from swims that are still receiving regular baiting. In winter certain formerly "favorite bet" swims may be very un-productive.

Effects of prevailing winds in autumn and winter can really affect the location of over-wintering fish which frequently group together forming large shoals which can literally be most of the population of a lake tightly packed side by side into just one or 2 groups. Such a group does not necessarily choose the deepest part of the lake to over-winter.

Sometimes location of these fish can be down to vigilant observation of regular fish movements seen around morning and dusk. Often just one tip of a fin of one fish may be all you see. Using your end tackle to help you locate fish is an interesting exercise. Fish on the bottom can sometimes be located by actually reeling back a lead slowly and finding them by feeling them "bumping the line."

Often setting your tackle and alarms to the most sensitive possible will not only indicate a taking fish possibly otherwise missed, but may show you more line activity which can reveal whereabouts of fish. "Fishing for liners" with slack lines and light indicators is often a useful trick; just changing your range until you get a bite.

Taking notes on fish location, exact feeding spots in a swim, feeding times, exact details of baits and rigs used, amounts of free baits used and form of introduction all matter. Notes when and where other anglers hook fish and their fish sizes and knowledge of their baits is all useful knowledge, but you never need to neither copy another angler nor necessarily "poach his swim!"

Notes on weather conditions are especially important as not only identifying the exact spots in a swim are important, but just finding a swim with fish in can be a real winter achievement! This information is priceless after a couple of years on a water

Fish location is often a big challenge in winter. Even knowing where fish may have settled in November or December may not be much help come February; especially if angling pressure and catches have caused them to move.

Often carp sit in the sun-warmed and more comfortable top or middle water lays. In winter it is often the case on many waters where a bottom bait in water over 8 feet deep may produce very little compared to rigs fished "long pop-up" or "zig-rig" style in the upper water layers. If you have ever swum in a lake at different times of year (life jackets and properly safely assisted) you will fully appreciate yourself just how much water can change and differ at times between the surface and going down deeper. Depending upon various factors, distinct water layers may be discovered of a different temperature and thus density.

There can at times be a significant difference between marginal temperatures and the temperature of water on the bottom in different areas of a swim. Judging your prospective results by air temperatures alone can be very misleading. Sometimes conditions can produce interesting effects which can be either productive or not!

Those nights where ground frosts and heavy air frosts create exceptionally poor visibility during high pressure are not my favourites in January or February. Neither are heavy night rains during changeable conditions in November for instance. Confidence can be easily dented in winter; this is where your notes from previous years can really help you.

You can fish in confidence pretty much whatever conditions are regardless of weather conditions. Fishing during times of icing-up can be exceptionally productive as the water may actually become less dense just prior to freezing and the fish can feed very well at such times. I find about 2 weeks after a thaw can be very good too depending on the water. For those less of a winter fishing inclination, why miss out on possibly your biggest chance of a new personal best from your water.

As spring approaches and the rising air temperatures start warming the water, some nights the air can become colder than the water temperature. On such a day, try and get your baits where the sun has been penetrating the water for longest in the afternoon sun; perhaps under an over-hanging bush in the water on the eastern bank facing the setting sun.

After an especially bright sunny day and as evening draws in a thick fog can envelope you. In such spooky conditions you can very well expect a big fish or a multiple catch as one of the first significant feeds of the New Year can well occur and you could well be the only angler on the fishery. As usual, if you hear "crashing" fish then follow the signs and use your head! Casting at any moving fish at any range and moving your rigs every hour can certainly pay-off.

I find fish that have been disturbed by tackle and bait sounds and movements seem more awake and mobile and easier to catch being curious creatures. Soluble baits and highly digestible baits are very much an edge too. I'd rather fish 5 kilograms of soluble paste and "winterised" pellets (with a surfactant lecithin product) than "conventional" boilies or pellets, although of course these still catch their share of fish.

If your primary bait is the "Marine halibut pellet" there are many ways to adapt and enhance their form, characteristics and practical uses especially for winter purposes, even leading to a new generation of successful baits for the coming spring and new season.

If you are confident, you will fish confidently and do much more to catch your fish. You will see and strike more usually missed rod tip knocks. You will make sure your rigs and baits are as finely tuned and well presented as possible. You will have the willingness to strike at single or double "bleeps" in adverse weather when it could well be a fish. (A self-hooked fish can move very little in winter!)

You will even observe more fish to raise you morale, stay more alert and "in-tune" with the regular rhythms of a water and more easily spot anything unusual or useful. Being "sharper" you will generally catch more fish and be more energetic, positive and confident and you will enjoy your winter fishing much more too!

Often when you are less confident a fish head at night or a "line bite" may be put down to your imagination; or thoughts like “It's only the wind, or “That dammed duck, goose, coot, bream again etc.” However, maximizing any potential opportunity is what winter carp fishing is all about. Having positively oriented winter fishing friends is a great help too.

I remember in early February 1980, (on my birthday,) I went fishing for a day and night on a water which had not produced a fish for 4 weeks previously. I had this fishing mad friend in this particular fishing syndicate, just as keen as me to brave the freezing temperatures. He brought us a flask of coffee with a strong dose of whiskey in it; which kept "spirits up!" (It's also an interesting bait dip, vodka coffee works too...)

I had one "bleep" with all my gear finely tuned and struck my "birthday fish." Such fish stick in the memory as the odds of capture at the time appeared so low. I even remember the bait, the rig, the depth and range and temperatures and that was one cold fish. When your landing net is frozen solid and when there is ice in your rod rings, holding a rod to play a fish can be both an exhilarating but painful experience at one and the same time.

My judge of a great winter fish is often how painful it is to hold a very cold fish instead of the snow or frost on the ground! (My hands are especially sensitive to cold!)

Following this capture, we refined various ways to exploit the fish having temporarily found them to exert our own influence on their location and bait orientations. Taking such an unusual opportunity with barely any other anglers bothering to fish the lake at the time, we quietly regularly baited a large area and had a very productive winter. Indeed we had very many multiple fish captures with some of the biggest fish in the lake too before the syndicate "clocked" us! (Talking of clocks, you can get to the point in winter where feeding times are like clock-work and you can more efficiently use your time!)

During this winter period, I remember in particular, one member coming up and stating how "rubbish" the fishing is on this water in winter. I could not help it as I looked at my watch and said “On the contrary; they'll be feeding in about 5 minutes.” Of course literally 5 minutes later I hooked a fish and the guy just stood there in disbelief. (Little did he know I had a rather "bigger picture" than him!)

Often one good winter trick to exploit is where a westerly or southerly or south-westerly wind would impact that area. You regularly pre-bait a couple of marginal spots of 3 to 6 feet depth and go a bit deeper maybe 7 or 9 feet deep up against a weed bed (these do often persist in mild winters.) Or simply choose an area next to a holding area like a set of snags in the water which are especially affected by south-westerly type winds. In warming prevailing winds in winter this practice can seriously pay off, but why be fixed in your approach.

If water birds are an especially bad problem and you've found the fish, or discovered their winter patrol routes, you could bait with hemp heavily for example instead of chocking expensive boilies or pellets down their throats. At such times, boosting baits with acidic flavors and betaine with extra palatants or other amino acids products and additives for instance can work well.

I remember in winter we used Tutti Fruitti and other sweet and fruit flavours like "Cornish ice-cream" quite a bit but savory ones like butter, cream, "milk B" "scopex" "chocolate malt" and spicy ones like "bun spice" "mega spice" and a variety of essential oils too were successful. Using various higher than recommended levels of fish and crustacean concentrates packed with feeding triggers were used very successfully also. In 2008 anglers would probably go for "chilli hemp" or "n-butyric acid pineapple" instead of a homemade cheese flavoured bird food oriented highly digestible boilie (and not a conventional round or dumbbell shape either.) I know which I'd personally go for to get an "edge."

The rule still applies that achieving a big "edge" by being different to the "crowd" of contemporary "popular" baits, methods, "conventional thinking" and angling styles, can mean far improved catch rates and consistency in your fishing.

Even using a swim feeder to introduce flavor sprayed maggots and crumbed baits is a neat trick to get more attraction, movement and activity near your hook bait. Method mixes, "stick mixes and methods etc all work well, but the choices of tactics and baits are huge; so why think "fixed' or in a "copy-cat" stereotypical fashion?

The timing of winter pre-baiting or "strategic baiting while fishing" with coming weather changes is an efficient method. Doing this particularly when temporary milder air temperatures, sunny days, or when relatively warm winds are forecast can readily produce multiple winter fish and a good chance of the biggest fish in your lake. Winter personal bests kind of stick more sharply in the memory. The author has many other "edges" to reveal...

By Tim Richardson.

A world famous carp angler, Rod Hutchinson certainly made his name designing and using "attractor and "HNV' baits like this to exceptional effect. He even combined the two styles particularly effectively. Thinking back to 25 years ago, I fishing one particular carp syndicate water which taught me an enormous amount about the value of bait, its ingredients, "attractors" stimulators, enhancers and so on and their impact on my big fish results.

I had "emerged" from a background of fishing for years for small carp and other species and forms of angling including sea fishing, game fishing and predator fishing. I had a good experience of catching fish into "double figures" but the waters I had fished up to the start of the 1980's only contained smaller specimens, even if I did catch the biggest of these in various waters.

I still remember a personal best of 7 and a quarter pounds being an outstanding fish in one water and of achieving a lake record with a fish of over 12 pounds! Such "giants" pale into insignificance today and it seems incredible to me that total beginners expect 30 and 40 pound carp instantly! However fish weights are all "relative" and you could catch over 100 "doubles" and "singles" fish in a 12 hour session today, on suitable waters.

But carp fishing is far more than about fish weights which in fact can become "arbitrary" and meaningless. Those more experienced anglers who've achieved their dream catches and been "there" will know what I'm referring to. It is the context, water, setting, fish available to catch, personal resources and personal satisfaction that enables memories from over 30 years ago to remain very clear and valued.

The quality of angling I did back in the 1980's was one edge I had against far more experienced carp anglers with greater bait knowledge and sophistication. I was very sharply focused on developing any advantage I could get against other anglers. It became clear I was actually fishing against the detrimental impact of other anglers' activities upon my catch results. When their baiting of a lake in order to dominate it resulted in less aware anglers not catching fish many week-ends in a row, my own counter measures were essential.

This was not because I was a very competitive angler, but because my fellow anglers then (and still do) had an annoying tendency to "stitch-up" the lake, by regularly pre-baiting at 3 in the morning, extremely heavily! However, these tactics followed a cycle of 'boom and bust.' The fish may have fed on such beds of bait for a while, but it became obvious that the fish soon "wised-up" to any particular bait or baiting pattern. New bait versions and baiting styles, rigs, set-ups and so-on kept having to be devised. This kept everyone evolving as the impact of one person's bait or tactics could easily adversely affect everyone's results on the water.

At that time uniform round baits were mostly used and I found using small square baits, fat cylinders, odd cut triangles and even pear shaped baits to all be very successful. Sometimes such baits caught fish rarely seen, including some particularly small mouthed common carp. In fact, as long as the fish had not experienced a bait before, they were often easier to catch initially, and I achieved numbers of multiple fish catches regularly. (This was at a time I used "attractor baits with flavours" quite a bit.)

The downside was the large number of smaller fish in the double figure and low twenty pound bracket, instead of the big twenty and thirty pound fish I was aiming for. But you learn far more while catching than not catching and this feedback all paid-off. My bigger fish were caught more on baits that had a degree of nutritional value, as opposed to the simple semolina and soya flour and similar base mixes with a flavour or other so-called "attractors." I used most of the commercially made mixes and ready rolled baits at that time and the nutritionally stimulating baits did have more longevity than the attractor baits of the "Tutti Fruitti" style.

That said, my repeated captures of 3 of the lakes' biggest inhabitants came on the first introduction of a new bait each time. They were caught often within hours, days or a few weeks of a new bait being introduced. This probably says very much about "danger reference points and their associations" in carp in regards to bait!

I found that constantly trying new baits kept fish coming and this included trying new flavours, ingredients, additives and so on. Of course, I used high protein ingredients in very many of my baits due to what I'd commonly heard on the bank about them. However, cost kept their practical inclusion often to lower levels than "recommended" at the time and use of bird food, yeast, ground pellets and other cheaper bulking ingredients were often employed in my baits.

It seemed to me an advantage that I spread the nutritional profile of significant ingredients to such a degree. My bait reference points were always changing. I used various base mixes for sustained periods of a season or two or more, but the attractors would be constantly changed to create a "new bait" and this consistently fooled the fish, which really recognised and wanted the nutritional base mixes used.

Various approaches were used regarding nutrition and sometimes it was more about delivering good taste and stimulation from sweeteners, oils, essential oils, minerals and vitamins, taste enhancers, and mainly natural flavours and products. Combined with this were associated strategic "side benefit" ingredients; like crushed oyster and egg shells, various insect foods, pet foods and even particular nutritional taste enhancing ingredients which also stimulated natural aquatic organisms to the bait. (Some goldfish foods do this for example.)

The focus was certainly not just bird food, fish meal, milk protein, liver, yeast, squid or whatever the bait "category" the lines blurred between them so much. The main focus was on attraction and acceptable taste and many mistakes were made, but then all feedback tends leads towards final success.

Constant evolution was the "name of the game" and things kept changing. One very useful lesson was in using crumbed bait in beds and strategic spots in swims and this led to further developments in regards to fishing over baits that quickly melted forming a "sediment" of attraction, but providing little bait to eat.

You can pre-bait with bread paste and worms and expect to reap the rewards

With many well designed balanced nutritional baits well there is little need for "flavours" or other additives at all. (Taste enhancing and "palatability" altering aspects aside.) Milk protein baits do in fact work with no other additives or flavours, but upon first introduction, they can be out-fished by a similar milk protein bait with a very proven flavour like "Scopex." But this does not mean that use of flavours is a good thing as such, especially for the longevity of the baits success.

There are many so-called flavours that do not attract fish at all, but might instead stimulate attention or curiosity by the slight difference in the water around the baits compared to other water in a swim. Carp are sensitive to carbon dioxide and pH changes. However, to what degree a bait flavour can affect these differences in real life fishing situations is a point for discussion by scientists. That said, flavours effect fish, some can become a deterrent if used in high levels or concentrations.

Even the same labelled flavour such as "pineapple" can be at a different concentration and have different recommended inclusion rate per pound or kilogram of bait. Flavours can have very many components and the ratios and levels of these in combination with a "base" and its inclusion rate and types can really affect flavours repeated success.

It can be very difficult for a "purist" to spot a genuine "natural flavour, because some of the major constituents can be synthetically produced and mixed with real fruit juice for example, to give a genuine richness that the genuine original strawberry would have. The big thing with high protein baits like the milk proteins is that much of the expensive protein content is wasted because much of the nutrition is affected by limiting factors in digestion and assimilation. This situation occurs with humans too.

In fact it is beneficial for a quantity of carbohydrate ingredients to be in the bait as this will have the effect of "protein-sparing' so enabling more protein content to be utilised for tissue building and repair and not energy. Many "establishment" bait buffs who currently run bait companies, can appear to have "tunnel vision" regarding amino acids and polypeptides. These are often treated as the "Holy Grail" of carp feeding triggers and long-term bait success. They have become obsessed with achieving a "balanced optimum amino acid profile" in their baits.

It is strange how they seem to turn a blind eye to many other attraction substances and completely different proven feeding triggers. For example, substances in tiger nuts, peanuts and hemp exert hugely consistent feeding triggering effects and performance both in the long and short-term even to the detriment of the general balanced health of the fish as seen in the case of tiger nuts or chufas where introduced in large amounts by many anglers regularly...

Most fishermen do not see that it is the soluble amino acids and peptides from the proteins in a bait (apart from anything else involved) that result in fish captures. Particular individual and combinations of amino acids and peptides, can elicit fish "exploration" actual prolonged repeated feeding and ingestion of bait, so allowing fish to be regularly hooked on these baits. But how much difference does it make, for a bait to have a high or balanced nutritional profile when applied to pressured fisheries where every anglers is using them?

The fact is that on many waters, a multitude of different "high or balanced nutritional value baits" can be in use at any one time. In this situation, to say carp "prefer" one bait over the others is a very interesting comment. Some baits can be more successful than others, but much depends upon the amount of bait introduced, the nature and context of the baits it is fished against, how regularly and for how long it is introduced and how many fish are hooked on it and effect fish response as a result.

Many other factors are involved and one that sticks out is that often new baits are used for the first time by better than average ability anglers who know how to leverage nutritional baits to maximum effect and catches. Once these boys have been at work on a water, the anglers that follow them the bait may well find it has already passed its productive peak. Usually simply the use of a new bait is one of the greatest edges.

Things have to be seen to be believed and it seems to me that not all nutritional baits catch fish equally well all the time. Of course, there are many variable factors involved. Often it is the newer baits that have the edge over the old. Often it is the freshness and actual nutritional potency of ingredients and stimulants, attractants and "food" type additives that makes a big difference. Amino acids come into the equation in style here as they are an integral part of so many bait ingredients and many individually and collectively stimulate search and feeding behaviour.

The ratios of various amino acids is all important in a balanced nutrition bait, but in many ways, the solubility and digestibility of amino acid providing ingredients and additives is just as important. Liquid "free" amino acids used in combination with soluble protein ingredients to boost concentrations released from the bait are well proven for big fish. There are many other bait additives and substances which act synergistically with and alongside amino acids which one reason why for me, amino acids in getting fish hooked is definitely not all there is to it. (In fact, far from it!)

These things can all be separated into a class of separate behaviours working along both a practical and hypothetical checklist of fish receptors, chemoceptory and olfactory systems (and combinations of) and the synergistic working of the other fish sensory systems too. Balanced or high nutritional value baits are often introduced into the water regularly to "wean" the fish onto eating them and into them becoming accustomed to this new "natural food" source.

Often this is unnecessary as anglers using baits similar in design and fishing a swim prior to you have often done this for you. It seems a habit for anglers to bait up a swim without actually discovering how much of which particular bait may already have been introduced already. This can make a mighty difference to your results for good or bad. Fishing over rotten chufa or tiger nuts or other rotting particles, boilies or pellets type baits can guarantee you zero fish; carp like other fish are highly sensitive to sources of ammonia and certain amines like putresine.

If baiting up of any bait is carried out at regular times and places, the fish can literally be "waiting " for your bait as it goes in. You can often exploit the free baits of anglers in the swim before you. On many waters, anglers arrive, bait up heavily, and after a couple of days, top up free baits, still with no fish caught. Then often within an hour or 2 of them reeling in their lines and vacating, the fish might have a swift "binge" on the washed out baits. Fishing single baits is obviously effective here.

Often a water is "dominated" by one manufacturer's range of baits. Perhaps where a syndicates members have personal links with a bait company, or a bait can be purchased cheaper by a group of anglers on a water all contributing money in order to get a better price for their bait. If anyone else happens to stumble upon the same ready made bait, they can catch a disproportionate amount of fish as a result of other angler's money and hard work establishing a bait.

It is worth remembering, that many anglers have regularly used so-called "attractor baits" to catch big fish and it can even be said that some take less nutritional baits because they may associate a particular flavour "label" or additive with a similar but nutritional one. When all is said and done, fish have no hands and if the mood takes them virtually anything will be sampled, if only once. There are many "attractor" baits that catch fish, but can actually "burn" the fish's sensory mechanisms temporarily, in the process of the sampling. (As in use of high levels of certain flavouring substances for example.)

There are many other substances that trigger true feeding and ingestion or swallowing of food and consumption of bait and this needs to be more considered by some. It is logical that the more true feeding receptors are triggered leading to a positive response upon a bait being repeatedly experienced the more likely a fish will feed confidently depending upon impact of anglers etc. (If your bait is being consumed you obviously stand a high chance of hooking a fish!) You do not necessarily require high levels of particular ingredients etc to get sufficient response to your bait.

In fact, to prolong the successful duration of your bait, it is better to keep levels of more recognisable substances and ingredients to a minimum. (Many are very possibly over-used by fellow anglers anyway leading to losing their effective "edge" despite their stimulatory action.)

Certain combinations of amino acids in the correct temperatures and concentrations and pH might affect carp in a fishery for a certain period of time, but no bait will maintain its edge over the fish forever. If fish are constantly being hooked and where other food sources are available to sustain them, previously successful baits can fail whether balanced nutrition ones or not.

Even fish fed quality boilies in a stock pond can stop eating these in response to fishing pressure and only within a couple of weeks too in one instance. That said, one particular large Kent pit had a tonne of a flavoured carbohydrate bait introduced and this dominated the water for over a full season, catching many of the biggest fish.

But this was a water where many of the leading milk and fish based nutritional baits had dominated previously. However, high fish stocks and comparatively low natural food stocks can be attributed to much of this success, besides the over-riding abundance of this energy providing food and the number of anglers introducing and fishing this bait. Its success as the dominant bait did not last however…

But it is the successful duration of nutritional baits that often lasts over the "attractor" ones single attractors being often included in very recognisable levels which fish can easily associate with a threat. Fish dependence on your baits can be affected by cycles of natural food explosions. Other factors include other food sources availability and impact, like the nutritional value and consistent abundance of other anglers' baits, fish stocks and other factors like effects of constant intense fishing pressure etc.)

There are waters where carp simply stop eating certain types of baits, despite them having worked exceptionally well for some time; even a few seasons. "Staying ahead of the game" is certainly a fascinating and exceptionally productive part of carp fishing!

You can read and read the carp magazines for instance, repeatedly and fill your head with everything under the sun from the latest rig ideas and commercial baits on offer to "sexy" bait adverts! You can read how the prevailing "big names" are "purportedly" (as well as genuinely) catching their carp. You may be in complete ignorance of the many advantages over the humble "average angler" many "profile anglers" may have which in combination make a tremendous difference to consistency and big fish results.

You can read and read but discover that what you read stimulates inner conflicts in your mind as different contributors pedal their "advertorials." Finding "unbiased" media contributions is often like finding a needle in a haystack these days. Should I use a plastic bait? Should I use a "food" bait? What about pellets? Should I use a "stiff rig" or a "combi-link," this rod or that reel, this alarm or that one? "So and so" puts out loads of free bait but then he's sponsored by a bait company and gets free bait. So what's best? Context and timing and being in the "right place at the right time" really matter. Getting the right formula of factors together is all part of the jigsaw that is carp fishing. Some say location and bait are the two most important factors. Well a very sharp reliable hook and loads of confidence help a little too.

There is one thing I do know about carp and that is they can be very crafty. Nothing replaces carp behavioural observation in the presence of anglers and our boats, lines, rigs and movements on the bank, despite however much "camouflaged" clothing and gear you buy. Yes, carp are conditioned to survive and they have a considerable armoury and evolution at their disposal. But so have we. One of the keys to successful fishing, is to use the fishes own essential requirements, senses, behaviours and conditioning against them. We're actively involved in their behavioural "programming" anyway, by casting a line, baiting up, hooking fish and generally messing with their natural environment so "natural feeding" is

I'd say this rubs off onto many a fisherman too. If these guys with a genuinely potent fishing edge go and tell thousands of competing fellow anglers, before it had been well and truly exploited? (Especially if any kind of "vested interest" financially or otherwise is involved.) Many such anglers feel the requirement to maintain "above-average" catch results in the public eye and to continue to appear consistently successful.

All this is well and good; many anglers can keep catching above average catches because their ability and experience are greater than average. There are some truly amazing anglers about. But the important point is they are not all "name anglers" and indeed many wish to keep a low profile. This is especially useful on waters which get heavily pressured.

Sometimes it can seem that the well-known anglers appearing in the papers and magazines every week are some kind of "elite." How do they get access to those syndicates and hard to join waters, how do they afford to live while fishing pretty much full-time, what about all the travelling costs, tackle and bait costs etc, etc? The fact is, they mostly get there by their own efforts and if you are doing very regular fishing, then any extra money for articles, "consultancy" or even in the form of free bait, can make a significant difference. It is very hard to succeed in carp fishing because it requires some degree of sacrifice of other aspects of life.

For example, I was speaking to a friend of top carper Terry Hearn one time and he was saying how he had forgone girlfriends in order to be able to focus on becoming the best, or words to that effect. At 21 I planned most of my life's activities around carp fishing after a near-death experience left me questioning what would be most important thing in my life if I lived. My sacrifice was to have a markedly reduced income as a result of focussing on fishing not making money. However I think you'll find that anyone who has a very real near-death experience will relegate money to the bottom of their list of valued things in life.

It usually takes an unusual type of person to reach the "top" in any endeavour and carp fishing is just the same. In most areas of life, it is often the "mavericks," "eccentrics" "characters" and "great minds of their time" that reach the "top." In fact, what they do can actually define where "the top" is.

There are very striking similarities between modern carp fishing and athletics. I've spoken with double Olympic gold medallist Kelly Holmes. I've trained alongside Eamon Martin, London marathon winner in 1993. I've asked Tessa Sanderson, Olympic javelin gold medal winner in 1994, why she continued to train hard having achieved her dream. It seems to me that they "became" what they do. Kelly signs her books with a stick figure drawing of a runner. That is what she made herself become by repetitive practice even since her school days, refining everything including her mental attitude and confidence apart from just her times, physicality, running form and style.

I was watching a programme about the 3 British sporting heroes, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett and Steve Cram. These guys dominated middle-distance athletics from the late 1970's to around 1985 and kept swapping world records over about a 7 year period.

They all won BBC personality of the year awards, although their personalities were each very different. For example, Sebastian Coe was a "reporter"s dream' and made himself very accessible and giving loads of details about his training, times, races and other activities, while Steve Ovett was dubbed "the bad boy of athletics" because he would not co-operate with the press. Like the pop star Madonna, Seb Coe was in the publics' mind and awareness very consistently as a result of his abundant and continuous media exposure. The thing is, far fewer people have even heard of the name Steve Ovett. But does public perception based upon the many skewed and self-interested media pieces and pictures really match the truth of this man's ability?

I know for a fact that the genuine talent entering TV talent shows are most often rejected in favour of far less polished and able contestants for "entertainment value" while the seasoned professionals and national competition winners can get rejected.

So, sure Seb Coe ended up with 15 world records and 2 Olympic gold medals, but Steve Ovett was far more interested in competition and winning races, not in leaving an ego fuelled legacy of a long string of world records. I guess you see the parallels in modern carp fishing?

Steve Ovett would do a half marathon the weekend before a world class mile race as part of his preparation, an act which basically tears up the training rule book according to Seb Coe. Steve's training regime was so extreme that many of those talented runners who trained alongside him ended up abandoning top level running owing to self-inflicted like stress fractures and so on. Steve Ovett completely annihilated the great Henry Rono in a race which made Rono look stupid even though Rono was in the middle of a run of shattering 4 world records over 4 widely different distances that year and was reigning supreme. In fact, Seb Coe sated that Steve Ovett was the most talented athlete he'd ever run against.

Ovett himself said of the much anticipated clash between the 2 of them at the Moscow Olympics in 1980, that which ever distance had been run first; the 800 or 1500 metres, he would have won the first final - that's how sure he was of his ability, confidence and preparation. (He won gold in Seb Coe's favorite distance with Coe being the world record holder.) When it came to the Olympic Games 4 years later in Los Angeles, the 3 British guys who were favourites in the 1500 metre race these 3 titles: world record holder, world champion and Olympic champion.

Not bad, but the relevant fact is that each of these guys wished to better the other and this truly ultimately drove them all to greater heights of success, the only significant obstacle to their personal success being the other athletes. The thing with fishing is that carp fishing is now very frequently competitive between anglers in this way too and not merely about competing with the fish's natural instincts and angler trained danger associations.

There are very many variables to get right too for consistent success which cannot be controlled, especially the weather and the question of actually getting on fish on a busy water. The romantic notions of a "tranquil lake relatively un-touched by fishing and holding monsters," is pretty much a dream and long gone for the majority of carp anglers now at least in the UK. The increasing development of so-called "commercial fisheries" to cater for the burgeoning influx of new carp anglers should not be criticised too much.

Sure there are the lethal risks from foreign fish to consider, but then just how English were the "Leney" fish to a purist's thinking? They had a potential to affect the already resident "wild carp" for instance. The point is that the commercialisation of carp fishing in the UK and parts of Europe has turned it into a creature with an insatiable demand. There are not enough big fish waters accessible to so many keen anglers, so the banks get overcrowded to the detriment of all and competitive and inconsiderate behaviour has become an expected unfortunate phenomenon on many public waters.

How many times have you set-off for your chosen water only to find the spots you were hoping for already occupied? How many times has an angler crossed your lines deliberately to try to poach fish from your swim? How many times have you gone to a water and found out a baiting team have recently "hammered it" on subsidised bait and the lake's carp have now "closed down" refusing anglers baits and even going so far as to change their old behaviours and routines?

The arts of goal-setting, consistent action and constant improvement are some of their skills. The commercialisation of carp fishing means that specific products are promoted in almost every article written, making them "advertorials."

These carry very much influence with the carp fishing "masses" as glossy magazines are all the rage these days and many are "connected" in any of a number of ways to tackle and bait companies, for example. Advertising from bait and tackle companies are a very significant income, so it's not surprising that the larger companies that most regularly pay for the most advertising space can seriously influence various aspects of magazines in their favour, not just to better the competition, but even in some cases to in effect being able to prevent new companies joining in "the game." So, often it's what is not included in a paper or magazine (or web page) than can really matter. In terms of how up to date an article or advertorial may be, often advertising copy and other material is submitted many weeks and even months in advance of the issue it will be finally released in.

Again, if you are thinking of jumping on a "bandwagon" this time lag needs some consideration about its implications and disadvantages too. In fishing terms and catch terms a huge amount of very big changes can happen in just 2 days in carp fishing. Even on one particular water, a month or 2 months from the time an article is submitted can mean situations can become completely different when compared to those reported in the published article.

One good example is how a new bait that took very much effort and time to establish produces the big fish in a water for a select few individual anglers. But having achieved their goals, they change onto another new bait which has also been introduced along with the original bait. Introducing new baits while fishing a going bait is a very proven method of keeping excellent and highly consistent results coming. Such "secondary" bait establishment can range in time from just a week perhaps to a whole season or more depending on the water.

The confidence you get from introducing a bait over a period of months without fishing the bait itself is very exciting, especially when you see fish "getting on it" big time. This doe not mean other aspects of your fishing will also need refining or changing though! I remember reading about a couple of the of the "Mainline" boys pre-baiting the "Grange" in Essex over a number of weeks in the close season. They discovered the fish were really feeding well on the bait in the first half hour it was introduced, polishing it off very enthusiastically. Such confidence was amassed in the anglers that they expected to "slay" the water and catch the biggest fish in the lake with ease.

This is the real world however and these fish simply stopped responding in such a way when the presence of footfalls and lines and leads in the water announced the arrival of anglers on the banks. It was some time before a fish was hooked on the bait despite the close season feeding with gusto and it proved to be one of the smallest in the lake. It took much more feeding of bait and intense regular fishing efforts in the end to catch that big fish. The bait had paid off eventually and in style and the big fish was caught repeatedly on the bait. This bait was released on the general public later.

My point about some commercial baits and their "advertorials" is that often, you just don't know exactly how much of that bait has already been used to catch your water's residents before. This is an important in regards time lags and publics results on newly released baits. There often seems to be "field testers" for various companies on many big fish waters often competing with each other for dominance and control of the lake and in such cases I'd really wonder about the "pros and cons" of using baits they might conceivably have already used in the past.

There are of course some commercial baits; "instant attractor ones" and even some "food type baits" that just do not get the fish going until a tonne of the stuff has regularly been put in. Many commercial baits just do not work the first hour, day or week for that matter. I remember doing regular 24 hour sessions on one water testing a selection of one big companies leading baits. Each completely failed to catch. However at the same time, the old established bait still produced fish. Having said that, one of these baits worked instantly first time of trying on a large pit. Yes, it could well be down to factors like bait and water pH and so on that the leading commercial baits did not produce first time of trying.

At many heavily fished waters carp can seem to get onto one particular bait and this is the one to be one simply because there is so much going in it is regarded as essential natural food. I've seen it with instant baits, food style baits and pellets too. I guess carp are wired to take advantage of abundances of foods. In baits terms it may seem illogical that a bait with a very well designed nutritional value, mineral and vitamin content etc and pumping out attractive substances like amino acids and oils, would not be an instant winner. This is certainly one to ponder.

Carp feeding behaviour and preferences can certainly alter in response to fluctuations in abundances of natural food supplies and anglers' baits, seasonal temperature and pH changes and so on. It is noticeable how many big fish get caught in the winter months around December and January if at all in a season, when natural food is often harder to reach, like bloodworm buried lower down in the deeper water silt. It may well be that at such times, the lowered metabolism and energy intake of the fish and frequent immobility, leaves them more vulnerable to parasites, infections, diseases and so on. At such times anglers' baits supply nutrition and even movement stimulation which is more beneficial to them in boosting activity of their immune systems even if very little bait gets digested. There's loads more to this stuff.

Along the time-line of bait establishment however, where does your use of a particular commercial bait fit in? Is it at the beginning (ideal!) In the middle, or the "tail-end" (not recommended!) You could judge this by the new adverts for a new bait along with a new bait being promoted in a magazine mean using the new bait is a "safe bet" and be successful. Have field tester "done that bait" already on your water without your knowledge? Anglers change allegiances to baits and companies frequently. If you do know, were their flavour levels, concentrations and components the same as the publicly available version? Homemade baits easily dismiss this dilemma.

But one simple point might "cloud" things a little more in some cases. It might surprise many that due to effects like the advertorial and advert lead-in time "lag", much of what is "doing the business" and catching outstanding fish currently, is not always accurately portrayed in the papers and magazines (through no fault of anyone's.) There is mostly a time lag, by which time, the prominent anglers will have moved onto their next edge or edges. Some people are far more talented than the majority and often this is the "edge" in itself. Their perception of the current changes and most likely opportunities caused by what has just passed is often the key to their correct actions and thinking leading to their continued consistent success.

Having said that, of course, many of these anglers have far more time or money or opportunities at their disposal and can leverage their insights to the maximum.

It's well-known that very many big fish captures have been as a result of sitting on waters for exorbitant lengths of time on big beds of bait. Leading anglers like Dave Lane can do it, but other talented anglers get their share by their excellent watercraft and angling skills fishing "attractor baits" just at a week-end. I've fished alongside many great anglers who are not in the magazines or any adverts and their generosity in sharing their enjoyment of this great sport is to be commended.

Having looked at another hugely competitive arena, that of pop music "from the inside," it is very obvious that who you know "in the know" is a pivotal factor regardless of talent, training and experience. I've practiced with the professionally trained opera singer and coach of the number one group "sugababes" and had some hilarious staged antics in "reality TV" as well as had training with other professional vocal coaches on that show and others like it. Appearances especially in the media, really are deceptive my friends. Even TV competition "auditionees" can pretend to be idiots for effect. Many of my friends perform professionally and play at being an amateurs on such shows because they know how to "play the game."

We fishermen tend to exploit whatever we've got to get an "edge," because more often than not we are not really competing with the carp so much as the impact of other anglers on their natural senses and defences. The secret is in the "becoming what you do, " where fishing becomes an instinctive process. It makes you think!