Anyone care to enlighten me as to what you are trying to achieve. A HNV bait? What is the data that this is what a carp will eat over one that 'smells' nice?

Put another way, why is there so much fuss over HNV baits? What is the rationale for their mechanism of action?

Roobish

Out of my depth here, but am Interested in the discussions, so.....

carp are recognised to be very aware of their needs in terms of nutritional requirement....so the theory is that carp will eat more food if it is nutritionally sound....basically a bait that meets all their full amino requirement.....In fishing terms a 'bait' that does this means that the carp will eat this bait over a poor nutritionally made bait.....the longer the carp eats this bait (for eg in pre baiting situations) the easier they wil be to catch......as they perhaps become 'hooked' on the bait....and of course the bait can be used for loger periods of fishing.

There is a document that states the amino requirement of the carp....so taking into account the amino structures of baits i.e fishmeals and birdseeds..etc...you can then make this 'nutritionally sound' bait.....but of course the proteins act 'funny' when boiled.....hence your bait no longer meets the full amino requirement.....basically as i understand it....please correct me if my info is baloney.

It is fairly common knowledge amongst animals that they are acutely aware of what they need in temrs of nutrition.......for eg..horses licking bricks....sheep suddenly eating bones....elephants sourcing out water that is full of natural minerals and salt.

this may help you m8 .

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/T0700E/T0700E00.htm#TOC

I think you will find that this belief is based on empirical evidence rather than scientific evidence, but that does not necessarily make it bovine droppings.
The above paper refers to disorders due to dietary deficiencies which is not quitethe same thing.

Breaking Strain

I have no link...they are animals that have to survive and they have an inbuilt system to recognise what they need to eat...otherwise they would be no more.

Many tests have been done, albeit it in tanks...but fish given the choice, will always eat the more nutritionally sound bait over a poor one.......of course they may well be 'mutant' fish that just eat anything and perhaps prefer the 'nice smelling' bait.

I do not think these papers are available online....

"smells nice". I assume we are talking chemoreception. How long would a species survive if it were attracted to food with limited or no nutritional value over a high nutritional value alternative. Does not smells nice equate to nutrition.

Hope the new system includes a bloody spell check.

jackslapem,

This gets to the heart of the question. Those of us who are new to the game rely on dogma handed down to us from those who 'know'. Often scientific evidence is offered as evidence without actually being sifted through itself. That's like convicting someone of murder by saying there is scientific evidence that suggests it and then not revealing what it is, or just saying DNA without saying how one reached that conclusion. I too have heard some stories, but would just like to read them for myself.

I have seen that a lot of time is spent on designing HNV baits and I would like some re-evaluation of the scientific data that forms the foundation of the drive for this hypothesis.

I can tell you from personal experience that there is a correct and an incorrect way of doing experiments. Often there is an alternative explanation that is not explored because the author wants to drive a particular idea. It's true in every scientific field and even papers that have been peer reviewed suffer from it. I don't hold the key to the book of truths but I have seen enough dogma destroyed by reexamination of current data to at least suggest we reexamine what we know. You don't have to be a scientist to do so. The underlying mechanisms are often simple to understand and beautiful in their construction. Tank experiments often contain fatal flaws and I have read some that were so poorly designed as to render the results meaningless. Why? Because I’m smarter than them? NO! Because we know more about the carp now and this often gives us a new interpretation of existing data. Before Trypsin, chymotrypsin and other nutrient yielding compounds are discussed, let’s have a look to see if the hypothesis is actually correct or at least worthy of our effort to reproduce a perfect HNV bait. Someone send me a reference. I can get them and read them and post the results on here for us to discuss.

It was said that carp take a HNV food over a ‘nice smelling one’ in a tank. So how was the bait introduced? Were they of equal size, consistency etc. As the carp can’t knowingly decide that it should eat food that is better for it then what mechanism is it using to decide whether a food is good or not. It can only be a few things that include ‘smell’ ‘taste’ and sight. Therefore the ‘nice smells’ were not nice smells but something that either smells nice to us or contained completely wrong for the carp. If it didn’t smell nice to the carp, then it doesn’t smell nice. A carp can’t mentally decide anything, and must rely on chemoreception, mechanoreception, and maybe some electrical impulses. I postulate that the ‘good smelling’ substances were poor controls for the experiment and I wonder exactly what they were. There is a bi-phasic (upside-down U shape) relationship between attraction and concentration for a carp. There is a threshold up to which a carp will respond positively and beyond that it will respond in a negative manner. Were the ‘nice smells’ too concentrated? We don’t know. The evidence needs review.

This thread might be a journey and I encourage everyone to join as everyone’s opinion is valid.

Roobish

This is more along the lines of what was bothering me in the other thread...

I see alot of complicated and and convoluted additions mentoned when concocting a bait with scant mention of any solid scientific basis for doing so....

And along other lines I see people going to great lenghts when formulating a bait yet little discussion on how to actually use it.

I think rather than trying to construct a single bait that covers all the criteria of what a scientificaly proven bait should be.It may be better to look at how you can combine the required ingredients in baits that have different properties....

...nothing new to many Anglers I know but,for example is a Skinned marble sized ball the most effective way of dispersing your food signal in the surrounding water?

Getting back to the HNV theory.......I'm sure there is scientific evidence that bears the main jist of the theory out.......but at what point do the "tinkerings" become negligable.

I think you need to start at the beginning if you are going to try and take a fresh look at bait and IMO differing types of feeding behavior are a good starting point.