You will want to avoid as many disappointing blank cold water fishing sessions as possible! Now is the time to make the most of alternative bait and rig tactics that really pull fish to your hook baits even more effectively than usual. So read on now and catch more cold water fish using these real fishing experiences from decades of winter carp fishing plus use applied scientific information as potent edges to improve your catches!

The small lake outside my kitchen window about to freeze over this winter again but it really is a valuable time to experiment with baits for such conditions!

Water density is a very interesting thing because around the point of freezing, water density changes. This makes the formation of ice and thawing out of lakes quite an exciting time because carp respond to the water density changes. It is well known for carp to break the rules of anglers' incorrect expectations and many winter carp get caught right at the points and locations in lakes where active icing over and defrosting is taking place. It may be cold but the water density is very often the more important factor in fish feeding behaviour!

When winter and spring water temperatures struggle to get above 3 to 6 degrees, for example, it can be really tough to get bites. Part of the problem is achieving the correct plus most suitable concentration of stimulating signals pumping from your baits to the fish. These must make them aware of the potential food source nearby, and force their entire bodily systems to operate to at least begin moving in response to your baits and to sample your baits even if the fish are not actually hungry as such!

Consider that maggots will slow down their movements pretty quickly and will have already dumped their initial burst of excreted ammonia and amino acids etc into the water upon their initial introduction - leaving little to attract fish onwards! It is no surprise that most often concentrated pastes will out-fish boilies, pellets and live baits after initial introduction. It shocks me when I read about people like Ian Chilcott talking about having to go onto maggots in cold water conditions from his favourite readymade boilies; he just needs to understand more about bait formats and substances and how they work in different ways in solution, and in regards to fish external and internal systems. Maggots are far from being the automatic or best solution.

All too many carp anglers, especially those of the instant angler-readymade bait culture, often through no fault of their own, are stuck in a limited mindset of popularised paradigms of what carp baits are and how to use them. For example, the average carp angler will expect to see yellow pineapple boilies, Day-Glow pink shrimp boilies, yellow chocolate malt boilies or red fish boilies. But just because you don't see many readymade black Scopex and banana or pineapple baits does not mean they are not highly effective! To me, colour tone) is one of the far lesser considerations in bait!

Most readymade baits are under-optimised in terms of natural-stimulation concentration and release, so it is no surprise it appears that sight-feeding carp prefer lighter tones of boilies. But how many anglers have overlooked the fact that halibut marine-type pellets are very dark, yet famously effective - with zero glow in the dark gimmickry!

The fact is there are no hard and fast rules to getting hooks into the mouths of carp using bait leverage - because carp are constantly adapting individuals, programmed to survive, using any adaptation techniques they can, including monopolising new food sources, avoiding hard, highly flavoured, or more familiar round, barrel or pellet-shaped baits and all too familiar baiting situations and swim activity. We need to keep a constantly changing, open mind to be consistently successful anglers. Do not be lazy in your thinking, looking for instant and quick fixes that just do not last!

In winter and spring fishing, many carp anglers are unaware that you can fish with alternative soluble baits that remain intact for significant lengths of time, and can even be adapted to last longer with unique effects. It seems to me that the average guy on the bank expects his readymade bait to last intact on a rig at least 12 to 36 hours, or even longer. But to me, if a bait only lasts about 4 hours' immersion in very cold water, then this is absolutely ideal, as it means the bait is actually effectively dispersing/pumping itself into the water - to maximum effect! You do not always want to 'play it safe' and wrap a readymade bait in paste, using one of a pretty limited number of very similar hair rigs, and pretty standard hook link lengths and materials - all of which are retrain carp to be cautious every time they are used. 

But I have caught enough big, wary winter and spring fish using paste (directly on the hook without any hair rig) to know it can out-fish pellets and boilies and maggots on hair rigs - for one thing because fish are simply never expecting this approach! Of course, I do things with my hook link to make certain the hook point is long enough and thin enough and angled just right for maximum immediate penetration upon contact. I manually sharpen my hooks sharper than any chemically-sharpened hook on the market today; but then for me, it is those critical first 4 millimetres of hook point that matter most in fishing.

For the past 5 years, I have had a significant amount of time away from carp fishing, while researching my ebooks and related ebooks, and been focusing on river fishing. I have done this for various personal reasons, but it has given me a much a fresher perspective on carp fishing baits and baiting applications, and also creativity in solving problems by doing this! The moving water in the river strips concentrations of leaching substances from baits very quickly, just as it does when using worms in beach fishing; the first 15 minutes are the peak time, when the highest concentration of naturally attractive substances and feeding triggers are dispersing into the water currents.

Due to changes in water densities and other factors in rivers, winter baits need special properties if they are to be far more productive than usual but this is not limited just to using extra-soluble substances but also relates to others aspects such as substances that carp most easily detect in very low concentrations, as well as things like special substances that will provide a sudden behavioural change or metabolic or energy-boost when detected - even in low doses. Certain flavour components and combinations will do this just on their own, while bait additives and ingredients add to this effect in many ways for longer durations, with better leaching and attraction and stimulation properties.

The way substances trigger carp receptors in different places on and in the body are also an important part of the success equation, but how a bait impacts all senses simultaneously or just one aspect can be a key to success also. Well over 90 percent of all readymade baits are not optimised and maximised to achieve these effects, so the ionic exchange and hence the impact of the bait components on the water is not great, due to design and profitability constraints, and also angler expectations of how the bait will behave in the water.

But of course the homemade bait maker, doing things on a smaller scale, has no such restrictions and can choose substances to significantly boost the bait's properties, for maximum impact and effect!

For instance, when I am sensing and assessing a bait or new potential bait substance (or substances in combination -  some substances get active or change their chemical structure and are much more noticeable when combined), for me it is not about a tongue taste or a combined nose or tongue impact that is important - but a deep gut reaction. Some substances are almost invisible to the senses when used on their own but in combinations with others can be made far more active or potent in impact and effect. For instance, certain flavours and sugars have little effect on carp responses but when used in synergistic ways they can make all the difference to your success!

There are in fact very many tricks, tactics, methods etc to achieve improved fish responses in colder water, and conversely in warmer water, in terms of bait designs and their modes of action, fishing styles, ground bait and other free bait characteristics, and how they are applied. Very many baits can actually be made on the bank. All you need are your ready prepared base mixes and liquids and such baits made on the bank have actually caught me big carp, where the cold conditions have failed to produce fish on boilies and even on live baits such as maggots!  

Very viscous and extremely soluble substances are very useful in cold conditions. Although it may sound strange but some substances that are 99 percent insoluble are also very useful in achieving bites, most especially if they are emulsified or partly emulsified using liquid lecithins. Glycerol or glycerine is a very useful substance because it mixes with water in effect 100 percent, and many successful flavours are based on it.

Alcohol flavours too are highly water soluble so will travel easily from your bait, so forming a concentration gradient that carp can home in on. Personally, I find mixing glycerol and alcohol-based flavours with ones primarily natural ester-based or others, natural or nature-identical, or diacetin types, are very successful.

You can even boost a propylene glycol based flavour by cutting it with vodka and natural raspberry puree, and a probiotic agent such as Marmite, very rich in taste-enhancing factors for instance, and adding Talin as an electrostatic carrier, to produce a very unique homemade flavour! I have been doing this kind of experimentation for my baits, both homemade and readymade, since the 70s; it really works! Revealed in my unique readymade bait and homemade bait carp and catfish bait secrets ebooks is far more powerful information look up my unique website (Baitbigfish) and see my biography below for details of my ebooks deals right now!

By Tim Richardson.