In Bait I Trust

My bait bag photographed somewhere in the deep forests of Finland. I was a bit worried that a bear might get a scent of my candy-smelling bait. I was fishing really close to known bear spots.

There are many different perspectives into carp bait. Some people are radically enthusiastic about their (sponsored) bait, some people hate using commercial baits and tend to stick with the more natural choices of peas and liver pieces. The different views are so conflicting that bait wars are commonly fought on forums, etc. What I would love to see is a bait fight between two bait-sponsored carp anglers. Especially when the real carp pros could catch big carp with tiny rocks painted red!

I can definitely say that I am not a pro carp angler, as I need good bait to succeed. The early days of my carping.... well... I had some bad experiences with baits for their wrong texture and smell. When you combine the aroma of a dump, rotten fish plus a hint of garlic, you get the picture. There are bait that are so foul-smelling that it's just over the top. I mean I'm not a princess, as I have worked in sewage water facility, but some of the bait are just not meant for fish (or any living thing). There are some foul-smelling bait that catch, yes. But the foulness has different levels. It goes maybe like this:

1) Salmon fillet (fish caught 5 days ago)

2) Yesterday's cooked salmon fillet left overnight to the table

3) The cooked salmon fillet in biowaste bucket for two days

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5) The salmon fillet in the dump with battery acid, rotten rats, etc.

When your bait is on the foulness-scale 5, you really need to consider your bait again. Like some fishermen wiser than I say, the bait needs to smell enough to attract, but not too much to repel. You need to remember that carp have olfactory senses (smell) that are about 40 000 000 times more sensitive than ours. They probably can smell the bait so accurate, that they know what perfume your wife is using (If you still have a wife, carp anglers seem to lose theirs).

Well, the carp are also quite opportunistic in certain waters, and the smell of the bait isn't such an issue. But a lot of these opportunistic waters have also smaller fish (aka nuisance fish). The "nuisance fish" in Finland ins't the odd 10 lb tench (that would be a national record), but the hordes of roach, small bream and silver bream. They tend to peck the softer baits off the hook in about 15 minutes. And the medium-hard versions get mauled by vicious crayfish. The bait needs to handle punishment like nothing else.

Believe me, I've seen the evidence! Once I had an underwater camera next to my bait. It was like watching, well... some sort of a washing machine with fish going around, groundbait particles flowing in the water, which was getting murkier every minute because of the fish-induced limbo. I wouldn't put there a carp bait that was softer that a rock. So natural baits are an option in Finnish waters. But most of the time, a very bad option.

Most commonly the problem with the bait is that fish don't seem to care about eating it. Now after long time of experimenting, I have confidence in the bait I am using. When I get definite signs of fish on the swim, I always get them on the hook! And it's as much as I can hope for a bait!

A common carp I caught with natural bait (corn)