If you are a beginner or experienced homemade bait making angler there are always new exciting things to discover to improve your results and keep ahead of the fish - and other competing baits! To make baits that work the very most consistently for big fish it takes a deep knowledge and long experience both in designing baits and in refining them to ensure they perform most consistently; and no-one knows it all! This article is about making nutritional big fish baits so let us look at a few important background details first!

The concept of making little round balls of food for fish like carp and other species has a very long history and even back in the sixteenth century and beyond there are historical references to such activities utilising various protein-rich ingredients, binders, sweeteners and enhancers and so on. In the UK Fred Wilton pioneered the modern version of making baits that delved much deeper into essential fish dietary requirements in order to exploit them to make baits that fish would find many highly attractive and stimulating reasons to consume to the effect that the more they ate the more they would want them! The HNV or high nutritive value bait approach is just one angle - these baits are rich but other baits can also hook fish although they may be far less nutritional as in the case of over-flavoured baits for instance; but readymade baits did not always exist and various other approaches to homemade baits work although usually you need to be a better angler to keep catching on instant baits compared to HNV baits!

Back in the days when fishing was extremely secretive the original HNV baits were built around caseins and other caseinates that provided extremely high levels of protein and stimulating and attractive amino acids that naturally turn fish onto feeding, although many other additives and ingredients were also used including liver, fish and yeast powders and meals etc. In the earlier days of carp fishing it was the milk proteins that had a dramatic impact on big fish catches for those making such potent homemade baits as readymade baits did not exist at that time and it was in later decades that fish meals and bird food baits and other combinations that really took precedence and making unique homemade baits is still incredibly popular – with good reason!

As time went by milk protein baits became less popular as anglers came to use more economical nutritional ingredients and additives that also worked for big fish such as the fish meals and bird foods etc, and it was increasingly well-known that successful HNV baits did not require the extremely high protein levels that had been used in decades past. Catfish, carp and many species can be trained – just like dogs or humans to come back for more food once a regular supply is established that provides essential nutrition and this response in instinctive in all animals as they are hard-wired to be energy-efficient as possible in order to survive. As highly nutritional value forms of homemade baits and readymade baits provide many reasons for fish to consume them they are success for small and large fish providing for many of their essential needs and because of how they work, unique homemade HNV baits can be great baits for catching big fish against anglers who have been hammering fish on popular ready made baits where the fish are obviously wary of familiar baits and this makes them even harder to catch - and where homemade baits really come into their own!

Knowing how to manipulate and exploit fish behaviours and instinctive needs internally by bait substance secrets is the most powerful starting point in beginning to design fishing baits - and not just knowing a bit about a few additives, ingredients or flavours! Finding out about fish internally is really exciting because the more you know how to manipulate your fish using the leverage of baits substance secrets the easier they can be to catch! Knowledge really is power that leads to far better than average catches of big fish!

Once you have discovered a great deal about fish and their inner needs and workings then selecting bait ingredients is much easier and you can choose how you design your baits will masses of confidence because your baits will be built on what fish response strongly to and not just your personal preferences and guesswork! I began making homemade baits in the early seventies when literally everybody else was too and it was very hard to get information about the internal workings and interactions of bait substances and fish but I enthusiastically pursued this passion for decades to the point where many bait company bosses ask me for ingredients and bait reviews, articles on their products and for my bait secrets ebooks and personal advice. Things are much easier today in terms of finding uniquely stimulating ingredients and additives because the internet has provided endless suppliers of ingredients, additives etc; some can from bait companies but many substances come from other sources and using what bait companies do not sell is a very serious edge indeed in making homemade baits from particles, ground baits or pastes and boilies etc!

Years ago when so many anglers used milk protein baits these were mostly used in small amounts because they normally worked very fast and effectively compared to other baits of the time and it was just not necessary to pile in loads and loads of bait to catch loads of big fish! The original HNV baits were so high in protein they could fill fish up prematurely before being caught and also because the ingredients were costly it was far from the done thing to introduce 10 kilograms of free bait at the beginning of a fishing session unlike many anglers do as a habit today! Introducing many kilograms of bait really was a product of the use of much cheaper bird foods and fish meals and other forms of nutritional baits; but always remember you only need one bait in the right place on a suitable rig to hook a fish and you certainly do not need to make many kilograms of the most potent homemade baits to equal the results of the vast majority of the most expensive ready made baits!

In making homemade baits and adapting established ready made baits to give them a new lease of live and improved performance takes a good degree of knowledge not just of the insider secrets of bait substances but of the fish – and the water also; such bait-making information leads to being able to artificially create unique fish feeding opportunities that lead to multiple captures of big fish –even against more experienced or more talented anglers! As in my ebooks my homemade baits have now caught me 4 UK lake records including a leather carp over 46 pounds and a mirror carp of over 49 pounds plus over thirty catfish caught in the UK weighing between 68 pounds and 120 pounds; homemade baits really work and this is why I am so enthusiastic about getting the word out – plus they can save you a fortune and give you even more confidence and satisfaction than any readymade bait ever will! Now for some homemade food bait recipe ideas to get you started on the road to bait-making success that has a few alternative features and performance benefits – for big fish!

The bait recipe below is very simple and anyone can make it with confidence when aiming for big carp or catfish for instance. This bait is based primarily on highly digestible fish meal and not caseins to keep costs much lower and there are additions included that boost internal effects and bait performance and make your baits especially unique so this is a good sound starter bait for budding bait makers to practice playing around with!

Making baits it is an art and not just science so bear in mind that levels and ingredients can be adjusted and this bait although digestible and highly nutritionally attractive is not as optimised for digestion and stimulation as is possible looking at this recipe from a scientific standpoint. There is very great room for improvement here - but your fish will not mind at all!

7 ounces of low temperature easy-digest fish meal.

2 ounces of calcium caseinate (soluble lactic casein.)

1 ounce of 90 mesh casein or mixed caseins.

2 ounces of CC Moore Meggablend Red.

1 ounce of blood plasma.

1 ounce of hydrolysed poultry protein.

1 ounce of abalone extract.

1 ounce of chopped fennel seeds.

You might make this homemade mix using eggs plus liquid kelp complex and shellfish extract for instance plus perhaps a small dose of triple-filtered pure salmon oil plus a little krill oil to boost internal impacts.

You might want to use flavours, palatants, and appetite stimulators etc; try CC Moore Ultrasweet with corn sweet syrup for instance plus maybe some geranium essential oil mixed with eucalyptus and you might use a range of suppliers from online bait companies to your local health store and supermarkets and so on. (For much more detailed helpful information on making, adapting, designing and boosting all your baits including ready made baits see my dedicated website Baitbigfish right now!)

By Tim Richardson.