Health and Fitness

If you want to catch more big cold water carp but are in need of some sound technical advice about bait substances and bait choices to improve your catches that have been very well proven in winter – then read on!

Carp live in an environment ruled by water but why is this obvious fact something you can exploit to catch many more fish?! Carp detect your baits by many actions and interactions of substances both upon their senses and upon the water itself. So for instance take the example of ethyl alcohol based concentrated flavours which are popular in winter. These are very highly soluble in water and so disperse very quickly through the water. This dispersal through its mixing with water produces a concentration gradient of flavours that carp can follow back to your bait easily. Many great winter flavours have this kind of effect.

It makes a lot of sense to add extra flavour to free baits or hook baits in winter to boost this effect as low water temperatures and consequential denser water means flavours will take longer to disperse compared to during the heat of summer. If you use sugary substances such as corn steep liquor or black strap molasses among others, by simple testing of these in a bowl of cold water you can see very quickly how fast a substance will break down, dissolve and disperse in water.

In low temperatures using a mixture of substances to ensure carp have substances to home in on from afar and also nearer your baits, raises your chances of you baits being found much more easily and sooner. The old trick of adding vodka to baits helps ensure that a range of your bait substances are more easily dispersed through the water and are more easily detected by carp. Of course there are other implications in this too such as the possibility of slightly altered pH of the water where bait substances are actually in solution at their highest concentration near the bait and such changes can also attract the attention of carp.

Many anglers use intense sweeteners in their baits in winter. There is some evidence that certain carp receptors respond to a range of sweet substances and certainly this is no surprise as such signals often indicate the presence of an instant easily digested energy source. Glycerine (glycerol,) is a prime example that is very well proven and very useful in winter baits as it is totally soluble in water.

Many chemical solvents have been used in winter carp baits for similar reasons and to good effect although of course water itself is the most abundant solvent on the planet. Quite a number of carp bait substances are stabilised by the use of low levels of solvent type substances, and just one common example is that of corn steep liquor which is stabilised using a very low level of isopropanol.

If you wish to use fish meal pellets in winter it is a very good edge to improve their performance by adding liquid lecithins and vodka plus a sweetener and a low level of a solvent based flavour for instance. Mixing vodka with corn steep liquor is quite a neat trick too! By quickening and improving the hydration of your bait substances so water penetrates baits more efficiently, and by boosting the ability of bait substances to disperse more effectively in low temperatures, then more carp can become much more easily aware of your baits producing more bites.

Over-flavoured baits fished singly are often employed in winter but flavours can be many things (not stereotypical concentrated solvent based synthetic chemical flavours.) You can over-flavour your free baits to good effect too without impacting negatively upon fish senses. Using liquid palatants or powdered palatants in a warm water solution are very simple effective edges that are often over-looked. Exactly what a palatant is represents a good question.