What signals certain ingredients may emit that tells a carp that food is present...

Wednesday, 18th May 2016

For a great many years I have taken a keen interest in what carp can physically detect, what draws them to investigate an item - not necessarily a food item - and what signals certain ingredients may emit that tells a carp that food is present, namely (hopefully) your bait.

If you think about it, these are not one and the same thing. Sure you may be able to appeal to the fish's curious nature by sending a signal that tells it that there is something in the area that is out of the ordinary, which might be food, as opposed to sending a signal that tells it that it is food.

I was thus quite intrigued to see fellow Haith's Baits consultant and avid blogger Ant Woods writing about some very interesting ingredients from a Dutch firm called Feed Stimulants. A quick email to Ant resulted in a lovely goodie bag of attractors and stimulants for me to have a play with.

While I am familiar with several of the products on the company's product list, others are new to me, not least DMPT, silkworm meal, liquid goose liver and squid liver oil. In addition I was also sent a couple of oleoresins that I have not tried before, those of Fenugreek and Chilli.

Naturally I just had to have a play so I mixed up a water based paste of MarineRed and added a few drops of the chilli oleoresin and tiny amount of DMPT. the recommended level of this natural product is 1-3g/kilo so it's powerful stuff. DMPT is billed as follows: "In several lab- and field-tests DMPT comes out as the best feed inducing stimulant ever tested." High praise indeed but does it do what it says on the tin? (I'm coming to that!)

SuperSoft Pellets doused in Squid Liver Oil

So along with the paste I doused a handful of SuperSoft Pellets in the Squid Liver Oil and set off for a few hours stalking on my local park lake. The fish are not huge here, but you can see them easily in the gin-clean water and thus judge reactions to the bait.

Fox Paste Bomb loaded with MarineRed paste.

It was clear from the off that both the treated SuperSoft Pellets and the MarineRed paste instigated a positive response and it wasn't long before I could not see the lakebed, so clouded did the water become, stirred up by the feeding activity of the carp. Though small they are certainly active!

I had two takes in a short session resulting in a brace of nice commons and while it is early days yet, it certainly looks as there is considerable scope for experiment with the goodies I have been sent.