Can i just ask pete b.
How do you no what carp can and cant detect how have you got your results on this? You quote vitamins . But what test have you done? Im not having a go more curious.

This could be intresting

kind regards Jeff

My word this is heavy reading.

To my eyes a good bait will always outfish a poor bait, but any bait fished in the right spots has a good chance.

All this ph and nucleotide (spelling) business....what on earth is that all about? Whatever gives you confidence I suppose but what a load of twaddle.

The only scientific tests that really matter are those carried out in the field, ie actual angling. The best anglers I have seen, many of whom are nationally known, catch due to watercraft and the use of a good reliable, uncomplicated bait....wonder if Terry Hearn spends much time worrying about ph etc, don't think so!

The receptors in carp have been quite well researched and what they can detect is common scientific fact.... anyone can do searches on the internet on japanese/Australian and indeed UK scientific papers on this subject.

"To my eyes a good bait will always outfish a poor bait"

Of course it will, but a good bait is a good bait why?? you may not care to learn about the why? but sometimes we stumble upon it by accident and sometimes by design, I actually prefer by design and that means understanding what carp can detect and what is a 'feeding trigger' to them... A good angler will always catch fish, natural watercraft and ability will show through, but combine that with a bait that is emitting 'feeding triggers' and you have a different scenario...

All this ph and nucleotide (spelling) business....what on earth is that all about? Whatever gives you confidence I suppose but what a load of twaddle.

In Cyprinids, the freshness of a food source is perceived through nucleotides, such as ATP

ATP..To the best of my limited knowledge.. Some part of a transport system for chemical energy involved with metabolism Do I need to know the in & outs of it ..Not really, but to me it reads that fish might have a preference either way for the freshness of a food source.

p/H.

A small line from Carp & their Environment written by..Simon Horton in the book Carp!..by Tim Paisley & Friends.
The hydrogen content of water has massive consequences on the efficiency of our boiled bait.

No boffin or super Angler here.. just someone trying to pick the right key for the right lock on the right day

The receptors in carp have been quite well researched and what they can detect is common scientific fact....


I think i should put more sweetness into my bait i dont want to send the carp into a diabetic coma

Great posts guys and good to see a few thinking anglers still about but come on be real. We boil the xxxx out of most of our baits and I really cant see many of these subtleties surviving the boiling or freezing process.

I remember Townley bigging up the scientific argument and getting into a right slanging match with the richworth and semo boys back in the day. He was all prepared to take Savay apart.....oh how they laughed when he left tail between legs.

The reality is that on the hardest of waters time and time again the big girls fall to tigers or the old red fishmeals, probably boiled to xxxx but fished by good anglers on the right spots.

You simply cannot provoke fish into a feeding frenzy on natural waters, you will catch them when they choose to feed which on the majority of my waters is early mornings in the summer months and about once a month it seems in the winter.

I don't, obviously, claim to be a bait buff and have gone out of my way not to be. None of the top anglers in this country imo claim to be bait scientists and most gave up on this a long time ago. PH and nucleotoids (spelling again!) are a very poor second to walking the banks and putting a good bait in the right place at the right time.

Effervescentowl…nice to see someone else contribute…

Pete’s & my views are different, but follow along the same lines to a certain point. He has an ability to able decipher boffin language better than me & has already forgotten more about bait than I will ever know. But at this moment in time due to my ineptitude on the subject I’m skeptical of some of his views.. but in agreement with others

“Most bait out there do not address food signals, hence you can get a reaction to them, but they are treated with caution...”.

So if the bait is not supplying a food signal.. what is it supplying… are we just paying for a p/h change ?? which is something I can knock up in the kitchen for next to nothing to achieve the same… I won’t throw nutrition in to the ring as it will only set off the FLAA debate again..

The food signal theory sounds simple.. Nature tells me it exists.. but I’m skeptical to if it can be delivered or exist in a bait as we currently know.. But yet we still manage to catch them..
Pete.. I know will not give up the answers or thoughts easily.. Coz he’s like that but sometimes he does gives a pointer

Nucleotides. They are also molecules that make up DNA…. DNA.. I believe is linked to … Several EOG studies have shown that the sensitivity & magnitude of the olfactory epithelial responses vary with gender, life cycle stage or seasonality…
We maybe able to temporary fool the system which is good enough. But to have the ability to re-write DNA & change a few 100 million of years of inherited search images might take a bit longer..or as you put it.. You simply cannot provoke fish into a feeding frenzy on natural waters,

Unless the food signal theory holds true & can be delivered in a bait ..

Back to the real world.. all the above is just us talking bait B****88,
as before I'm not a Boffin or involved with bait companies, I mostly fish very short periods, using a very simple style.. Often using a multitude of simple baits.. but over the years I have noticed that what ends up on the hook often seems to make a difference to if the net gets wet or not & is not always down to angling ability/location.. that personally.. I can prove ..

ATP is adenosine triphosphate, a chemical broken down to give energy in times of stress in humans...

You are all overcomplicating a very simple thing, this has nothing to do with changing a carp's method of detecting food, merely exploiting it..

As humans, we feed by sight and smell, take a nice curry, looks good, smells great, tastes excellent, we cannot tell if it contains protein, carbs or fats, it is a learned effect that we like curry (or not)..

A carp has none of the above in our sense, it has receptors all over its body to detect food, the exact signals are well documented, it is just getting that into a bait that causes some a problem, the greatest is amino acids (certain ones)

There are by products of decay that will cause a carp to investigate and a carp's method of investigation is to mouth a substance in the absence of arms, hands and fingers, that is where rig efficiency plays its part, but a bait emitting the correct signals gives a more positive response, even in semi torpid fish.

I am still learning he correct methods of replicating food signals, I am some of the way there with enzymes, but this is a difficult road to go down as controlling the bait's characteristics is very awkward. FLAA is relevant to utilisation of the bait and is key to the nutritional recognition theory should you believe that.. however it is also key to the enzyme route as it will release the correct aminos...

I hope this goes some way to simplifying my thoughts on bait..