MAKING AWESOME CATFISH and CARP GROUND BAITS – Keeping Ahead of the crowd.
Baiting up and fishing with hook baits like paste or dough baits, pellets or boilies are an accepted ‘method’ for catching catfish and carp. But there are far more effective baits and methods...
When these baits have been prepared, soaked and impregnated with an additional attractive additives they can really be maximised as ground baits or ‘free baits.’ or hook baits. The best way and most instant method to use boilie baits for ground baits is to crush them.
Ideally you will add very generous quantities of amino acids supplements and betaine hydrochloride with added mineral salts to most conventional readymade boilie baits you might choose to use. You will find your results are far better than the massive majority of so called commercially produced baits with lower levels of these stimulatory attractors in them. And your big fish results will be much improved too.
This is because the whole point of bait is to stimulate fish into feeding as effectively as possible and preferably as fast as possible too! Most commercial boilie baits take far too long to break down and fully release their attraction, as good as they may be. They are definitely not the best way to bait up effectively in every situation.
Many commercial boilie baits act in an ‘instant attractor bait’ effect. Others are good quality base mixes with quality attractors and stimulators and flavours too. Commercial baits mostly have flavours because the majority of fishermen seem to prefer to buy baits that have a recognizable ‘label’ or flavour.
So this is where for instance, a flavour is used as the main focus of the bait used in a fairly high level in a carbohydrate and not protein based readymade bait. These catch fish pretty quickly if at all because the flavour leaks out fast.
But if the fish are wise to this type of effect you might not ever get the big fish you’re after because the fish may have learnt to eat these baits after a far longer period of them being in the water than any average fishermen would use them on the hook. Who do you know who uses a hook bait on their hook for 3 days straight?
It is a fact that on many big fish waters, it is the guys with their baits left out the longest who very often fool the biggest fish into taking their by now thoroughly washed out hook bait. In fact most commercial boilie baits are probably at their peak 3 days after being defrosted or after being the water for at least 3 days as they are just beginning to breakdown.
Making economical ground baits and feeding them regularly into your swim has to be one of the best ways to attract and keep big fish like big carp and catfish in your swim. The activity of small fish feeding excitedly certainly attracts a water’s big fish!
You can try making a ground bait of ingredients like cooked rice, soaked and cooked ground peanuts or fine ground mixed nuts and seeds, soaked fermented wild bird food (cooked) all these are soaked in additives overnight and cooked for half an hour in water, curry powder and fructose, marmite and honey and any other additives you think of. (Adding lots of betaine hydrochloride really adds to the effect!
You do not need to limit yourself to expensive prepared crushed or whole tiger nuts or hemp seed, or expensive types of pellets.)
I often use a lot of ground bait so I keep my ingredients as cheap as possible, but they certainly work. Great bait just does not have to be expensive to amazingly effective!
I add desiccated coconut, chilli powders and curry powders and lots of all these! (It works out massively cheaper than any shop bought baits or ground baits and is far more effective too!)
As an added tip you might like to add cheap milk powders, evaporated milk, and nut and seed milks of various types and blood powders or liver powder. Pates and fish concentrates like anchovy and even tomato or chilli puree really turn the fish on! Even liquidized liver, herring and squid work brilliantly in ground baits. (Who needs expensive flavours?) Tench and catfish seem to love these last 3, and the tench attract the catfish!
You could use ordinary white flour and oats to bind it all up or dog food like “Vitalin” to make it all bind and form ground bait balls. These can be thrown a surprising distance and very accurately too, with practice! I add lots of rock or sea salt and amino acid supplements also and these make a big difference alongside using lots of fruit sugars or ‘fructose’ from the supermarket. Molasses or black treacle really help attraction too.
I put free amino soaked, refrozen and defrosted broken boilies into the mix too. This is important to put the fish off guard even more. For carp, using parmesan cheese or blue cheese powder in your ground bait works wonders and comes into its own in colder temperatures.
Garlic granules are great for carp and catfish and I’d add loads of this cheap ingredient too. These ‘custom made’ ground baits are simply fantastic.
This might seem a lot of work, but pick the right time to fish when the biggest fish are really active and you'll ‘empty the water!’ (But you'll probably need A LOT of bait to ‘build your swim up’ with competing fish!)
The results will be just fantastic providing you keep feeding your swim, exploit your water’s feeding times and prepare your swim with very generous amounts of baits and or ground baits feed in advance. I might put around 10 kilograms of this ground bait mix in a big fish swim per 12 hours. However it is balanced so that it is dissolving in the water immediately it is thrown out.
Get yourself a big 20 kilogram sack of fine ground peanuts and use this as the basis for your ground baits along with wild bird food (containing hemp seed and other fine seeds.) It's the cheapest way to bait up and is amazingly effective (how many anglers bait up with these 2 together!)
Bind these with white flour, or “Vitalin” or any other cheap binder you wish. If you wish to add cheap protein why not use sausage meat mashed up and mixed in, for instance? Very big fish can come cheap at the price!
The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article is protected by copyright.)
By Tim Richardson.
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Tim Richardson is a carp and catfish bait-making expert, and a highly successful big fish angler. His bait making and bait enhancing books / ebooks:
“BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” SEE:
http://www.baitbigfish.com
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